Pulitzer Prize winner Mary Schmich takes a deeper look at the lives of seven people featured in Studs Terkel’s first book of oral history. They include 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? And what has changed from their time in the 1960s to today? 

Our series launches Monday, Jan. 27, 2025, and drops every Tuesday for six weeks thereafter.