Division Street: America

When New Press founder André Schiffrin first published Division Street in 1967, Studs Terkels reputation as Americas foremost oral historian was established overnight.

Approaching Chicagoans as emblematic of the nation at large, Terkel set out with his tape recorder and spent a year talking to over seventy people about race, family, education, work, prospects for the futureall topics that remain deeply contentious today. Subjects included a Black woman who attended the 1963 March on Washington, a tool-and-die maker, a baker from Budapest, a closeted gay actor, and a successful but cynical ad man. As Tom Wolfe wrote, Studs was one of those rare thinkers who is actually willing to go out and talk to the incredible people of this country.

Most interviewees shared the hope for a good life for their children and the wish for a less divided and more just America, but the real Chicago street referenced in the title takes on a metaphorical meaning as a symbol of the acute social divides of the 1960sand highlights the continued relevance of Terkels work in our polarized times.

Now, over fifty years later, Melissa Harris and Pulitzer Prizewinning journalist Mary Schmich have created the remarkable Division Street Revisited podcast, coming in January 2025, in which they have found and interviewed descendants of Terkels original subjects in seven rich episodes. Schmichs foreword to the reissue and the extraordinary podcastalong with the new edition of Division Streettogether demonstrate Studs Terkels prescience and the enduring importance of his work.