Studs Terkel Radio Archive Provides Gateway to Past
After years of planning, digitizing and curating, the Studs Terkel Radio Archive is now online. WDCB's Gary Zidek looks at the project's past, present and future.
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"There are ways in which it broke the mold then, and continues to break the mold, as far as how a person with a microphone and a tape recorder, what can be done with those tools" - Tony Macaluso, director of WFMT Radio Network/Studs Terkel Radio Archive
Tony Macaluso, Director of WFMT Radio Network & Studs Terkel Radio Archive and Allison Schein Holmes, WFMT archivist
The Studs Terkel Radio Archive officially launched on May 16, 2018, what would have been the Pulitzer Prize winner’s 106th birthday. Visitors will be able access to Terkel’s catalog of intimate interviews and oral histories.
Photo credit: Chicago History Museum, photographer Raeburn Flerlage,
Photo credit: Chicago History Museum, photographer Raeburn Flerlage,
There are around 1,200 of Terkel’s programs currently available on the archive, with additional interviews continually being added.
Sidney Poitier
Over the course of his 45 years on the radio, Terkel interviewed some of the most talented people in the world. He spoke with Sidney Poitier, Muhammad Ali, Louis Armstrong, Buster Keaton, Rita Moreno, Woody Allen, James Baldwin, Cesar Chavez, Gwendolyn Brooks and Bob Dylan (though that conversation won’t be available on the archive because of copyright concerns).
Photo credit: Chicago History Museum, photographer Raeburn Flerlage,
