Studs Terkel 1912-2008: Beloved Oral Historian and Broadcaster Dies at 96

Born in 1912 in New York City, Studs Terkel moved with his family to Chicago at the age of ten, where he spent most of his life. Over the years he has worked as an activist, a civil servant, a labor organizer, a radio DJ, an ad writer, and a television actor.

But since the 1960s, he was particularly well-known as a world-class interviewer, a writer and radio personality who drew celebrities and, far more often, average citizens into sharing their stories.

For forty-five years, from 1952 to 1997, Studs Terkel spent an hour each weekday on his nationally syndicated radio show on WFMT interviewing the famous and the not-so-famous. With his unique style of speaking about subjects such as race, war and employment, Terkel spent decades interviewing Americans across the country, creating intimate portraits of everyday life and chronicling changing times through this century.

He wrote over a dozen books, with his long awaited memoir “Touch and Go” coming out just last year. He won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, the George Polk Career Award and the presidential National Humanities Medal.

Studs Terkel never stopped speaking out. Just a year ago, at the age of 95, he wrote an opinion piece for the New York Times criticizing the Bush administration’s warrantless spy program.

He was also a regular guest on Democracy Now! I spoke with Studs last year–on May 16, 2007–his 95th birthday. This is some of our conversation.

Studs Terkel, interviewed on Democracy Now! on May 16, 2007.

Related Links

• Studs Terkel interviews on Democracy Now!