For a certain generation of Chicagoans, it’s unimaginable growing up not knowing the name Mike Royko.
But a lot of people in their 20s and younger who grew up as print media declined have never heard of the famed Chicago newspaper columnist.
Northwestern English professor Bill Savage and a group of curators at the Newberry Library hope to change that with an exhibition that opened Thursday entitled “Chicago Style: Mike Royko and Windy City Journalism.”
“When I have students read Royko for the first time, they’re blown away, and I tell them that once upon a time you would not be on your phone looking at daily influencers, you would be reading Chicago columnists,” Savage said.
The free exhibit, located just off the lobby of the library’s main entrance, includes Royko’s Rolodex, which is open to the late Studs Terkel’s contact info.
Hundreds of other notable numbers are in there, too, like the number for the late comedian John Belushi, whose famous “Saturday Night Live” sketch popularized Royko’s favorite watering hole, the Billy Goat Tavern, said co-curator Sarah Alvarez.
The exhibit also includes Royko’s tweed hat and jacket, an opened pack of Carlton 100s cigarettes that were actually his, and Royko’s silver ashtray with birds taking flight.
There’s also an honor box and a reporter’s notepad with some notes in blue pen that are believed to be research for his best-selling book “Boss.”
A Chicago police press pass from 1997 has Royko listed as 5 feet and 11 inches tall and weighing 195 pounds.
A poster that might have once hung on the side of a passing CTA bus reads: “Mike Royko and the new Daily News — they stand up for you.”
There’s a photo of his Chicago Daily News 16-inch softball team.
“I’m interested in trying to get people’s heads around a time in Chicago when print was the dominant form of sharing information,” Savage said.
Exhibit signs tell Royko’s story: “He wrote as a Chicagoan about things Chicagoans loved or hated, cried over or laughed at. He wrote of the neighborhood taverns, especially his beloved Billy Goat.”
Royko wrote for the Chicago Daily News from 1959 until it closed in 1978. The Sun-Times became his outlet until it was purchased by Rupert Murdoch in 1984. He then wrote for the Chicago Tribune until his death in 1997.
Royko’s wife, Judy, donated several dozen boxes filled with Royko writings and other belongings to the museum in 2005.
The Newberry Library is an independent research library open to the public, which means that people are invited to come, obtain a library card, and sort through the collection for themselves.
One thing they might find, which was not included in the exhibit, is a terse letter sent to Royko from a riled-up reader who conveyed the message: “Up yours!”
Royko wrote back and “really let the guy have it,” said co-curator Kristin Emery, who had to stifle laughter as she read the missive at a table near several others quietly doing their own research in the library.
Royko deemed his response worthy of a copy for his records before mailing it off.
