Curriculum Politics for Television: Sesame Street and Mister Rogers Neighborhood

A politics of education existed in the postwar broadcasting era. Educational broadcasting existed through federal policy – the federal government regulates the airwaves – a structure that provided a different context from K-12 and higher education politics. Embedded within the politics of educational television was tremendous ambition, such as the claim of Sesame Street’s creators to test whether broadcast television could educate at scale. That ambition set the stage for deep differences in how the two child-focused anchors of early PBS history approached their mission.

Fred Rogers and the Children’s Television Workshop produced shows that were loved by their audiences and parents. They both used professional research communities to shape the origins of and details within each show. They both veered away from school-like formats of shows such as Romper Room and Ding-Dong School, and neither used child actors. And, of course, they both used puppetry and music. Yet they had deep philosophical differences – Rogers with a view best described as pastoral care and a deliberately slow pace, while Sesame Street used and advanced recognized television pacing to keep children’s attention within each program.

Archival sources are primarily from the Children’s Television Workshop papers at the University of Maryland (College Park) and the Fred Rogers papers at St. Vincent College (Latrobe, Penn.). These include proposals for both shows (the original proposals for what became Sesame Street was well as several drafts of funding proposals for the early versions of Mister Rogers Neighborhood), internal memoranda that illustrate key decisions made based on philosophical beliefs, and correspondence between Fred Rogers and Joan Ganz Cooney (the co-founder of the Children’s Television Workshop).