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Few books have captured the American experience with such raw, unfiltered power. First published in 1974, Working is Studs Terkel’s landmark work of oral history, a sweeping, intimate portrait of labor in America told entirely through the voices of those who live it.
Drawn from over one hundred interviews with workers across every rung of American society—gravediggers and studio heads, spot-welders and stockbrokers, waitresses and corporate executives—Working does what no economic report or policy paper can: it puts a human face on the meaning of work. These are not statistics. These are real people, speaking in their own words, about pride and monotony, dignity and alienation, and the daily question that quietly defines us all: Does what I do matter?
Terkel’s genius lies in the architecture of the book itself. Contrasting voices from the same industries are placed side by side, revealing the fault lines of class, power, and identity that run beneath the surface of American working life. The result is a book that reads less like a document and more like a living, breathing chorus.
Nearly fifty years after its initial publication, Working remains one of the most important works of oral history ever published. The New York Times Book Review praised its “incredible abundance of marvelous beings” and “very special electricity and emotional power.” The Boston Globe called it “magnificent . . . a work of art” and declared, ”To read it is to hear America talking.”
—The Boston Globe
“Splendid . . . important . . . rich and fascinating . . . the people we meet are not digits in a poll but real people with real names who share their anecdotes, adventures, and aspirations with us.”
—Business Week
“The talk in Working is good talk—earthy, passionate, honest, sometimes tender, sometimes crisp, juicy as reality, seasoned with experience.”
—The Washington Post
“Reading these stories, I started to consider my own place in the world, and understand how connected we are to one another. [Working] helped inform the choices I made in my own work.”
—President Barack Obama
“I cannot find words to express sufficiently my admiration for Studs Terkel’s Working. . . . Only an interviewer of genius, exploiting the tape recorder as hardly anyone else has done, could possibly have brought it forth.”
—Lewis Mumford
Studs Terkel (1912–2008) was an award-winning author and radio broadcaster. He is the author of Race: How Blacks and Whites Think and Feel About the American Obsession; Division Street: America; Coming of Age: Growing Up in the Twentieth Century; Talking to Myself: A Memoir of My Times; “The Good War”: An Oral History of World War II; Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do; The Studs Terkel Reader: My American Century; American Dreams: Lost and Found; The Studs Terkel Interviews: Film and Theater; Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression; Will the Circle Be Unbroken?: Reflections on Death, Rebirth, and Hunger for a Faith; Giants of Jazz; Hope Dies Last: Keeping the Faith in Troubled Times; And They All Sang: Adventures of an Eclectic Disc Jockey; Touch and Go: A Memoir; P.S.: Further Thoughts from a Lifetime of Listening; and Studs Terkel’s Chicago, all published by The New Press. He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and a recipient of a Presidential National Humanities Medal, the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, a George Polk Career Award, and the National Book Critics Circle 2003 Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award.