Library of Congress    [Detail] Woody Guthrie  Historical
Comprehension  "Back in the early day," Guthrie wrote in his
autobiographical essay "when folks was a crowding into Oklahoma
from other states to get a piece of land and buy farms and stuff
like that, they had some hard times, and some tough people..."
Guthrie saw more tough people surviving hard times when he went
to California in 1936. Many families had come from the Dust Bowl
to find work in California. There were so many of them, however,
that competition was incredible and bosses got away with paying
them very low wages. Many families found no work at all.
Guthrie saw these families living out of their cars and camped
in makeshift shelters. He was outraged by the injustice and
found kindred spirits in members of the American Communist Party
who urged these migrants to organize and form unions to defend
themselves. Though Guthrie never joined the Party, he embraced
its ideals and mission to reform the country's political,
economic, and social syst