Editing Woody Guthrie (section)

===1930s===
During the [[Dust Bowl]] period, Guthrie joined the thousands of [[Okies]] and others who migrated to California to look for work, leaving his wife and children in Texas. Many of his songs are concerned with the conditions faced by working-class people.

During the latter part of that decade in [[Los Angeles]], he achieved fame with radio partner [[Maxine "Lefty Lou" Crissman]] as a broadcast performer of commercial [[hillbilly]] music and traditional folk music.<ref>Klein, ''Woody Guthrie'', pp.&nbsp;90–92,&nbsp;103–12</ref> Guthrie was making enough money to send for his family to join him from Texas. While appearing on the radio station [[KTNQ|KFVD]], owned by a populist-minded [[New Deal]] Democrat, [[Frank W. Burke]], Guthrie began to write and perform some of the protest songs that he eventually released on his album ''[[Dust Bowl Ballads]]''.

{{quote box
|width=45%
|align=right
|quote=This song is Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright #154085, for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin' it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ourn, cause we don't give a dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that's all we wanted to do.
|source= —Written by Guthrie in the late 1930s on a songbook distributed to listeners of his Los Angeles radio show ''Woody and Lefty Lou'', who wanted the words to his recordings.<ref name="curtis"/>}}

While at KFVD, Guthrie met newscaster Ed Robbin. Robbin was impressed with a song Guthrie wrote about political activist [[Thomas Mooney]], wrongly convicted in a case that was a [[cause célèbre]] of the time.<ref>{{cite book|page=[https://archive.org/details/ramblinman00edcr/page/139 139]|first=Ed|last=Cray|date=2004|title= Ramblin Man: The Life and Times of Woody Guthrie|url=https://archive.org/details/ramblinman00edcr|url-access=registration|publisher= W. W. Norton & Company|isbn=9780393047592}}</ref> Robbin, who became Guthrie's political mentor, introduced Guthrie to socialists and Communists in Southern California, including Will Geer. (He introduced Guthrie to writer John Steinbeck.)<ref>{{cite book|last=Kaufman|first=William|title=Woody Guthrie: American Radical|year=2011|publisher=University of Illinois Press|location=Urbana|isbn=978-0252036026}}</ref> Robbin remained Guthrie's lifelong friend, and helped Guthrie book benefit performances in the communist circles in Southern California.

Notwithstanding Guthrie's later claim that "the best thing that I did in 1936 was to sign up with the [[Communist Party USA|Communist Party]]",<ref>Woody Guthrie Archives. "My Constitution and Me" [http://woodyguthrie.org/ Woody Guthrie Archives Collection]. Manuscripts Box 7 Folder 23.1, Unavailable online, link to Woody Guthrie Archives website for contact information.</ref> he was never a member of the party. He was noted as a [[fellow traveler]]—an outsider who agreed with the platform of the party while avoiding party discipline.<ref>{{cite book|page=[https://archive.org/details/ramblinman00edcr/page/151 151]|first=Ed|last=Cray|date=2004|title= Ramblin Man: The Life and Times of Woody Guthrie|url=https://archive.org/details/ramblinman00edcr|url-access=registration|publisher= W. W. Norton & Company|isbn=9780393047592}}</ref> Guthrie wrote a column for the communist newspaper, ''[[People's World]]''. The column, titled "Woody Sez", appeared a total of 174&nbsp;times from May 1939 to January 1940. "Woody Sez" was not explicitly political, but it covered current events as observed by Guthrie. He wrote the columns in an [[eye dialect|exaggerated hillbilly dialect]] and usually included a small comic.<ref>{{cite book|page=[https://archive.org/details/ramblinman00edcr/page/153 153]|first=Ed|last=Cray|date=2004|title= Ramblin Man: The Life and Times of Woody Guthrie|url=https://archive.org/details/ramblinman00edcr|url-access=registration|publisher= W. W. Norton & Company|isbn=9780393047592}}</ref> These columns were published posthumously as a collection after Guthrie's death.<ref name="Spivey"/>

With the outbreak of World War II and publicity about the [[Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact|non-aggression pact]] the [[Soviet Union]] had signed with Germany in 1939, the owners of KFVD radio did not want its staff "spinning apologia" for the Soviet Union. They fired both Robbin and Guthrie.<ref>{{cite book|page=[https://archive.org/details/ramblinman00edcr/page/160 160]|first=Ed|last=Cray|date=2004|title= Ramblin Man: The Life and Times of Woody Guthrie|url=https://archive.org/details/ramblinman00edcr|url-access=registration|publisher= W. W. Norton & Company|isbn=9780393047592}}</ref> Without the daily radio show, Guthrie's employment chances declined, and he returned with his family to Pampa, Texas. Although Mary was happy to return to Texas, Guthrie preferred to accept Will Geer's invitation to New York City and headed east.<ref name=":1" />