Studs Terkel was born Louis Terkel in New York on May 16, 1912. The family moved to Chicago in 1922 and opened a rooming house. From 1926 to 1936 they ran another rooming house, the Wells-Grand Hotel at Wells Street and Grand Avenue. Terkel credited his knowledge of the world to the tenants who gathered in the lobby of the hotel and the people who congregated in nearby Bughouse Square a meeting place for workers, labor organizers, dissidents, the unemployed, and religious fanatics of many persuasions.
Terkel attended University of Chicago and received a law degree in 1934. After a brief stint with the civil service in Washington D.C., he returned to Chicago and worked with the WPA Writers Project in the radio division. After a year in the Air Force, he returned to writing radio shows and ads. In 1944, he landed his own show on WENR. This was called the Wax Museum show that allowed him to express his own personality and play recordings he liked from folk music, opera, jazz, or blues. A year later he had his own television show called Stud's Place and started asking people the kind of questions that marked his later work as an interviewer.
In 1952 Terkel began working for WFMT, first with the "Studs Terkel Almanac" and the "Studs Terkel Show," primarily to play music. The interviewing came along by accident. This later became the award-winning, "The Studs Terkel Program." His first book, Giants of Jazz, was published in 1956. Ten years later his first book of oral history interviews, Division Street: America, came out. It was followed by a succession of oral history books on the 1930s Depression, World War Two, race relations, working, the American dream, and aging. His last oral history book, Will the Circle Be Unbroken: Reflections on Death, Rebirth, and Hunger for a Faith, was published in 2001.
Late into his life Terkel continued to interview people, work on his books, and make public appearances. He was the first Distinguished Scholar-in-Residence at the Chicago Historical Society. His last book, P.S.: Further Thoughts from a Lifetime of Listening was released in November 2008.
--From Studsterkel.org
41 works Add another?
Most Editions | First Published | Most Recent
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Working: people talk about what they do all day and how they feel about what they do
20 editions - first published in 1972 Borrow -
Hard times: an oral history of the great depression
15 editions - first published in 1970 Checked out -
The Good War: an oral history of World War Two
13 editions - first published in 1984 Borrow -
The Great Divide: second thoughts on the American dream
11 editions - first published in 1988 Borrow -
Race: How Blacks and Whites Think and Feel About the American Obsession
11 editions - first published in 1992 Borrow -
Division Street: America
9 editions - first published in 1967 -
Giants of jazz
8 editions - first published in 1957 Borrow -
Talking to Myself: a memoir of my times
7 editions - first published in 1977 Borrow -
American Dreams: lost and found
6 editions - first published in 1981 -
Coming of Age: the story of our century by those who've lived it
6 editions - first published in 1995 Borrow -
Will the circle be unbroken?
5 editions - first published in 2001 DAISY -
And They All Sang: adventures of an eclectic disc jockey
5 editions - first published in 2005 DAISY -
Hope Dies Last
4 editions - first published in 2003 -
Division Street: America
4 editions - first published in 1967 -
Touch and Go: A Memoir
4 editions - first published in 2007 -
Boob Jubilee: The Mad Cultural Politics of the New Economy: Salvos from the Baffler
3 editions - first published in 2003 -
Good War an Oral History of World War Tw
2 editions - first published in 1986 -
Chicago
2 editions - first published in 1986 -
Voices of Our Time: Five Decades of Studs Terkel Interviews
2 editions - first published in 1999 -
Will the Circle Be Unbroken? Reflections on Death, Rebirth, and Hunger for a Faith
2 editions - first published in 2001 -
The Good War Part 2 Of 2
2 editions - first published in 1984 -
The Good War Part 1 Of 2
2 editions - first published in 1984 -
My American century
2 editions - first published in 1997 Borrow -
Good War an Oral History of World War 2
1 edition -
Giants of jazz ; sketches by Robert Galster
1 edition - first published in 1957 -
Studs Terkel
1 edition - first published in 2002 -
The Studs Terkel Interviews: Film and Theater
1 edition - first published in 2008 -
Studs Terkel's Working: A Teaching Guide
1 edition - first published in 2001 -
Four Decades with Studs Terkel: A Compilation of Extraordinary Interviews from 40 Years of Broadcasting
1 edition - first published in 1993 -
Good War-V2
1 edition -
Good War-V1
1 edition -
American Dreams. Lost and Found. Materialien für die Sekundarstufe II.
1 edition - first published in 1987 -
Hope dies last
1 edition - first published in 2003 DAISY -
Young Bob: John Cohen's Early Photographs of Bob Dylan
1 edition - first published in 2003 -
Voices of Our Times: The Original Live Interviews
1 edition -
P.S: further thoughts from a lifetime of listening
1 edition - first published in 2008 -
The Studs Terkel Reader: My American Century
1 edition - first published in 2007 -
American dreams, lost and found
1 edition - first published in 1980 Borrow -
Giants of jazz
1 edition - first published in 1975 Borrow -
The spectator
1 edition - first published in 1999 Borrow -
The good war
1 edition - first published in 1985 Borrow
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Alternative names
- Studs terkel
- Louis Terkel
History Created April 1, 2008 · 5 revisions
| September 27, 2010 | Edited by Laurel Bellon | Merge authors, add bio |
| September 27, 2010 | Edited by Laurel Bellon | merge authors |
| December 30, 2008 | Edited by ImportBot | Found a matching record from Buffalo State College . |
| August 29, 2008 | Edited by RenameBot | fix author name |
| April 1, 2008 | Created by an anonymous user | initial import |