Studs Terkel
Born 1912 · Died 2008
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.
Books by Studs Terkel in order
Books by Studs Terkel in the order they were published, from Giants of Jazz (1957) to Studs Terkel's Chicago (2012).
- 1Giants of Jazz
Giants of Jazz1957 - 2Division Street: America
Division Street: America1967 - 3Rare Studs Terkel HARD TIMES Oral History of the Great Depre
Rare Studs Terkel HARD TIMES Oral History of the Great Depression 1970 Pantheon Books1970 - 4Working
Working1972 - 5Talking to Myself
Talking to Myself1977 - 6American Dreams
American Dreams1980 - 7"The Good War"
"The Good War"1984 - 8Chicago
Chicago1986 - 9The Great Divide
The Great Divide1988 - 10Race
Race1992 - 11Coming of Age
Coming of Age1995 - 12My American Century
My American Century1997 - 13The Spectator
The Spectator1999 - 14Will the Circle Be Unbroken?
Will the Circle Be Unbroken?2001 - 15Boob Jubilee: The Mad Cultural Politics of the New Economy
Boob Jubilee: The Mad Cultural Politics of the New Economy2003 - 16Hope Dies Last
Hope Dies Last2003 - 17Young Bob
Young Bob2003 - 18And They All Sang
And They All Sang2005 - 19The Studs Terkel Reader
The Studs Terkel Reader2007 - 20Touch and Go
Touch and Go2007 - 21The Studs Terkel Interviews
The Studs Terkel Interviews2008 - 22Studs Terkel's Chicago
Studs Terkel's Chicago2012 - 23P.S. : Further Thoughts from a Lifetime of Listening
P.S. : Further Thoughts from a Lifetime of Listening