Ostien on Guthrie
Kathryn Ostien (of JibJab fame) was a major contributor to the Songwriters Hall of Fame website. As Jim Steinblatt states:

The aim of the Songwriters Hall of Fame has always been the establishment of a first-class museum facility where visitors could learn about the men and women who create the songs loved all over the world. As the SHOF Board and staff continue to work and plan for that goal, the wonders of digital technology have permitted the establishment of an imaginative and rapidly growing virtual museum, which everyone can access at the SHOF website: www.shof.org. Responsible for the vast content is Kathryn Ostien, the SHOF Website Director, whose other full-time job is Director of Copyright, Licensing & Royalties for music publisher The Richmond Organization (TRO) and its foreign affiliate the Essex Music Group....As time went on, Ostien devoted more and more time to formulating what the site's architecture and content should be. "I tried to think about it as a musician and as an industry professional," says Ostien. "Basically, it was going to be everything you wanted to know about a song or a songwriter, or the relationship between a songwriter and an artist. What we created was, in my opinion, the most comprehensive database dedicated to songwriters."

OK, so what does this site say about Woody Guthrie? Emphasis mine:

His 1937 radio broadcasts on KFVD, Los Angeles, and XELO (just over the border in Mexico) brought Woody and his new singing partner, Maxine "Lefty Lou" Crissman wide public attention, while providing him with a forum from which he could develop his talent for controversial social commentary and criticism on topics ranging from corrupt politicians, lawyers, and businessmen to praising the humanist principles of Jesus Christ, Pretty Boy Floyd, and Union organizers....

Lead Belly, Cisco Houston, Burl Ives, Pete Seeger, Will Geer, Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee, Josh White, Millard Lampell, Bess Hawes, Sis Cunningham, among many others, became Woody's friends and collaborators, taking up such social causes as Union organizing, anti-Fascism, strengthening the Communist Party, and generally fighting for the things they believed in the only way they knew how, through political songs of protest....

Guthrie continued to write songs and perform with the Almanac Singers, the politically radical singing group of the late 1940s, some of whose members would later re-form as the Weavers, perhaps the most commercially successful and influential folk group of the late 1940s and early 1950s. Most recognized of these songs include This Land Is Your Land and So Long, It's Been Good To Know Yuh....

Moved by his passion against Fascism, Woody served in both the Merchant Marine and Army during World War II. (But he didn't get three Purple Hearts... :) )...

...While traveling throughout the American landscape during the 1930s, 40s, and 50s, Woody's observations of what he saw and experienced has left for us a lasting and sometimes haunting legacy of images, sounds, and voices of the marginalized, disenfranchised, and oppressed people with whom he struggled to survive despite all odds. Although the corpus of original Woody Guthrie songs, or as Woody preferred "people's songs," are, perhaps, his most recognized contribution to American culture, the stinging honesty, humor, and wit found even in his most vernacular prose writings exhibit Woody's fervent belief in social, political, and spiritual justice.