The Chris Moeller Archives

Studs Terkel 1912-2008

I came to Studs Terkel through Ken Burns' "Baseball" on PBS in 1994. Already in his 80s, Studs was one of the commentators whose anecdotes enlivened the filmmaker's nine-part historical account of our greatest game. Studs offered his thoughts on the sport, on Babe Ruth and Jackie Robinson. He recalled longtime National Leaguer Pat Moran on his death bed in 1924: "What's killing you, Skip?" the manager was asked. "Bases on Balls," he replied.

Always clad in a red shirt or sweater vest and red socks ("The color of his politics," he quipped), the elderly Terkel was a terrific storyteller because he had spent a lifetime listening. The broad collection of his books in publication were the transcripts of tape-recorded conversations with Americans of every age, race, creed, vocation, and idea. Beginning in the mid-'60s, his books pulled together remembrances of urban conflict, economic suffering, and race relations. His best known book was probably 1974's"Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do," which was later turned into a play, but his 1985 book, "'The Good War': An Oral History of World War II," won the Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction. His last book, "P.S. Further Thoughts From a Lifetime of Listening," will be published November 11th.

Studs was an institution in the city of Chicago. His music and talk program aired on public radio station WFMT for 45 years, beginning in 1958, "Studs' Place" was a nationwide television show originating from the Windy City during the early days of that medium, and he portrayed famed Chicago sportswriter Hugh Fullerton in the 1988 film "Eight Men Out," about the Black Sox baseball scandal of 1919.

His family had moved to Chicago in 1923, when he was 11 years old. After earning a degree from the University of Chicago, he joined the WPA writer's project, worked as a radio actor and writer, and he acted also with the Chicago Repertory Group. He shifted his work to public radio in the mid-50s only after being blacklisted by Senator Joseph McCarthy and commercial radio due to his public support for liberal and left-wing political causes, such as anti-Jim Crow and anti-lynching laws and peace with the Soviet Union.

Though a man of all the people, Studs palled around with other Chicago institutions such as Saul Alinsky, considered to be the founder of the modern community organizing movement; Nelson Algren, author of the book "Chicago, City On the Make"; popular newspaper columnist Mike Royko; Oprah Winfrey; and film critic Roger Ebert, who remembered his friend and mentor in Friday's Sun-Times.

To the nation, through his radio show, Studs was an important promoter of jazz and folk music, and the socially-conscious music of Mahalia Jackson, Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, Burl Ives, and Bob Dylan. He was an outspoken supporter of Henry A. Wallace's presidential bid at the head of the Progressive Party in 1948, and years later, would reference the Iowan Wallace as-- along with Franklin Roosevelt and Martin Luther King Jr.-- one of the three most important Americans of the 20th Century. While a number of Terkel's books rest on book shelves across the country, multiple others carry his name in acknowledgement and inspiration or his words in print as preface or introduction.

One of the last of the great Lefties, Studs Terkel never suffered himself from what he called "the national Alzheimers." His work always recalled and celebrated, among others, the contributions of the Wobblies, the New Deal reformers, and the '60s Radicals. Having died Friday, his body was set for cremation with his ashes to be spread over Washington Square Park, or Bughouse Square, the popular "soapbox" or free speech center of Chicago.

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Here's a video conversation with Studs Terkel from 2003.

posted by CM @ 7:11 PM