In this episode, we discuss the life and work of Studs Terkel. A Chicago resident from age 10 until his death at age 96, Studs Terkel epitomized Chicago. A charismatic presence, Terkel began his career as a radio actor and on-air interviewer before becoming the star of an unscripted local TV show called Stud’s Place. He hosted his own interview radio show too, The Studs Terkel Program, that aired every weekday between 1952 and 1997.
Terkel’s greatest legacy, perhaps, lies in his oral history collections. Books such as Working, Race, and the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Good War capture the voices, worries, and hopes of 20th-century America. Terkel also wrote the memoirs Talking to Myself, Touch and Go, and Studs Terkel’s Chicago in his signature voice and style. He was awarded numerous honors, including a Presidential National Humanities Medal and the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.
For this episode, we are joined by the team behind the podcast Division Street: Revisited, a new series that follows up on the stories of “uncelebrated” people in Terkel’s groundbreaking 1967 oral history Division Street: America. Our guests are Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists Mary Schmich and Bill Healy. Their full bios are included in the episode description below.
Mary and Bill are interviewed by Nate King, Content & Exhibits Manager at the American Writers Museum. This conversation originally took place March 11, 2025 and was recorded at the American Writers Museum.
MARY SCHMICH is the writer, narrator, and executive producer of Division Street: Revisited. Schmich has been a journalist since 1980. She spent 29 years as a columnist for the Chicago Tribune. She focuses on race, women, family, the human heart and the complex life of Chicago. She won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary. She knew Studs Terkel.
BILL HEALY is the producer of Division Street: Revisited. An award-winning podcast producer, Healy co-created “You Didn’t See Nothin,” which won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Audio Reporting and a Peabody Award. Healy has worked on stories for NPR, the BBC and “This American Life,” and spent years editing StoryCorps for Chicago’s public radio station, WBEZ.