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Radio Diaries

The Working Tapes – Part 1

Radio Diaries

Radio Diaries & Radiotopia

Documentary, Society & Culture

4.61.3K Ratings

🗓️ 30 September 2016

⏱️ 17 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

An auto union worker, a switchboard telephone operator, a press agent…

In the early 1970’s, author Studs Terkel went around the country with a reel-to-reel tape recorder interviewing people about their jobs for his book, “Working.” It was a surprise bestseller. 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. Over the past year, Radio Diaries, along with Project&, combed through them to produce a new NPR series. This is the first of a three-part podcast series on The Working Tapes.

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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

You're listening to Radio Diaries. This is Joe.

0:03.0

And this is Elisa.

0:05.0

And we want to thank everybody who has donated to Radiotopia's annual fundraiser so far.

0:09.0

We are coming to the end of the road, but we still have yet to reach our goal of a thousand donors.

0:15.3

So we want to let you know some of the things that your donation supports here at Radio Diaries.

0:21.5

We just finished our big series, The Unmarched Graveyard, and there's some expenses that you might expect, you know, paying for our producers, paying for research, paying for some gear, and there's some unexpected things.

0:34.0

Elisa, is there anything that was kind of unexpected?

0:37.0

For sure, like with the first story that I worked on, I interviewed a woman named Susan

0:41.2

Harlebert, whose son had died and was buried on Hard Island.

0:45.4

And after I interviewed her, I realized that she had actually never visited her son's grave.

0:50.1

So we decided to set that up.

0:52.0

You know, I went to pick her up a couple hours north of the city that cost us some gas money.

0:56.4

We put her up in a hotel and I bought a bunch of pizza and bagels to power us through the weekend.

1:01.7

And it was a really beautiful and

1:04.0

carb-filled couple days.

1:07.0

We hope that gives you a glimpse at some of the things that your donation helps

1:10.0

to support here at Radio Diaries

1:12.0

and we hope that you'll support us and the rest of the shows in the Radio Topia family.

1:17.0

You can donate today at radiotopia.F.M. slash donate. That's Radiotopia. F.M. slash donate.

1:24.0

And thank you so much for your support. Radio Topia. From PRX is Radiotopia, this is Radio Diaries. I'm Joe Richmond.

1:40.0

How do you feel about your work? Do your arms get tired?

1:43.0

What do you do?

...

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