'Hope' that memory is never lost

 

“We use the word 'hope' perhaps moreoften than any other word in the vocabulary: 'I hope it's a nice day.''Hopefully, you're doing well.' 'So how are things going along? Good Ihope.'  'Going to be good tomorrow? Hope so.'  Memory is valued,and I hope that we never lose memory.” –Studs Terkel 

 

Born in New York City on this datein 1912, Louis “Studs” Terkel was an author, historian, actor, and broadcasterwho won the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction in 1985 for his book onWorld War II titled The Good War.  He also wrotethe terrific book Working, sharing his unbending optimismabout life and the goodness of people, and for his oral histories.

 

Terkel studied as a lawyer butinstead of entering the profession, he turned to acting and then broadcasting,starting his long-running career through the WPA's Federal Writing Programduring the Depression.  Ultimately, in addition to his broadcasting andwork on oral histories, he wrote 18 nonfiction books.

  

WFMT, the Chicago radio stationwhich broadcast Terkel's long-running interview program, preserved 7,000 taperecordings of Terkel's interviews and histories.  After his death in2008 at age 96, The Library of Congress announced a grant to digitally preserveand make available those recordings, which it called "a remarkably richhistory of the ideas and perspectives of both common and influential peopleliving in the second half of the 20th century." 

 

"For Studs, there was not avoice that should not be heard, a story that could not be told," said GaryT. Johnson, president of the Chicago Museum of History, the initial recipientof the recordings. "He believed that everyone had the right to be heardand had something important to say. He was there to listen, to chronicle, andto make sure their stories are remembered.