Studs Terkel in Conversation With Christopher Purdy #4 of 4 Studs Terkel died at age 96 on October 31, 2008. Terkel was a broadcaster, interviewer and oral historian whose career lasted 76 years, from 1930 to 2006. His many books include Giants of Jazz; Working: People Talk About What They Do all Day and How They Feel About What They Do all Day; Talking to Myself: A Memoir of the Times; My American Century; Touch and Go and P.S., Further Thoughts From a Lifetime of Listening.
In 2005, promoting his memoir And They All Sang: Adventures of an Eclectic Disc Jockey, Mr.Terkel spoke with WOSU’s Christopher Purdy. Booked for ten minutes, the conversation lasted over half and hour. Here is an excerpt from their visit:
Are you optimistic?
"People want to know how to survive with some dignity…remember I told you there was machinery that saved my life? And there's machinery that can destroy us all. And this is our choice. We live in a world of sanity. There's enough imagination in the human race to create this world that makes me, at ninety-three, live with a new kind of verve…"
