An Open Letter to Studs Terkel
Dear Mr. Terkel,
In all the election hubbub, I haven’t had much time since your passing to reflect on how much your work means to me.
I hadn’t heard of you until a broadcaster friend from San Francisco came to stay with me, a tattered copy of Working in her suitcase. When I told her that I wanted to do a radio series about jobs in our town, she excitedly thrust the book into my hands.
You’d done it! And it was wonderful. The vivacity of the voices in that book hooked me forever. I discovered that our local library had a copy of The Good War and a few other of your books, and I tore through those, too.
For the first time, EVEN AFTER EARNING A DEGREE IN HISTORY, I understood that history is alive, alive, alive.
I’ve never been good at keeping track of dates and specific policies; like card games and jokes, I learn them and then they slip my mind. But I do remember stories and emotions. Those individual voices and characters in your books illuminated it all for me…my black and white sketch of our country’s contemporary history was suddenly, gloriously, colored in.
It’s funny…the day before you died, I was at The Strand browsing through the Americana section. There were four or five hardcover copies of Hard Times on the floor, and I sat there for a while thumbing through the stories and thinking of our current economic crisis. Is someone documenting this the way you would have?
I have seen oral history bloom in popularity this past decade. Programs like Storycorps and This American Life rely on the strength of individual voices to give context to recent history. And when done well, without preciousness or preamble, these voices are most powerful tool we have as journalists. Thank you for teaching me this.
I’m going to go back and buy one of those copies of Hard Times. I wonder if the news of your death has inspired people to go buy your books this week. I hope that there are enough copies for all of us.
With great respect,
Valerie Lapinski