History of the Woody Guthrie Archives

Established in 1972, the Woody Guthrie Foundation is a non-profit organization that serves as administrator and caretaker of the Woody Guthrie Archives.  Dedicated to the preservation and dissemination of information about Woody Guthrie's vast cultural legacy, the Woody Guthrie Archives houses the largest collection of Woody Guthrie material in the world.  Since it's opening in 1996, the Woody Guthrie Archives has been a major success becoming an important resource for the general public, musicians, singers, songwriters, scholars, and public and private cultural institutions wishing to access the research collection.

The purpose of the Woody Guthrie Archives is to preserve Woody Guthrie's personal material, to collect Woody Guthrie related material, and to make them available to anyone interested in the cultural legacy of this unique artist.  The Archives contains a wealth of research material pertinent to the study of Woody Guthrie, and his life and times in America during the 20th Century.

For years Marjorie Mazia Guthrie -- Woody's second wife -- tenderly cared for all of Woody's books, songs, papers, and the assorted material stored in their Coney Island and Howard Beach homes in an attempt to ensure their survival. In 1961, all the material was brought to Harold Leventhal's New York City office, where Harold - Woody's longtime friend and business manager -- provided safe storage for the material.

The late Charles Kuralt broadcast a 1988 feature piece for CBS Sunday Morning about Woody Guthrie that drew renewed attention to the material. Together Harold Leventhal and Nora Guthrie -- Woody's daughter and Executive Director of the Woody Guthrie Foundation and Archives -- decided it was the appropriate time to formally launch the Woody Guthrie Archives. Together they raised the required funding for the archival project with the help of friends, artists, and members of the recording industry. They hired a professional archivist, and after a three-year project to process and catalog the material, the Woody Guthrie Archives opened to the public in 1996. The opening was marked with a symposium and benefit concert sponsored by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum and Case Western Reserve University.

The collection contains more than 10,000 items of primary and secondary source material, including Woody's original song lyrics, notebooks and diaries, manuscripts, personal papers, artwork and recordings. In addition, there is a great deal of supporting information and documentation in a variety of formats, such as film, video and audio media, photography and printed material. The collection provides rare and unique material to scholars, students, filmakers, artists, and musicians woring in diverse fields such as American history, folk and popular music, labor migration, labor unions, relition, medicine, political movements, immigration issues and civil rights.