Folk music, a type of traditional and typically rural music, was passed down through families and other small social groups. Folk music, like folk literature, lived through oral tradition, taught through hearing rather than reading. Folk music varies from culture to culture, but it is most often associated as a genre of music of Europe and the Americas. From its beginnings, folk music has been the sound of the working class, rarely getting commercial success. Ranging in topic from work, war, satire, politics and love, Folk has consistently been a genre of music anyone could listen to. In the 1930’s, folk music had a resurgence as the stock market crashed leaving millions of the American work force without jobs. Woody Guthrie, a worker who had been laid off, moved from the dust bowl to California. There he would write hundreds of songs from 1930 until his death in 1967. Folk music once again had a revival durning the 60’s. The revival was brought on by the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War. Folk singers would gather in coffee shops and at hootenannies in cities like New York and San Francisco. The musicians were offered political commentary while declaring powerful promises for change.