About Studs Terkel

Louis “Studs” Terkel was an American writer, historian, radio host, activist, and actor. Studs Terkel lived to be 96 years old (May 16th 1912-October 31st 2008), and when he died on Halloween he had beside him a copy of his latest book, and he was working on another. Studs Terkel’s relentless effort to reach all Americans and tell their ever-changing stories has inspired us to also pursue information about people at Parker that work behind the scenes through interviewing them.

Studs Terkel was born in New York City and moved to Chicago when he was eight years old. Terkel studied law at the University of Chicago but never practiced it. Mr. Terkel instead took up a variety of jobs with the government and began writing plays and acting. He also began becoming active in radio, working as a sportscaster and disc jockey. Terkel married Ida Goldberg in 1939 and had his only child, Dan, ten years later. Later, in the 1950s, Terkel appeared regularly own his own popular television program, called Studs' Place, which was set in a fictional diner. Studs Terkel also emceed many shows, and he served as host for the I Come For To Sing traveling cabaret. The revue featured Big Bill Broonzy, Win Stracke, Larry Lane and Studs, and it toured the country for ten years, including a year long stint at The Blue Note club in Chicago.

After his career in television, Studs Terkel returned to radio and began hosting a morning radio show in 1952. Terkel wrote a little-known book called Giants of Jazz, in 1957, but never thought seriously about pursuing writing as a career. Later, in the 1960s, a book publisher named Andre Schiffrin approached Terkel about writing a book in which he interviewed working Chicagoans. Terkel accepted the offer hesitantly and began his soon-to-be prolific writing career at a time in his life when most people his age were on the back end of their careers. The result was Division Street: America, which he wrote in 1967, his first book in which he interviewed people and told their stories. Terkel would go on to write many other books including Working, which is the book we read in class and that inspired us to start the Parker Works project. Studs Terkel spent his career recording and documenting the words of others, but it is important to hear some of his own words on work. President Bill Clinton awarded him the National Medal of the Arts and Humanities in 1997. Mr. Terkel's interview program was heard in Chicago for forty-five years and was also syndicated nationally. The Studs Terkel Archive is now available on-line. The site contains many of the more than five thousand interviews Studs Terkel conducted throughout his busy and life-affirming career.

“People are hungry for stories. It's part of our very being. Storytelling is a form of history, of immortality too. It goes from one generation to another.”