Teaching Woody

Woody Guthrie, one of America’s most prolific artists and songwriters scribbled this quip on the lyric sheet that captures his most famous ballad ‘This Land is Your Land.’ And Woody saw a lot. He chronicled the essence of American life in voluminous letters (most of them housed at the Woody Guthrie Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma), over three thousand lyrics, drawings, paintings, and journalistic writings. From the refugee camps of California, to the streets of New York City, to the Columbia River of the great Northwest, and all across the lower forty-eight, he wrote about the people and places that he saw, his own political hopes and dreams of the future, and of a better world that he optimistically saw coming out of his ‘hoping machine.’

Witnessing workers’ struggles at labor camps and hearing their stories, Woody penned his seminal Dustbowl Ballads. His music has influenced generations of musicians and remains a major contribution to American history and culture.