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Division Street: America
by Studs Terkel (Introduction: Alex Kotlowitz)
Product Group: Book
Publisher: New Press (2006-04-24)
ISBN: 1595580727
EAN: 9781595580726
Dewy Decimal #: 977.311
Paperback: 416 pages
Edition: 1
SKU: 07110362
Condition: New As issued no jac
Comments: New book. Trade paperback with no marks or creases. Appears unread. Beautiful book.
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Editorial Reviews
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Product Description
The groundbreaking book that first made Studs Terkel a household name.
Division Street: America, Studs Terkel's first book of oral history, established his reputation as America's foremost oral historian and as "one of those rare thinkers who is actually willing to go out and talk to the incredible people of this country" (in the words of Tom Wolfe).
Viewing the inhabitants of a single city, Chicago, as a microcosm of the nation at large, Division Street: America chronicles the thoughts and feelings of some seventy people from widely varying backgrounds in terms of class, race, and personal history. From a mother and son who migrated from Appalachia to a Native American boilerman, from a streetwise ex-gang leader to a liberal police officer, from the poorest African Americans to the richest socialites, these unique and often intimate first-person accounts form a multifaceted collage that defies any simple stereotype of America. As Terkel himself put it: "I was on the prowl for a cross-section of urban thought, using no one method or technique….I guess I was seeking some balance in the wildlife of the city as Rachel Carson sought it in nature." Revealing aspects of people's lives that are normally invisible to most of us, Division Street: America is a fascinating survey of a city, and a society, at a pivotal moment of the twentieth century.
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Customer Reviews
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Sweet Home, Chicago
Rating  (4)
Date: 2008-11-30
As I have done on other occasion when I am reviewing more than one work by an author I am using some of the same comments, where they are pertinent, here as I did in earlier reviews. In this series the first Studs Terkel book reviewed was that of his "The Good War": an Oral History of World War II.
Strangely, as I found out about the recent death of long time pro-working class journalist and general truth-teller "Studs" Terkel I was just beginning to read his "The Good War", about the lives and experiences of, mainly, ordinary people during World War II in America and elsewhere, for review in this space. As with other authors once I get started I tend to like to review several works that are relevant to see where their work goes. In the present case the review, his first serious effort at plebian oral history, Division Street: America, despite the metaphorically nature of that title, focuses on a serves a narrower milieu, his "Sweet Home, Chicago" and more local concerns than his later works.
Mainly, this oral history is Studs' effort to reflect on the lives of working people (circa 1970 here but the relevant points could be articulated, as well, in 2008) from Studs' own generation who survived that event, fought World War II and did or did not benefit from the fact of American military victory and world economic preeminence, including those blacks and mountain whites who made the internal migratory trek from the South to the North. Moreover, this book presents the first telltale signs that those defining events for that generation were not unalloyed gold. As channeled through the most important interviewee in this book, Frances Scala, who led an unsuccessful but important 1960's fight against indiscriminate "urban renewal" of her neighborhood (the old Hull House of Jane Addams fame area) Studs make his argument that the sense of social solidarity, in many cases virtually necessary for survival, was eroding.
Studs includes other stories, including the lumpen proletarian extraordinaire Kid Pharaoh who will be met later in Hard Times and the atypical Chicago character who gladly joins the John Birch Society in order to assert his manhood, who do not easily fit into any of those patterns but who nevertheless have stories to tell. And grievances, just, unjust or whimsical, to spill.
One thing that I noticed immediately after reading this book, and as is true of the majority of Terkel's interview books, is that he is not the dominant presence but is a rather light, if intensely interested, interloper in these stories. For better or worse the interviewees get to tell their stories, unchained. In this age of 24/7 media coverage with every half-baked journalist or wannabe interjecting his or her personality into somebody else's story this was, and is, rather refreshing. Of course this journalistic virtue does not mean that Studs did not have control over who got to tell their stories and who didn't to fit his preoccupations and sense of order. He has a point he wants to make and that is that although most "ordinary" people do not make the history books they certainly make history, if not always of their own accord or to their own liking. Again, kudos and adieu Studs.
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One of his better sets of interviews
Rating (4)
Date: 2004-10-05
"Division Street: America" isn't the first title that would pop into most people's minds when they think of Terkel, but I think it should be. I'll admit, I'm totally biased being in Chicago, but maybe that's the best way to read this book.
There is a lot of upheaval and suffering throughout the city due partly to the constantly changing demographics of the neighborhoods, and many of the ethnic pockets and pyschological ghettoes that Terkel talked to people in during 1967 were in the middle of those changes. From the near north area, tight in the protective grip of Mayor Daley to the old Eastern European neighborhoods of the north and west sides which would soon become almost purely Puerto Rican, Cuban and Mexican.
You can really see firsthand, how stupid, how intelligent, how altruistic and how mean people can be in a big city. That's the best part of this whole book: you're left at every page feeling that something monumental is taking place in urban America while the interviews are happening. Civil rights, white flight, Latin immigration, the decline of the manual labor factory job, Viet Nam, etc.
Reading this in 1967 must have been interesting, but knowing what we know about Chicago today and how it's still in a state of flux (and maybe always will be) is really a reason to go back. The problems, the people and the strange mix still exists throughout Division Street today; but thanks to Terkel, we have a little hindsight.
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Carl Sandburg's Chicago
Rating  (5)
Date: 2003-05-30
13 out of 14 customers found this reveiw helpful
Chicago is the city of big shoulders. Carl Sandburg said that. Studs Terkel, in "Division Street: America," gives us the names of those people on whom those big shoulders rest. Like Edgar Lee Masters' collection of poetic epitaphs, "Spoon River Anthology," Terkel titles each chapter with the name of those whose lives are being described.
Division Street runs East-West through Chicago, ending at Lake Shore Drive. It is a major road, and Terkel could've chosen any avenue to name his book. What is important is that it cuts through the center of the city, and, symbolically, into and through the heart of it all.
Each story is a page or two. Some are five or six pages. None are too long. Terkel knows when to finish the story. However, to call the short chapters 'stories' isn't really accurate. They are edited conversations with people you might have known if you lived in Chicago in 1967 when this was first published. Some of the people are cops. Others are teachers, cabbies and nuns. There is even a couple CEOs and advertising guys. Terkel manages to connect with each interviewee, and allow them to do the talking.
Everything you've heard about Studs Terkel or this book is true. It is fantastically voyeuristic, and terrifically revealing without ever being cheap or exploitive. These people are so familiar, as if you overheard Terkel chatting with them at a diner or coffeehouse.
I wholeheartedly recommend "Division Street: America" by Studs Terkel.
Anthony Trendl
editor, HungarianBookstore.com
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A Tremendous Accomplishment
Rating (5)
Date: 2000-05-17
Words can't even begin to describe what a powerful and moving book this is. Studs Turkel shows that he is an American treasure with each book he writes.
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