Division Street Revisited follows up on the stories of “uncelebrated” people in Studs Terkel’s groundbreaking 1967 oral history, Division Street: America. The book contains interviews with 71 uncelebrated people about their fears and hopes for themselves, their families and the country.
Through interviews with their descendants, the podcast will trace the lives of seven people in the book: A Black public school janitor; a Lithuanian tavern owner; an Appalachian mother of 15; a closeted gay actor; a Native American activist; a Black labor leader; and a prominent white woman in Chicago’s high society.
“But what happened to those people? To their descendants? To their dreams?” asked host and writer, Pulitzer Prize winner Mary Schmich. “We created this podcast because we wanted to find out, and because the stories told by these individuals help us reflect on our own families and histories, our own hopes and fears for the country.”
Our goal: Get tens of thousands of people to listen.
Division Street Revisited launched in January on all major podcast platforms, distributed by public media organization PRX. PRX also made episodes available to public radio stations nationwide. In addition, WBEZ Chicago aired the entire series, starting Monday, Jan. 27, and WNYC, the nation's largest public radio station, aired four of the episodes.
In addition to deals with PRX, WBEZ and WNYC, we negotiated a new edition of the book, with a foreword by Schmich, published by the The New Press, which is available in bookstores nationwide.
We also launched a weekly, seven-part listening club. Events occurred both in-person and over Zoom in partnership with the Chicago History Museum, Old Town School of Folk Music, Facing History & Ourselves, and Chicago Public Library.
Further, we landed media coverage in nearly 30 media outlets, including a feature in both the digital and print editions of the New York Times.
We still have challenges to go: We so desperately want to turn this into a museum exhibit at the Chicago History Museum. We're told a decision on that is some months off. We also are in negotiations to turn this into a school curriculum with the Great Books Foundation.
More than 30,000 people have downlaoded the episodes and more than 1,200 people attended our events, including a 400-person sell-out of our launch event at the Chicago Public Library. The project is not yet six months old.
We achieved more than we ever set out to. In addition to a podcast, we produced a new edition of a book, a radio show and a seven-part event series. We were written up in the New York Times.
But we still have work to do. We're hopeful the impact will grow.
