Famed broadcaster and author, Studs Terkel, would have been 110 years old on Monday, May 16, 2022. Today we celebrate Terkel’s birthday by speaking to Avery Gregurich, a freelance writer and a contributor for Belt Magazine. Gregurich recently wrote an article about Terkel. It’s about his influence on journalism and radio and what he might think of the world today. Jerry Kenney speaks with Gregurich about the article.
Avery, you have said in your article on Studs Terkel that you didn't think you ever heard an honest word about America until a friend gave you a copy of Working published in the early seventies. What was it about that book that influenced you and clicked with you?
"Yeah, I was a sophomore in college. It was my professor who has since become a friend of mine. She handed me this copy. We were studying autobiography and memoir and sort of ways to access that genre. And she said, 'You know, this might be interesting to you. This guy has an interesting approach.' So, she gave me Working and it kind of blew the lid off for me in terms of just approach, subject matter, the folks that he chose to talk to."
I think by that point in my academic career, America was still presented as a buttoned-up idea, and I hadn't seen the way that it worked in terms of the everyday people talking about their experience and their work in their life. And this being published in 1974 felt like it was just as revelatory in 2010s as it was back then. So, it's definitely a book that I've come back to. It was a great entry point into Studs, his work, which obviously encompasses many different mediums and many different subjects as well.
Well, tell us more about your article then.
"The WFMT Studs Radio Archive, which is what the piece is about, put up almost all of the archive work that they had accumulated from his 45-year daily show on 50. It has over 3000 programs which during the pandemic, the archivist there, Alison Schein Holmes, was able to get through all of them and put them up online. So, it's just a wealth of radio listening. It's just a free masterclass in how to interview and also just a free education history of America from the early 1960s on until 1995, I think is when into ended the show. So, there's just so much there to dive into."
There was nobody that he wouldn't talk to.
"No, and the thing that I think kept coming up when I was doing my interviewing and my research is that the topics that they were talking about are so relevant to today, even more so. It seems like increasingly every day, and I think a lot of that is because Studs took the time to talk to poets, and he talked to writers and filmmakers and activists and advocates, just anybody who would be able to articulate their viewpoints and their stances on things."
Do you know anything about his early life that would have led him to be the man that he was and do the work that he did?
"Yeah. From what I can glean from many years of history, many different biographies have been written, short biographies about him, but he came from New York as a young child. His parents were operators of a boarding house in Chicago. I think his father died when he was quite young, so his mother ran this boarding house and Studs was sort of the the bellhop, the luggage boy, you know, the checker at the counter. So, he was surrounded by all of these characters at an early age, which I think really led to his ear for dialog and the way that he proceeded to just kind of live his life after that."
Studs Terkel died in 2008. What do you think he would think of the world today?
"I think Studs being so tuned in to philosophy and film and advocacy and things like that, I don't think Studs would be shocked about where we are today. I think he would be amazed at the wealth of media that is out there. I think he would be appalled by some of the lack of workers’ rights, the same battles that they were fighting his entire life that we seem to still be fighting today. I think that would would really bother him, but I think he would be obviously the best podcaster that there was. He's sort of the godfather of the podcast anyway. I think his show would be quite the expansive and quite the revealing piece of tape. So, I would really think he would be enjoying that aspect of things."
"He was an early adopter of the tape recorder. And I should mention he says he was in his mid 50s when he picked up the tape recorder as an instrument. He'd already been in radio, but he hadn't written any books yet, so he was in his early to mid-fifties when he started doing his tape recorder. So, at a time when people were would still be, you know, slowing down their careers. Studs was just starting. And I think that that's a great reminder that whatever you're doing now might eventually get to where you want to be next. So, I think Studs would be he would be doing what he would always be doing. He'd listening. He'd be talking to people, and he'd be doing a good job at it."
Avery Gregurich is a journalist living in Iowa and working for Belton Magazine. His article on Studs Terkel is available on our website. Avery, thanks so much for the conversation today.
"Thanks so much for having me, Jerry."
