Division Street Revisited
Mary SchmichPulitzer Prize winner Mary Schmich traces the lives of seven people in Studs Terkel’s first book of oral history: A Black public school janitor; a Lithuanian tavern owner; an Appalachian mother of 15; a closeted gay actor; a Native American activist; a Black labor leader; and a prominent white woman in Chicago high society. What happened to them? To their children? To their dreams?
Pulitzer Prize winner Mary Schmich traces the lives of seven people in Studs Terkel’s first book of oral history: A Black public school janitor; a Lithuanian tavern owner; an Appalachian mother of 15; a closeted gay actor; a Native American activist; a Black labor leader; and a prominent white woman in Chicago high society. What happened to them? To their children? To their dreams?
Mary Schmich on the Nieman Storyboard Podcast
This week, we're sharing an episode of the Nieman Storyboard podcast which features Mary Schmich.
Schmich has won the Pulitzer Prize and the Studs Terkel Award for her work as a columnist at the Chicago Tribune. She grew up in Georgia and Arizona as the oldest of eight children, and she graduated from Pomona College and attended journalism school at Stanford. From 1985 until 2021, she worked at the Chicago Tribune, where she was a features writer, a national correspondent and, for 29 years, a columnist. "Over the years, I cultivated three essential mantras, which [were]: Panic is my muse. Deadlines crowd out doubt. It always gets done," Schmich said.
Get the full show notes and reading list: https://niemanstoryboard.org/2025/04/24/mary-schmich-podcasts-division-street-revisited/
Show credits
Hosted and produced by Mark Armstrong
Associate producer: Marina Leigh
Episode editor: Kelly Araja
Audience editor: Adriana Lacy
Promotional support: Ellen Tuttle
Operational support: Paul Plutnicki, Peter Canova
Nieman Foundation curator: Ann Marie Lipinski
Deputy curator: Henry Chu
Music: “Golden Grass,” by Blue Dot Sessions (www.sessions.blue)
Cover design by Adriana Lacy
Nieman Storyboard is presented by the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard.