Studs Terkel Archive, subject categories photo research and photo direction

Updated: Nov 18, 2019

With over sixty main topic categories to present, one of the most difficult task of curating this selection of images was ensuring the pacing or diversity, color versus black and white (especially challenging since photojournalism was not commonly color until the late 1980's), and visuals that encompass the broad strokes of content within the archives. Doing this image work required deep familiarity with the archives as a whole in order to direct my research and make selections appropriate to the sentiments and time of Studs Terkel's body of work.

The lead photo below is a less likely choice to illustrate the Vietnam War than seen in most heroic war story headlines. But since many of Terkel's interviewed guests were anti-war activists and former soldiers with profound thoughts and candid insights to the atrocities of several wars, this sentiment of this photo is appropriate to its category and as a representative of the archives contents. It also serves as a reminder of the very intimate and real horrors on both sides of any given battle. All category images were chosen to engage archive web visitors to click through and explore more about each topic. I purposely avoided iconic imagery, as we wanted visitors to feel they were exploring something new and unknown. I was also sure to represent as many ideals, communities, and cultures as possible with only sixty-plus opportunities to do so.