The Working Tapes: Then & Now
- Jul 3, 2025
- 1 min read
In the early 1970’s, author Studs Terkel went around the country with a reel-to-reel tape recorder interviewing people about their jobs.
The result was a book called “Working.” It became a bestseller and even inspired a Broadway musical… something rare for an oral history collection. “Working” struck a nerve, because it elevated the stories of ordinary people and their daily lives.
But until now, few of these interviews have ever been heard before.
For decades, the reel-to-reel tapes were packed away in Terkel’s home office. Radio Diaries, along with Project&, combed through them to produce a new radio series and tracked down a few of the interviewees, forty years later.
