Oral historian and author Alan Wieder delivered a talk, “Studs Terkel: Politics, Culture, But Mostly Conversation” at Red Emma’s Bookstore and Coffeehouse on Thursday, Sept. 22nd.
During his talk, Wieder drew parallels between Terkel’s political moment and current contemporary topics, including those of strained race relations in the U.S. and the upcoming 2016 presidential election.
“I don’t think people generally know how political Studs Terkel was,” Wieder said. “How he was totally dedicated his entire life to fighting white supremacy, not just in America but also in South Africa and other places.”
Wieder explained that Terkel’s political views were largely influenced by his childhood. Born in 1912, Terkel grew up in a Chicago hotel owned by his parents, his early years put him in contact with people from all walks of life.
“He learned about politics and he learned about conversation starting in the lobby of this men’s hotel,” Wieder said. “Some of [the patrons of the hotel] were socialists, some of them Communists, some were totally right-wing, some were religious. He loved to listen to them fight and debate.”
Terkel began his career as a disc jockey playing the blues on his radio show in Chicago. He was blacklisted during the McCarthy era for not signing a loyalty pledge.
Suddenly unemployed, Terkel went into politics. He eventually made his return to radio, spending the next 45 years interviewing everyone from actors to authors. The show became renowned for Terkel’s in-depth treatment of his interviewees.
“He really believed in conversation,” Wieder said. “He didn’t believe in chatting, and he didn’t believe in conversation for the sake of conversation. He believed that you had to have conversation and debate if you are going to actually have a democratic society.”
Terkel transitioned careers when he turned 57. He began writing books, which made him famous in the U.S. He documented the March on Washington and apartheid in South Africa.
Explaining his relationship with Terkel, Wieder felt his academic goals aligned with the famous historian’s career.
“I went to do a doctorate in the seventies in Ohio State and this type of work wasn’t really acknowledged in academia,” Wieder said. “It just so happened to coincide with when Studs Terkel started to be a writer as opposed to just a radio guy. People loved his books, not just officially as an academic. I was lucky, and had a committee that liked his work, so it was the foundation for me being able to do this kind of work.”
Wieder explained that the idea to write Turkel’s biography had always loomed in the background, though he didn’t begin the book itself until later on in his life.
“I didn’t mean I would do a book on him, but starting in the early ‘90s, friends told me it seemed like I was starting to write it in my head,” he said. “I didn’t start until 2013 to really write it.”
On the history and process behind his work, Wieder provided insight on his extensive experiences as an oral historian. Wieder interviewed over 100 people for his biography of Terkel.
“I’ve used interviews to help make the story about something or somebody else, but the process is still the same,” Wieder said. “You do an interview, you listen to the recording, you have someone transcribe it, and then the work begins again because you might move things around, you might delete a lot of it. When we talk to each other it’s not chronological so something that happened in 2005 might be at the beginning of the interview. The follow up with the same kind of concept might be at the end of the interview so you move things around. You never change the words. You don’t take words out, but you work at it to make it a story.”
Wieder also emphasized the importance of listening.
“The interviewing is in and of itself something,” he said. “The key is that you have to listen. I’ve done interviews where I was horrible, where, ‘oh my God why did I talk so much?’, but you have to listen. You try to keep people on theme, but you want them to talk.”
Wieder has been touring a number of cities to promote his book. He has spoken at events in Chicago, Milwaukee, Cleveland and Portland, among others. His tour continues through October.
“Studs Terkel is from Chicago so I just did three events in Chicago and friends said it was like being in Studs Terkel’s universe,” Wieder said. “The people that were there, and a lot of old people came and there were young students so it was absolutely fabulous. People I interviewed for the book were there and I had them talk.”
Wieder elaborated on several different future projects he had in mind, though nothing has been set in stone.
“I have a million projects, which means I don’t have any right now,” he said. “There’s one thing that I think about doing with Studs but I probably won’t and that’s because there’s a website called studsterkel.org and they’re in the process of getting all of his radio interviews digitized. He interviewed so many people and they were so diverse. It might be interesting to do some kind of thematic book using the interviews.”
