“We use the word 'hope' perhaps more
often than any other word in the vocabulary: 'I hope it's a nice day.'
'Hopefully, you're doing well.' 'So how are things going along? Good I
hope.' 'Going to be good tomorrow? Hope so.' Memory is valued,
and I hope that we never lose memory.” –
Studs Terkel
Born in New York City on this date
in 1912, Louis “Studs” Terkel was an author, historian, actor, and broadcaster
who won the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction in 1985 for his book on
World War II titled The Good War. He also wrote
the terrific book Working, sharing his unbending optimism
about life and the goodness of people, and for his oral histories.
Terkel studied as a lawyer but
instead of entering the profession, he turned to acting and then broadcasting,
starting his long-running career through the WPA's Federal Writing Program
during the Depression. Ultimately, in addition to his broadcasting and
work on oral histories, he wrote 18 nonfiction books.
WFMT, the Chicago radio station
which broadcast Terkel's long-running interview program, preserved 7,000 tape
recordings of Terkel's interviews and histories. After his death in
2008 at age 96, The Library of Congress announced a grant to digitally preserve
and make available those recordings, which it called "a remarkably rich
history of the ideas and perspectives of both common and influential people
living in the second half of the 20th century."
"For Studs, there was not a
voice that should not be heard, a story that could not be told," said Gary
T. Johnson, president of the Chicago Museum of History, the initial recipient
of the recordings. "He believed that everyone had the right to be heard
and had something important to say. He was there to listen, to chronicle, and
to make sure their stories are remembered.
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