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Studs Terkel Audio Archive to Go Online
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The creation of a publicly accessible digital archive with nearly 5,000 oral history interviews, conducted by the Chicago journalist Studs Terkel, is one of 177 projects awarded a grant this week by the National Endowment for the Humanities.
The grants, totaling $34 million, support projects in 43 states and Washington, D.C., and include both populist and modestly funded projects like the digitization of the Terkel interviews (for which the Chicago public media station WTTW was given a $60,000 grant) to more arcane and pricey, like Indiana University’s plan to create online and print publications about the works of the 13th-century philosopher Richard Rufus (which won a $310,060 grant). The grants were announced just as the endowment’s new chairman, William Adams, known as Bro, took up his post.
Other projects include the preparation of Volumes 42 through 46 of “The Papers of Benjamin Franklin” – which covers his hopes to publicize the ideals of American democracy – at Yale University; the production of a documentary film, “Tell Them We Are Rising,” about the history and contributions of historically black colleges and universities, by Firelight Media; and the University of California, Santa Cruz’s exploration of the interactions between Jews, Christians and Muslims in Mediterranean countries during medieval times.
A version of this article appears in print on 07/26/2014, on page C2 of the NewYork edition with the headline: Studs Terkel Audio Archive to Go Online.
Emma Stone
Studs Terkel, prize-winning author and radio broadcast personality was born Louis Terkel in New York on May 16, 1912. His father, Samuel, was a tailor and his mother, Anna (Finkel) was a seamstress. He had three brothers. The family moved to Chicago in 1922 and opened a rooming house at Ashland and Flournoy on the near West side. From 1926 to 1936 they ran another rooming house, the Wells-Grand Hotel at Wells Street and Grand Avenue {LISTEN}. 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. In 1939 he married Ida Goldberg and had one son.
Terkel attended University of Chicago and received a law degree in 1934. He chose not to pursue a career in law. 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. One day he was asked to read a script and soon found himself in radio soap operas, in other stage performances, and on a WAIT news show. After a year in the Air Force, he returned to writing radio shows and ads. He was on a sports show on WBBM and then, 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. Terkel died on October 31, 2008 at the age of 96.
Chicago History Musem
http://conversations.studsterkel.org/bio.php
Source: New York Times
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