Have you ever abolished a stud -twist book and thought what happened to what he had interviewed?
Seven-episode podcast series called “Division Street Regited” from executive manufacturers and veteran journalists Melissa Harris and Mary Schmich share the incomplete stories of seven people, which Terkel shared his 1967 book, “Division Street: America,” Had talked together Stories say about the hopes and apprehensions of Americans every day.
The first episode, “Myra Alexander: Never to Old to Be Free,” aired on 27 January at WB’s 91.5 FM. The remaining six episodes will be broadcast on wbez on Monday at 6:30 pm and can also be found at major podcast sites, PRX distributed by media organization,
It was titled Nodh on the real road on the North Side and The Nation’s DOGOD Social, Cultural and Reliable Division, “Division Street: America” was the second of many books written by Turkel. Considering Chicago as a microscopic world of America, he found 71 persons, including a subtle world of Chicago. He turned on his tape recorder, asked to stimulate questions in a shameless and connivance style, and let people speak. The book became a fundamental work of oral history and made Turkel, then in its 50s, a domestic name.
Melissa Harris, who now runs a marketing firm, first faced the Ruckle book in 2009 when she arrived at Chicago to write for the tribune. Eager to learn everything about his new house, he asked colleague Rick Kugan what he should read. “Division Street: America” was one of the 10 books he recommended. “The book swallowed me,” Harris remembered. “I wanted to know what happened to these people, what happened to their children, but almost all the persons were subject to the word pseudo.”
He began decoding the identity of Turkel’s interviewers and expected to write a piece about the book on the 50th anniversary of his publication in 2017. “But the life found in the way,” he said, and the project was sheltered.
Enter the then Tribune Associate Mary Schmich. In 2021, Schmich (who retired from the tribune in June of that year) learned that the interviews of Turkel, including “Division Street: America”, would be finally accessible. The Chicago History Museum was working with the Congress library to digitize them. Schmich and Harris surprised whether to bring some stories forward in the book, using the snipet of the original tape-ridden interviews, could be the best completion as podcast. “But we were the people of the newspaper,” said Schmich. “We did not know anything about making podcasts.” He moved to a mutual colleague, Mark Jacob, a writer and former tribune editor, and gathered a team, including podcast manufacturer Bill Heli, and completed some sample podcast as a search for funding. Finally, the production of “Division Street Revised” began in 2023, with a national settlement for humanities grant in hand.
Among the 71 interviewers in the “Division Street: America”, Harris and Schmich chose seven people, which they felt that represented big issues in American life. They consisted of a black female activist, a closed gay actor, an aplachian mother of 15 and a woman of a rich society. The objective, Schmich said, “There was also to make stories very personal and show the country’s sweep.”
Since all seven original interviewers died, both of them conducted research online and made cold calls to find friends and relationships. More interviews with the known descendants began, Harris and Schmich found how little some of them really knew about their family history, but also how they went to learn it. Harris said, “We played the original tapped interviews for families,” and this was the first time they were listening to these voices in about 50 years. It was a powerful experience. ,
As an example, Myra Alexander Story, the theme of the first episode, the 20th -century African American urban experience is in short. Alexander (he has a pseudo -name in the book Lois Arthur is an enthusiastic worker for civil rights, working as a patron in the Chicago Public School System. In Washington, both of them were on the route of Washington, DC for August 1963 March, when they both met. Alexander’s commitment to social justice eventually rubbed his descendants. His hope of hope, with the acceptance that the revolution should continue, is the candidate for Alexander’s tenacity. “His life,” said Schmich, who wrote and narrated the episode, “Give us a perspective on our life.”
The upcoming episodes include The Life of Leone Beverly, whose story also speaks of African American experience. Part of the first wave of Great Migration, Beverly was a packinghouse worker and union leader. He was also a piano player, who believed in the power of music as the power of labor to raise people’s souls and souls. Schmich mentioned how much music all the people gave in the interview, “How it went through his life.” Another interviewer with a passion for art was actor Bill Koja, who as a gay person for homosexuality, as a gay person, caused a deep loneliness, but to express his feelings through the theater Also for desire.
The story of the original American Ben Bearskin is particularly relevant today. As he told Turkel, he and his ancestors were “at home, while everyone else came from here elsewhere.” Although Bearskin helped many original Americans to accommodate life in Chicago, all their five children eventually returned to reservation.
To match the launch of “Division Street Revised”, the new press published a new version of the “Division Street: America”, with a re -prostration by Schmich.
For red-stocking, cigar-choming, once-kali, funny, and Pulitzer Award winning American icon studs, the story was everything. And the best people to tell the story were not a politician but everyday citizens. The same Creo drives “Division Street Revised.”
“It appears that small, personal stories are telling very big stories – about women, breed, LGBTQ rights, immigration,” said Schmich. “Together together, they make a picture of an entire century of American life, in their hearts with Chicago.”