- Union Maid
Infobox Standard
title=Union Maid
comment=copyright 1961 and 1963, Ludlow Music, Inc. [Rise Up Singing p.259]
image_size=
caption=
writer=Woody Guthrie
composer=Robert Schumann /Kerry Mills
lyricist=Woody Guthrie ,Millard Lampell
published=
written=June, 1940
language=English
form=
original_artist=Woody Guthrie
recorded_by=Woody Guthrie ,Almanac Singers
performed_by="Union Maid" is a
union song written byWoody Guthrie in response to a request for a union song from a female point of view. [ [http://www.oldtownschool.org/resources/songnotes/songnotes_TU.html Old Town School Songnotes] , Union Maid] Along with "Talking Union", this song was one of the many pro-union songs written by Guthrie during his time as a member of theAlmanac Singers . Another member,Pete Seeger writes, “I'm proud to say I was present when “Union Maid” was written in June, 1940, in the plain little office of the Oklahoma City Communist Party. Bob Woods, local organizer, had asked Woody Guthrie and me to sing there the night before for a small group of striking oil workers. Early next morning, Woody got to the typewriter and hammered out the first two verses of ‘Union Maid’ set to a European tune thatRobert Schumann arranged for piano (“The Merry Farmer”) back in the early 1800s. Of course, it's the chorus that really makes it - its tune, “Red Wing,” was copyrighted early in the 1907 ["The Incompleat Folksinger", by Pete Seeger, edited by Jo Metcalf Schwartz. Simon and Schuster] byKerry Mills .The song's final verse, on women's role in unions was written later by Lampell and other Almanac members. It implores ladies to marry a 'Union Man' and be a good 'Union Wife'. In performance, this verse has been adapted over the years for political correctness or dropped altogether.Fact|date=December 2007
Recordings
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Pete Seeger on "If I Had a Hammer"References
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