Coming in 2017:
Our New Website
Featuring over 1,000 radio shows,
special features, community tools, & new content.
Thank You
Kickstarter Supporters!
Over 700 backers pledged $87,152
to help bring Studs to the world.
Guest Curators
Hear contemporary commentators reveal
their favorite moments — and what makes
these interviews so thrilling and relevant!
Studs & Friends
The Studs Terkel Radio Archive collaborates
with many partners. See who is already involved,
then contact us to join the effort!
Buckminster Fuller on
The Geodesic Life
Enjoy this stunning animation based on our archived
interviews with Buckminster Fuller, from the creators
of Blank on Blank (Amy Drozdowska, Series Producer).
Over the course of his 45 years on WFMT radio,
Studs Terkel discussed every aspect of 20th-century life with
movers, shakers, artists, and working folks.
From civil rights to labor to jazz, his work spanned an impressive array of topics and figures. These
enchanting, historically-significant interviews — which have been largely inaccessible to the public —
will soon come to life in a new website hosting the comprehensive Studs Terkel Radio Archive.
45
years on WFMT radio
9,000+
hours of radio & book interviews
5,000+
unique voices & stories
The WFMT Radio Network, along with the Studs Terkel Center
for Oral History of the Chicago History Museum and many other
committed partners, are working toward turning this site into the first-ever,
comprehensive online Studs Terkel Radio Archive.
This Archive will feature interviews from Studs’
hour-long daily radio show which ran from 1952 to 1997 on WFMT in Chicago, during which he conducted over 5,000 interviews. The subjects of his interviews span almost 5 decades of prominent figures such
as jazz, blues, folk, classical and world musicians; novelists; scientists; historians; visual artists; actors; political theorists and activists; poets; dancers; film-makers; sociologists and anthropologists; architects and urban planners; civil rights leaders; philosophers; folklorists and, of course, many fascinating, non-famous working people.
This temporary website provides access to several hundred interviews in an existing online collection.
Over the course of the coming years, this website will transform into a robust and completely public archive, featuring thousands of additional programs.
Join our mailing list and we’ll let you know when the new site launches.
JOIN OUR MAILING LIST Visit our blog for updates
Want more Studs? Tune into WFMT every Friday night at 11:00 CT to hear rebroadcasts of Studs's original radio shows on the "Best of Studs Terkel" program. With 10 years of practice and a huge selection of interviews to choose from, the "Best of" show is your best source for themed interviews.
Our Partners
Dominican University's Graduate School of Library and Information Science | The European Broadcasting Union
Library of Congress National Audiovisual Conservation Center | Media Burn independent video archive
The Organist | The Poetry Foundation | Pop Up Archive | Project& | PRX and PRX Remix
Third Coast International Audio Festival
Tony Macaluso
Archive Director (and Director of Syndication for the WFMT Radio Network)
Allison Schein
Archivist
Grace Radkins
Digital Content Librarian
Sample the Show
For over forty-six years, Studs Terkel explored a variety of themes, from architecture to rock music,
from poetry to the intricacies of the labor movement. Now you can explore these themes by
listening to our temporary archive. Here are a few of our favorites.
What’s in the Archive
Categories
- African American History / Civil Rights
- Architecture / Design / Urban Planning
- Blues / Gospel
- British Culture
- Chicago
- Childhood & Youth
- China
- Cinema
- Classical / Experimental Music
- Cold War
- Comedy
- Dance
- Environment / Ecology / Biology
- Feminism
- Folk / Rock / World Music
- Gay Culture & Rights
- German Culture
- Great Depression
- History
- Italy
- Jazz
- Latino Culture & History
- Literature
- Medicine & Psychology
- Poetry
- Politics & Political Organizing
- Psychology
- Russia
- Science
- Song
- South Africa
- Sports
- Theater
- Theology / Mythology
- Vietnam War
- Visual Arts
- Working / Labor
- World War II
People
- Nelson Algren
- Woody Allen
- Muhammad Ali
- Saul Alinsky
- Laurie Anderson
- Diane Arbus
- Louis Armstrong
- Margaret Atwood
- James Baldwin
- Simone de Beauvoir
- Leonard Bernstein
- Gwendolyn Brooks
- Anthony Burgess
- John Cage
- Joseph Campbell
- Marc Chagall
- Arthur C. Clarke
- Aaron Copland
- Jacques Cousteau
- Marlene Dietrich
- Bob Dylan
- Federico Fellini
- Lawrence Felinghetti
- Buckminster Fuller
- Ralph Ellison
- Dizzy Gillespie
- Allen Ginsberg
- Martha Graham
- Gunter Grass
- Lorraine Hansberry
- Seamus Heaney
- Earl Hines
- Abbie Hoffman
- Eugene Ionesco
- Mahalia Jackson
- Janis Joplin
- Buster Keaton
- Martin Luther King Jr.
- Ursula LeGuin
- Doris Lessing
- Arthur Miller
- Toni Morrison
- Paul Robeson
- Salman Rushie
- Bertrand Russell
- Carl Sagan
- Oliver Sacks
- Edward Said
- Martin Scorsese
- Pete Seeger
- Maurice Sendak
- Ravi Shankar
- Sam Shepard
- Shel Silverstein
- Isaac Bashevis Singer
- Susan Sontag
- Wole Soyinka
- Art Spiegelman
- W. Eugene Smith
- Jacques Tati
- Hunter S. Thompson
- Francois Truffaut
- Robert Twombley
- Gore Vidal
- Kurt Vonnegut
- Tennessee Williams
- Brian Wilson
- Frank Zappa
& Many More
Are you looking for the previous version of this site? It has been archived here:
Studs Terkel: Conversations with America