Following in the footsteps of a legend can make for a tough trip, but here now is Mark Larson, putting in my hands a copy of his new book, “Working in the 21st Century: An Oral History of American Work in a Time of Social and Economic Transformation,” which is directly tied to Louis “Studs” Terkel — the author, radio host, actor, activist and Chicago symbol who has been dead since Halloween in 2008 but who remains part of the city’s fabric for keeps.
It was in his 1974 book “Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do,” a huge bestseller, that Terkel made the grim observation that work is about “violence — to the spirit as well as to the body. It is about ulcers as well as accidents, about shouting matches as well as fistfights, about nervous breakdowns as well as kicking the dog around. It is, above all (or beneath all), about daily humiliations. To survive the day is triumph enough for the walking wounded among the great many of us.”
That feeling was fueled and formed by the words of the dozens of working people — fireman and farmer, a pair of spot-welders and a couple of cabbies, some actors, a bank teller, stewardess, prostitute, nurse, waitress, librarian and a gravedigger. Terkel came away convinced that work, however it can batter a spirit, is also a search “for daily meaning as well as daily bread, for recognition as well as cash, for astonishment rather than torpor; in short, for a sort of life rather than a Monday through Friday sort of dying.”
Now, into this vastly different planet, comes Larson’s “Working,” born from a seed planted by Doug Seibold, the president of Agate Publishing. His firm had recently published Larson’s fine and entertaining oral history of the Chicago theater world, “Ensemble: An Oral History of Chicago Theater” and he asked what might be next for Larson. Before the author could answer, Seibold said, “Have you thought about taking a stab at updating Studs Terkel’s ‘Working’?”
Larson vividly remembers this 2020 conversation.
“I jumped at it,” he said. “What a great idea. I was honored, of course, since Studs had been such an important figure in my life.”
But then his feet were firmly back on the ground. “Holy mackerel,” he said. “This was intimidating. My first instinct, to interview some of the same people Studs talked to, or at least people in the same professions, just wasn’t going to work.”
He discovered, quickly, a working world vastly different from Terkel’s.
“Some of the jobs then no longer exist and there are now jobs that no one could even have imagined 50 years ago,” he said. “There was no Facebook, no Twitter, no cell phones, no computers to speak of.”
But he dove in, in part because he has had, as he writes, “a work history (that) has been eclectic.” He was the son of Dorothy and Roy Larson, his father was an admired journalist, teacher and religion columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times. Mark Larson dropped out of college and took a series of jobs. He cleaned houses. He washed dishes. He sold magazines over the phone. The most interesting job was as assistant to Burr Tillstrom, the genius who created “Kukla, Fran and Ollie.”
But with a new wife and kids on the way (he and Mary would have twin daughters, Emily and Sarah, and later twin grandsons, Tilden and Nicholas), he went back to college and got a degree. He taught English at Evanston Township High School for more than a decade, then was offered an educational leadership job at the Field Museum, which was followed by a similar job at Lincoln Park Zoo, and then some years at National Louis University.
“The day I walked out the door, a retired professor, is the day I started working on ‘Ensemble,’” he says.
That book received favorable reviews and he interviewed 300-some people for it. He interviewed some 150 for his new book, with 103 making it into its nearly 400 pages. A few you might have heard of, or even know. I have long known restaurateur Amy Morton, jazz singer Kurt Elling and former television anchor Linda MacLennan and each of them here is honest, introspectively thoughtful and provocative.
Morton: “From day one of the pandemic, I believe it was the universe and continues to be the universe telling us that we are sick: ‘You’re sick as a culture.’”
Elling: “I really need to sing for people, and I need that exhaustion. I need to be exhausted by my work. I’m built for that challenge.”
MacLennan: “At almost 66, I feel like I’m a 45-year-old who has lots of great experience. And just because it’s taken me 65 years to get all that experience, don’t discount me, right? I think we all feel that way.”
The other voices are equally compelling, all talking in the shadow of the pandemic. It’s a wonderfully varied gathering. There is a COVID contact tracer, a street performer, union organizer, elder, flight attendant, firefighter, chemist, funeral home director, doula and many teachers.
“It was not hard to get people to talk,” Larson says. “People have an innate need to communicate. I threw a wide net. A few did not respond and some got cold feet after the interviews. I did not come in with prepared questions and tried to allow the interviews to flow in whatever direction they flowed.”
Terkel was always on his mind, for he saw the man he calls “the master” in interviewing action. When Larson was teaching in Evanston, he was interviewed by Terkel for Terkel’s 1992 book “Race: How Blacks and Whites Think and Feel About the American Obsession,” with Larson appearing under the pseudonym Peter Soderstrom, a common practice of Terkel’s and one that Larson has used sparingly in this book.
Terkel later interviewed Larson for 2003’s “Hope Dies Last: Keeping the Faith in Difficult Times,” but that interview did not make it into print. Still, writes Larson, “I experienced firsthand the power of his uncommon attentiveness, empathy, and curiosity. His questions were sometimes alarmingly astute, always probing.”
Larson will be out and about speaking in public about his book, including Feb. 29 at the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum and March 7 at the Chicago History Museum in an event with me and CHM chief historian Peter Alter. He also plans to be an audience member on May 13 for “A Musical Salute to Chicago’s Own Studs Terkel” at the Rhapsody Theater.
He will also be busy working on his next book, a biography of actor and activist Ed Asner. They met some years ago when Larson was working on “Ensemble” and continued their conversations until the actor’s death in 2021 at age 91.
rkogan@chicagotribune.com
