Division Street (ePub)

When Division Street, Studs Terkel's first book of oral history, was published in 1967 (it was commissioned by New Press founding director André Schiffrin), Terkel's reputation as America's foremost oral historian was established overnight.

Approaching Chicagoans as emblematic of the nation at large, Terkel set out with his tape recorder and spent a year talking to people about the place and time they lived in. The freewheeling conversations touched on race, family, education, work, prospects for the future—all topics that remain deeply contentious today. The more than seventy subjects included a Black woman who attended the 1963 March on Washington, a tool-and-die maker, a baker from Budapest, a closeted gay actor, and a successful but cynical ad man. As Tom Wolfe wrote, Studs was “one of those rare thinkers who is actually willing to go out and talk to the incredible people of this country.”

Although the interviewees were very different, most shared the hope for a good life for their children and the wish for a less divided and more just America, an America that would fulfill its promises. The real Chicago street referenced in the title takes on a metaphorical meaning as a symbol of the acute social divides of the 1960s—and highlights the continued relevance of Terkel's work in our polarized times.

Now, over fifty years later, Melissa Harris and Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Mary Schmich have created the remarkable Division Street Revisited podcast, coming in January 2025, in which they have found and interviewed descendants of Terkel's original subjects in seven rich episodes. The result is a moving and thought-provoking intergenerational conversation. Schmich's foreword to the reissue highlights the evolution of the themes and issues Terkel explored. The extraordinary podcast—and the new edition of Division Street—together demonstrate Studs Terkel's prescience and the enduring importance of his work.