1. Traveling Dusty Highways with Woody Guthrie
The Depression Years:
Traveling Dusty Highways with Woody Guthrie

2. Woody Guthrie: Early Years
1912 – born in Okemah, Oklahoma to Charles and Nora Guthrie
1919 – sister, Clara, dies in a fire
1927 – mother is hospitalized at Central State Hospital for the Insane in Normal, Oklahoma; father moves to Pampa, Texas leaving Woody on his own

3. Boom to Bust:

4. America: Institutions Fail
1929 – stock market crashes; Great Depression begins
1930 – 3.2 million people unemployed; 6,000 people sell apples on the streets of New York
1932 – Franklin D. Roosevelt is elected president; drought begins in the Midwestern US
1932 – 1933 – hundreds of banks fail; unemployment rate rises to 25%
1934 – three-day dust storm moves million tons of dirt from the western US to the east

5. Woody Guthrie: Life on the Road
1929 – Nora Guthrie dies; Woody moves to Pampa, Texas to join his father
1932 – Woody joins a musical group,
The Corncob Trio
1935 – Woody composes his first songbook; begins to write Dust Bowl ballads

6. The Dust Bowl:

7. America: Homelessness Leads to Hopelessness
1935 – Great Dust Storm strikes the Great Plains; Dust Bowl migration starts as “Okies” move west to California
1937 – laborers strike for better working conditions in various US cities
1940 – 14% of US workers are unemployed

8. Woody Guthrie: Songs for the People
1937 – moved to Los Angeles, CA; had
a radio show on KFVD
1938 – wrote about living conditions in migrant work camps
1939 – sang at migrant work camps
1940 – recorded Dust Bowl Ballads on Victor Records; recorded for the Library of Congress; composed first version of “This Land is your Land”

9. The New Deal:

10. America: Federal Government Steps In
1933 – CCC, CWA, WPA created by Congress giving jobs to millions; Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation created to protect bank deposits
1935 – Social Security established
– manufacturing increases 50% as the nation prepares for World War II
1940 – FDR elected to third term as president

11. Woody Guthrie: From Radio to Recordings
1941 – joins the Almanac Singers; composes songs about the Grand Coulee Dam
Publishes Bound for Glory; joins the Merchant Marine
1952 – diagnosed with Huntington’s disease
1967 – dies in Queens, New York

12. Bibliography
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA-OWI Collection, [LC-USZ ]
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA-OWI Collection, [LC-USF M4 DLC]
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA-OWI Collection, [LC-USF C DLC]
Judd, Nathan. “The Answer to the Greenback Dollar.” The Charles L. Todd and Robert Sonkin Migrant Worker Collection, Library of Congress, American Folklife Collection, (April 2003).
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA-OWI Collection, [LC-USW E DLC]