The American Folklife Center's Woody Guthrie Manuscript Collection <http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/wwghtml/> is
now available online through the Library of Congress American Memory Web site.

The Woody Guthrie Manuscript Collection includes correspondence between Woody Guthrie and staff of the Archive of American Folk Song (now the Archive of Folk Culture, American Folklife Center) at the Library of Congress, written primarily in the early 1940s, shortly after Guthrie had moved to New York City and met the Archive's Assistant in Charge, Alan Lomax. Although Guthrie pursued broadcasting and recording careers, meeting a cadre of artists and activists and gaining a reputation as a talented and influential songwriter and performer, this collection highlights his talents as a writer of prose. These occasionally, illustrated reflections on his past, his art, his life in New York City, and the looming Second World War provide unique insight into the artist best-known for his role as "Dust Bowl balladeer."

The online presentation contains fifty-three items (eighty-four pages) of manuscript material by, about, and to Woody Guthrie, 1940-50, and includes a biographical essay by Guthrie scholar Mark Jackson; a timeline of Guthrie's life; and an encoded finding aid of archival materials featuring Woody Guthrie at the Library of Congress.

Other folklife-related online collections, selected publications of the American Folklife Center <http://lcweb.loc.gov/folklife>, and information about products and services are available from the Center's home page.

American Memory is a project of the National Digital Library Program of the Library of Congress, which, in collaboration with other institutions, is bringing important American historical materials to citizens around the world. Through American Memory, over 100 multimedia collections of digitized documents, photographs, recorded sound, motion pictures, and text are now available online, free to the public for educational purposes. This collection is the twelfth collection from the American Folklife Center to be added on the American Memory Web site <http://memory.loc.gov/>. All American Memory collections can be accessed the American Memory home page.

Please direct any questions to [log in to unmask], or use the Question and Comment form, here: <http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/helpdesk/amform.html>.