Many of Guthrie’s songs expressed his deep love for Oklahoma and his country. His music reflected optimism for his fellow man and humor.

During World War II he saw active duty with the Merchant Marine and briefly in the U.S. Army.

He found time to write Bound for Glory, an autobiographical novel, published in New York City in 1943. Guthrie also illustrated his book. Literary critic, Clifton Fadiman, praised the book and called Guthrie a national treasure.

Guthrie also wrote poems. He was praised as a fine poet. Some critics said he was more of a poet than a songwriter.

He also was a talented artist. After his death a large collection of his art ended up in the Library of Congress.

In New York, some of Guthrie’s songs lost their folk flavor found in his earlier pieces. Guthrie borrowed the “illiterate” style of fellow Oklahoman Will Rogers, who was killed in a plane crash in 1935 to retain a folksy flavor to his performing.

Guthrie once wrote, “I ain’t a writer. I want that understood. I’m just a little one-cylinder guitar picker,” but Guthrie, like Will Rogers, was educated and well read.

Guthrie continued to write songs and perform during the early 1950s. By the middle 1950s his health was deteriorating. He had frequent mood swings. His behavior was often unpredictable. Alcoholism was suspected. So was schizophrenia.

When he was correctly diagnosed by doctors, Guthrie was found to have Huntington’s Chorea, a degenerative nerve disorder that he had inherited from his mother.

For 13 years he was in and out of hospitals until 1967 when he died 40 years agothis year in Creedmoor State Hospital, Queens, New York, on October 3, 1967. He was 55. His body was cremated and his ashes were scattered in the ocean off Coney Island, New York.

In 2004, the Oklahoma Senate honored Guthrie’s memory by hanging his portrait painted by Charles Banks Wilson in the Oklahoma Capitol near Will Rogers’s portrait.

Guthrie is best remembered today for his ballads about a floundering America between the depression-dust bowl days and World War II. His songs gave voice to what Americans were feeling, but they also roused a sense of patriotism across the land. His music lives on through his son Arlo Guthrie and other musicians

including Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen.