The idea of people’s culture has a long and colorful history in the United States. Some of it originated in poetry and song—including the works of Walt Whitman and Carl Sandburg. The Industrial Workers of the World (I.W.W. or “Wobblies”) carried culture around the country as they “rode the rails.” American populism emerged from farmer-labor politics of the Middle West in the early 20th century. Novels such as The Grapes of Wrath grew out of the Great Depression in the 1930s. Later came the People’s Songs movement, with Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, and Paul Robeson. West End Press formed in 1976 with the support of Meridel Le Sueur, one of the leading figures in the people’s culture movement from the 1930s. She believed that an alliance of working people of different racial and ethnic backgrounds represented the hope of America. Her stories and novels, full of distinctly human gestures and deeds, reflected the aspirations of the American underclass as the true genius of the nation. Our task, she believed, was to represent these voices.