Studs Terkel was the last living writer from the very special WPA Writer’s Project in Illinois. The project in Chicago hired, directly off the relief rolls a mass of talented American Writers, Terkel being one of the youngest. Best known perhaps was Richard Wright, just up from the Delta, recognized as a talent needing nurture, and one of the first to move to a major publisher after Writer’s Project folded, and he was shuffled over to mail sorting at the PO until the checks started arriving for Black Boy and Native Son. Terkel was one of Wright’s special friends, far more knowledgable about the back alleys of Chicago, the ethnic structures, the gang alignments and all. Terkel took Wright to his first meeting of the John Reed club at the U of Chicago, (used to meet right there in Obama’s Hyde Park Neighborhood), from whence they both derived Class Angled lit criticism, and sold their writing to the kind of magazines that made for troubles some 20 years later. Jack Conroy and Nelson Algren were also part of this set — pulled together by the 22 dollars a week for 36 hours work the WPA had on offer from 1935-1939.

The Chicago Writer’s project was a special baby for Jerre Mangione (father of the Jazz Composer), Jerre allowed this special project to stay clear of the mass production of the American Guide Series (still some of the best travel guides to the US, even though they are 70 years out of date.) Mangione was the deputy director of the project, was more than willing to let talent break some of the rules and for instance swap New York for Chicago — (rules said you had to stay in the state project from whence you came off the state relief rolls), and he early on recognized that the Chicago project was loaded with talent that could project Chicago School Sociology into descriptive writing, narrative, and use the hard edged language of industrial technology. Getting involved with the Reed Clubs was not his idea exactly, but he intentionally looked the other way. The Chicago special group was the only truely integrated writer’s project — WPA played by the seperate but equal rules, but Chicago was allowed to forget that rule too.

Chicago also hosted a group of German Writers who though not official project members, ran with this crowd. These were the early refugees from Fascism, offered a combination of technical language teaching assignments along with Janitorial duties by the Illinois Institute of Technology. One thing led to another, and eventually a goodly piece of the Bauhaus was in Chicago, writing and designing for each other, sometimes on an odd assignment that paid a few bucks for a publication that wanted something authentically anti-Nazi. Most had enough sense to stay out of the John Reed Clubs — nonetheless they had a lawyer, later Justice Goldberg, who was then doing legal work for refugees, while being paid by the Organizing Committee for what became the United Steelworkers. Arthur Goldberg took care of many of these writers in the dark days of McCarthyism.

I hope Obama knows some of the details of this history, so rich with both talent and later significant work — all kept sheltered and in food by a little New Deal program that comprehended that keeping skills sharp, and developing new ones was critical to rebuilding the culture once the worst of the economic collapse had passed. Yep, 22 dollars a week for 36 hours of work, and a supervisor who recognized creative talent and nurtured it. Turkel was the last of the Chicago Project.

Repelled by the stark simplicity of Terkel’s paperbacks during a slightly callow youth, though hard working as soon as youth led to yet further exhuberance, I was charmed by his extensive NPR interview with Robert Zimmerman, the latter having brought an acoustic guitar to play live at some juncture during the interview, and ably. That show aired around the time there was all-day Iran-Contra hearings. Nice ST saw the world from a nonagenarian vantage for several years.