Lifetime Achievement Award

Most of us have jobs that are too small for our spirits.

American Rights at Work pays tribute to Studs Terkel's lifelong commitment to social justice and lifting up the voices of working people.

Studs Terkel knows a thing or two about work.  After graduating from University of Chicago's Law School in 1934, Terkel pursued acting and appeared on stage, on air, and on TV.  He has been a playwright, a radio news commentator, a sportscaster, a film narrator, a jazz columnist, a disc jockey, and a music festival host.  He served in the Air Force and even had a brief stint as a civil service employee.  But he is best known as a radio network personality and Pulitzer Prize-winning author.

Terkel has spent the better part of the last century documenting the experiences of everyday Americans and chronicling our nation's ever-changing social, cultural, and political history.   His interviewing and storytelling style is unmatched, and his talent for drawing out the hopes, dreams, and personal reflections of his subjects is legendary. His lifetime work of collecting oral histories to share the lessons of the past will impact the social justice community for generations to come. 

For 45 years, he spent an hour each weekday on his nationally syndicated radio show conversing with famous and not-so-famous guests alike.  His belief in the intelligence and decency of working people shines through in his interviews.  Terkel's unique awareness of how work intrinsically shapes us as individuals and as a nation drove him to capture the voices of men and women from all walks of life.

Terkel ultimately turned to documenting oral interviews in a series of award-winning books covering aging, race relations, the Great Depression, World War II, and the American Dream.  In his seminal book Working, Terkel elicited the first-hand experiences of a farm worker, hotel switchboard operator, waitress, jockey, private investigator, and countless others.

Today, Terkel continues his own work of interviewing and writing in his hometown of Chicago.