The Working Tapes, Revisited
Radio Diaries
Radio Diaries & Radiotopia
4.6 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 18 September 2025
⏱️ 14 minutes
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Summary
In the early 1970s, author Studs Terkel interviewed the owners of Duke & Lee's Auto Repair in Geneva, Illinois, for his bestselling book, Working. He went to talk to them about fixing cars. What he found was a story about fathers and sons working together, and the tensions within a family business.
We went back to Duke & Lee's four decades later and found the family business still intact—tensions and all.
That was nine years ago. Recently, we heard that the family, and the auto shop, had gone through some big changes. So we got back in touch.
This week, the story of a family and their business at three moments in history.
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| 0:00.0 | Radiotopia from PRX. |
| 0:05.0 | From PRX's Radiotopia, this is Radio Diaries. |
| 0:08.0 | I'm Joe Richman. |
| 0:10.0 | Author and oral historian Studs Terkel once wrote, |
| 0:16.0 | Work is about a search for daily meaning as well as daily bread, |
| 0:20.0 | for recognition as well as cash, |
| 0:22.7 | for astonishment rather than torpor. In short, for a sort of life rather than a Monday |
| 0:27.6 | through Friday sort of dying. In the early 1970s, Studs went around the country with |
| 0:34.2 | a real-to-reel tape recorder looking to interview ordinary people about their jobs. How would you describe your work? I'm a processing clerk. I'm a carpenter from South Carolina. Boring monotonous. Your mouth gets tired, tired of talking. I started working when I was about 12 years old. I mean, you got a wife. Nothing wrong with it. People were knowing it for years. |
| 0:59.9 | He turned these interviews into a best-selling book called Working. After that book was released in 1974, the interviews were packed away in Stud's home office. But a while back, we at Radio Diaries, |
| 1:06.2 | along with our friend Jane Sacks at Project And, were offered a chance to make a radio series out of those recordings. |
| 1:12.9 | For one of his interviews, Studs Terkel went to visit Duke and Lee's auto repair in Geneva, Illinois, |
| 1:18.4 | just outside Chicago. |
| 1:19.8 | It's the automobile. It's tinkering with cars you like. |
| 1:23.3 | It's not tinkering. |
| 1:24.7 | I'm not tinkering. I'm sorry. |
| 1:26.0 | Repairing. |
| 1:26.8 | Fixed. |
| 1:27.3 | You know. Studs went there to talk about the work of fixing cars. It's not tinkering. I'm not tinkering, I'm sorry. Repairing. Fixed. Give up. |
| 1:28.5 | Studs went there to talk about the work of fixing cars, |
| 1:31.4 | but what he found was a different story about fathers and sons working together |
| 1:35.7 | and the tensions within a family business. |
... |
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