Editing Woody Guthrie (section)

====Merchant Marine====
Guthrie lobbied the United States Army to accept him as a [[USO]] performer instead of conscripting him as a soldier in the draft.{{citation needed|date=June 2017}} When Guthrie's attempts failed, his friends [[Cisco Houston]] and Jim Longhi persuaded the singer to join the [[United States Merchant Marine|U.S. Merchant Marine]] in June 1943.<ref>Klein, ''Woody Guthrie'', pp.&nbsp;277–80,&nbsp;287–91.</ref> He made several voyages aboard merchant ships SS ''William B. Travis'', SS ''William Floyd'', and SS ''Sea Porpoise'', while they traveled in [[convoy]]s during the [[Battle of the Atlantic]]. He served as a mess man and dishwasher, and frequently sang for the crew and troops to buoy their spirits on transatlantic voyages. His first ship, ''William B. Travis'', hit a mine in the [[Mediterranean Sea]], killing one person aboard, but the ship sailed to [[Bizerte]], Tunisia under her own power.<ref>Robert Cressman, ''The Official Chronology of the U.S. Navy in World War II'', Naval Institute Press (1999), p. 180.</ref>

His last ship, ''Sea Porpoise'', took troops from the United States to England and France for the [[D-Day]] invasion. Guthrie was aboard when the ship was torpedoed off [[Utah Beach]] by the [[German submarine U-390]] on July 5, 1944, injuring 12 of the crew. Guthrie was unhurt and the ship stayed afloat; Sea Porpoise returned to England, where she was repaired at [[Newcastle upon Tyne|Newcastle]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://uboat.net/allies/merchants/ships/3285.html|title=Sea Porpoise (American Steam merchant) - Ships hit by German U-boats during WWII - uboat.net|website=uboat.net}}</ref>{{failed verification|date=April 2023}} In July 1944, she returned to the United States.<ref>Ronald D. Cohen, ''Woody Guthrie: Writing America's Songs'', pp. 28–29.</ref>

Guthrie was an active supporter of the [[National Maritime Union]], one of many unions for wartime American merchant sailors. Guthrie wrote songs about his experience in the Merchant Marine but was never satisfied with them. Longhi later wrote about Guthrie's marine experiences in his book ''Woody, Cisco and Me''.<ref>{{cite book |last=Longhi |first=Jim |title=Woody, Cisco and Me |year=1997 |publisher=[[Random House]] |isbn=0-252-02276-9 |url=https://archive.org/details/woodyciscomeseam00long }}</ref> The book offers a rare first-hand account of Guthrie during his [[United States Merchant Marine|Merchant Marine]] service, at one point describing how Guthrie referred to his guitar as a "Hoping Machine". But later during duty aboard the troop ship, Guthrie built an actual "Hoping Machine" made of cloth, whirligigs and discarded metal attached to a railing at the stern, aimed at lifting the soldiers' spirits. In 1945, the government decided that Guthrie's association with communism excluded him from further service in the Merchant Marine; he was drafted into the [[United States Army|U.S. Army]].<ref>Klein, ''Woody Guthrie'', pp.&nbsp;302–03.</ref>

While he was on [[Wiktionary:furlough|furlough]] from the Army, Guthrie married Marjorie.<ref>Klein, ''Woody Guthrie'', p.&nbsp;312.</ref> After his discharge, they moved into a house on Mermaid Avenue in [[Coney Island]] and over time had four children: daughters Cathy and [[Nora Guthrie|Nora]]; and sons [[Arlo Guthrie|Arlo]] and Joady. Cathy died as a result of a fire at the age of four, and Guthrie suffered a serious depression from his grief.<ref>Klein, ''Woody Guthrie'', p.&nbsp;344–351.</ref> Arlo and Joady followed in their father's footsteps as singer-songwriters.

When his family was young, Guthrie wrote and recorded ''[[Songs to Grow on for Mother and Child]]'', a collection of [[children's music]], which includes the song "Goodnight Little Arlo (Goodnight Little Darlin')", written when Arlo was about nine years old. During 1947, he wrote ''House of Earth'', an historical novel containing explicit sexual material, about a couple who build a house made of clay and earth to withstand the [[Dust Bowl]]'s brutal weather. He could not get it published.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.npr.org/2013/02/05/170496691/woodie-guthries-house-of-earth-calls-this-land-home |title=Woody Guthrie's 'House of Earth' Calls 'This Land' Home |last1=Neary |first1=Lynn |date=February 5, 2013 |publisher=[[NPR]] |access-date=February 5, 2013}}</ref> It was published posthumously in 2013, by [[Harper (publisher)|Harper]], under actor [[Johnny Depp]]'s publishing imprint, [[Infinitum Nihil]].

Guthrie was also a prolific sketcher and painter, his images ranging from simple, impressionistic images to free and characterful drawings, typically of the people in his songs.

In 1949, Guthrie's music was used in the documentary film ''Columbia River'', which explored government dams and hydroelectric projects on the river.<ref>{{cite video
 | year =1949
 | title =Video: The Columbia (1949)
 | url =https://archive.org/details/gov.fdr.353.3.4
 | publisher =[[United States Department of the Interior]]
 | access-date =February 22, 2012
}}</ref> Guthrie had been commissioned by the US [[Bonneville Power Administration]] in 1941 to write songs for the project, but it had been postponed by World War II.<ref>{{cite news
 |title        = Ten Dollars a Song: Woody Guthrie Sells His Talent to the Bonneville Power Administration
 |work         = Columbia Magazine
 |date         =Spring 2001
 |volume       = 15
 |issue        = 1
 |first        = Robert C.
 |last         = Carriker
 |url          = http://columbia.washingtonhistory.org/anthology/fromwartowar/woodyGuthrie.aspx
 |access-date  = February 23, 2012
|archive-date = March 29, 2013
|archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20130329193008/http://columbia.washingtonhistory.org/anthology/fromwartowar/woodyGuthrie.aspx
 |url-status   = dead
}}</ref>