"I hope that memory is valued - that we do not lose memory."

Happy November. We go to the polls in three days.

In 1952, the National Broadcasting Corporation was concerned that its employees had political inclinations. One of their broadcasters, in particular, had a penchant for signing petitions in favor of lefty candidates. This one broadcaster, the head of a laid-back variety show that pioneered the "Chicago style" of television, seemed particularly likely to draw the attention of Sen. Joe McCarthy. NBC suggested to their employee that he sign a statement saying he had been "duped" into signing those petitions by wily activists. Studs Terkel resigned instead, because he said that "duped" made him sound stupid.

Five years later, Terkel would write his first book, "Giants of Jazz." He would write 17 more in his career. Five years after that, he heard a Woody Guthrie record on WFMT-Chicago, and called to see if they wanted some help. He worked there for 45 years. He died yesterday, at the age of 96, having seen most of the American Century.

In 1980, his book "American Dreams: Lost and Found" interviewed everyone from former slaves to former KKK members with Terkel's famous compassion. In 1992, he wrote "Race: How Blacks and Whites Think and Feel About the American Obsession." Three years later, he wrote "Coming of Age" about growing old. Both were a collection of interviewers with Americans, talking to them like adults on some of the hardest things we deal with. At the age of 73, in 1985, Terkel won the Pulitzer Prize in 1985 for "The Good War," which redefined the way we think of World War II (or did, until "The Greatest Generation" made it politically inexpedient to say that America was anything other than completely happy and united during WWII). He also remains one of the few people I find it acceptable - and not hopelessly pretentious - to quote.

He lived and died a through-and-through Chicagoan. His first bestseller, "Division Street: America" was, according to the Chicago Tribune:

It told the stories, in their own words, of businessmen, prostitutes, Hispanics, blacks, ordinary working people who formed the unit of America and also the divisions in society, using Chicago's Division Street as a prototype of America.

The Nation has written pieces celebrating his leftist, populist legacy, and while no conservative outlets have put out obits yet, I expect to see one or two more negative ones, once the appropriate time has passed. He did, after all, champion causes as liberal and Fightin' Bob LaFollette and Dennis Kucinich. But his books are strikingly unpolemical. And, as the Times pointed out, Terkel elevated the form of oral history to art form, and had a profound influence on many, many journalists, including this one. The idea that an interview is more of a conversation, and that the primary role of the interviewer is to listen and respect what the person is saying, is a major breakthrough in people- and reader-centric journalism, and it was mostly Studs Terkel's doing.

He was vibrant until the end, doing interviews encouraging Barack Obama to be less moderate and embody the ideas of the New Deal, whose programs gave him Terkel first writing job. While I think it's probably fair to say that Obama is not a fan of the massive government programs of 60 years ago, it is interesting that, yesterday, SJS Tangential Friend Jeremy Gerard wrote this story for Bloomberg, about Obama's little-discussed ambitious plans for culture and the arts. Greatness for a civilization occurs not just on the battlefield and in the boardroom but on pages and stages as well. Studs Terkel would say it also occurs in storefronts in small towns, and on rocking chairs on front porches. He would be right, and we know that in part because someone - him - went and took the trouble to talk to those people. Like Alan Lomax, Studs Terkel made the capturing of our identity and culture a life's work, and we might have lost it all had the Federal Writer's Project never happened. It may seem odd that I'm taking a moment, mid-obit, to make a political point about funding for the arts, but I think Terkel would be okay with it.

It is appropriate, to me, that his least successful books were his memoirs. For all his strong opinions, Terkel never gave into making himself the story, the most cardinal of journalistic sins. I confess to wondering what Terkel thought of blogging, which is sort of the opposite of listening, but also can be the type of personal history that he loved so much.

Perhaps I like Terkel so much because he managed to have passion and compassion at the same time. He was obviously a political radical, but never let his own ideas keep him from listening to the story someone else was telling. His liberalism was never tainted with elitism or cynicism, only an undying faith in the people of this country to understand and make solid decisions if we'd just treat them with a bit of respect. In the midst of the Iraq War sale in 2003, he was one of a few voices - decried as an anti-American liberal pinko terrorist sympathizer commie freak, of course - saying that the media was not doing its job, but instead buying a load of crap and then feeding it to the American people. He was a liberal, a lefty, a dove, and many other things; he was also right, when many others were not. And he was right on the Iraq War, and so much else, not because of his political beliefs, but because he knew how to listen. When the rest of us were panicking or buying in or agonizing or protesting, he was listening to our leaders, and what he heard sounded like lies.

One of the greatest storytellers in American history, Studs Terkel rarely wrote his own narratives. Instead, he let others write them, and had faith that others would see and hear as well as he did.