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Chronicling Chicago, one column at a time

Co-curated by Northwestern’s Bill Savage, new exhibit pays tribute to legendary columnist Mike Royko and the heyday of print
August 14, 2024 | By Teresa Nowakowski
Visitors to the Mike Royko exhibit look at an honor box and printing plate
The Newberry Library's “Chicago Style: Mike Royko and Windy City Journalism,” co-curated by Northwestern's Bill Savage, takes visitors back to the reign of the legendary columnist and newspaper culture. Photo by Teresa Nowakowski

Over a career spanning three decades, Mike Royko penned over 7,500 columns for Chicagoans, and, later, a national audience. He won a Pulitzer, palled around with greats like Studs Terkel and did stints at the Chicago Daily News, Chicago Sun-Times and Chicago Tribune.

His narrative skill and ability to capture neighborhood, corner-tavern, Old Style-drinking Chicago in its own — often cantankerous — vernacular earns him a spot alongside Chicago authors such as Richard Wright, Sandra Cisneros and Rebecca Makkai, according to Bill Savage, a professor of instruction in the English department of Northwestern’s Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences.

“[Royko’s columns] are absolutely part and parcel of the Chicago literary tradition,” Savage said. “He was writing about the same kind of things that poets and novelists and playwrights were writing about — the way the city shapes people, the difference between dominant and marginal peoples, the beauty of the place, the ugliness of the place.”

Savage grew up reading Royko’s work, and for the last 25 years, he’s taught Royko’s columns and excerpts from “Boss,” Royko’s biography of Mayor Richard J. Daley, in his classes. Recently, he also lent his expertise to co-curating the Newberry Library’s latest exhibition, “Chicago Style: Mike Royko and Windy City Journalism,” alongside the Newberry Library’s Sarah Boyd Alvarez, director of exhibitions, and Kristin Emery, the Newberry’s director of governance and strategic initiatives. The exhibition, which is free to attend, runs until Sept. 28.

Savage’s co-curator role involved writing the exhibition’s wall text and determining how to present Royko to visitors. It was challenging to figure out how to distill such a key figure in Chicago history.

“I could sit down and pound out 10,000 words about Royko and not even be started,” he said.

Objects on display include items from Royko’s offices — his press passes, an open pack of Carlton cigarettes, his hat and coat and his Rolodex, open to Studs Terkel’s contact card. Photo by Teresa Nowakowski

For those like Savage who grew up reading Royko, “Chicago Style” is a chance to revisit an old friend and think about the shifting media landscape. It also introduces attendees who may not have heard of Royko to not only the man and his narrative skill, but the role commentators like him played in a time when print journalism was the primary means of spreading information.

“Everyone in town would be reading this guy and arguing about him, agreeing or disagreeing,” Savage said. “A voice that omnipresent is part of this newspaper culture that’s gone, so I feel like I’ve got to introduce him via introducing that culture.”

Royko was a prolific contributor to the heyday of print. But instead of lining the walls with the text of Royko’s greatest hits or trying to create a comprehensive biography of the newspaperman, the exhibition uses three-dimensional objects to evoke the culture of the time and Royko’s place in it.

Objects on display include items from Royko’s offices — his press passes, an open pack of Carlton cigarettes, his hat and coat and his Rolodex, open to Studs Terkel’s contact card. There are also artifacts of the newspaper culture of the time: A red Chicago Daily News honor box holds a vintage newspaper. A large poster that would once have hung on the side of a bus or delivery van declares, “Mike Royko and the new Daily News — they stand up for you.” A printing plate from the final issue of the Chicago Daily News displays the headline, “So long, Chicago” (which editorial cartoonist Jeff MacNelly would parallel in his work honoring Royko after his death in 1997).
Editorial cartoonist Jeff MacNelly paralleled the headline of the final issue of the Chicago Daily News in his work honoring Royko after his death in 1997. Photo by Teresa Nowakowski

Though the heyday of newspapers and general columnists is gone, Savage points out that Royko’s work can still inform our lives today. Take “Boss,” for example: “The biography of Richard J. Daley is really the biography of 20th-century Chicago,” Savage said. “And 20th-century Chicago shapes 21st-century Chicago.” And in his columns, Royko’s points on topics like political division continue to resonate today. (Visitors can peruse a small collection of classic Royko columns as part of the exhibit.)

Of course, as someone whose job was to be opinionated, Royko stirred up controversy, and his takes didn’t always land. But in contrast to our media landscape today, Savage said, even when people disagreed with Royko’s opinions on a subject, they still agreed on basic facts of the situation and had greater trust in their information sources.

“We can’t argue about what things mean if we don’t agree what happened,” he said.

“Chicago Style” closes by encouraging attendees to think about today’s media landscape, asking them questions like, “What media formats do you turn to for news and opinion?” and “Who is the Mike Royko of today?”

Visitors’ responses include writers including Sun-Times columnist Neil Steinberg and Tribune columnist Rick Kogan, but for others, Royko remains peerless. As one attendee wrote, “Nobody compares!”

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