Studs Terkel's Working People- The Classic Modern Look

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Studs Terkel’s Working People

BOOK REVIEW

Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day And How They Feel About What They Do, Studs Terkel, The New Press, New York, 2004

As I have done on other occasions when I am reviewing more than one work by an author I am using some of the same comments, where they are pertinent, here as I did in earlier reviews. In this series the first Studs Terkel book reviewed was that of his “The Good War”: an Oral History of World War II".

Strangely, as I found out about the recent death of long time pro-working class journalist and general truth-teller "Studs" Terkel I was just beginning to read his "The Good War", about the lives and experiences of, mainly, ordinary people during World War II in America and elsewhere, for review in this space. As with other authors once I get started I tend to like to review several works that are relevant to see where their work goes. In the present case the review of Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day And How They Feel About What They Do serves to reflect on a time a couple of decades ago when people may have been resigned about their working career but had a feeling that it did not express all of what they were. Given today’s uncertain economic climate and the wider fears about the effects of the long term trend “globalization” which particularly threatens many lower- skilled or easily transferable jobs I am not sure that such interesting reflections on their work experiences would be forthcoming from today’s working population.

Although Terkel has cast a wide net on the range of occupations and types of work that he presents here it is weighted toward blue collar working people: the waitresses, bartenders, service personnel and the like with whom he had such affinity. The most interesting aspect of this effort is that almost universally the work that people do does not reflect on their capacities. In short, the job is not the measure of the person. That said, I believe, intentionally or not, this little treasure trove of interviews is one of the great arguments for socialism: the creation of a society where an energetic waitress or a well-read steelworker, for example, could break out and become a leader of society. A place where every cook can take a turn at governing. That is the real message that these interviewees are trying, unsuccessfully for the most part, to articulate. How to successfully do that, however, is a separate and frustratingly hard political and organizational question that I have argues about elsewhere.

One thing that I noticed immediately after reading this book, and as is true of the majority of Terkel’s interview books, is that he is not the dominant presence but is a rather light, if intensely interested, interloper in these stories. For better or worse the interviewees get to tell their stories, unchained. In this age of 24/7 media coverage with every half-baked journalist or wannabe interjecting his or her personality into somebody else’s story this was, and is, rather refreshing. Of course this journalistic virtue does not mean that Studs did not have control over who got to tell their stories and who didn’t to fit his preoccupations and sense of order. He has a point he wants to make and that is that although most “ordinary” people do not make the history books they certainly make history, if not always of their own accord or to their own liking. Again, kudos and adieu Studs.