History
"I saw this new thing called television, and I saw people throwing pies in each other's faces, and I thought, this could be a wonderful tool for education! Why is it being used this way? So I said to my parents, 'You know, I don't think I'll go into seminary right away. I think I'll go into television.'"
- Fred Rogers 1999 (Archive of American TV)
- Fred Rogers 1999 (Archive of American TV)
When Rogers began with NBC in 1951, television was a newcomer. Rogers thought TV was off to a bad start. He wanted to tap its potential to help children understand their place in the world. "Television had established its place as the most important single form of entertainment and of passing the time."
- Leo Bogart, TV's first historian 1950s (Northern Illinois University Libraries) |
"Fred Rogers is a teacher... And what’s so important about what Fred Rogers does on television is that it is unlike anything else on television. And what is he teaching? How to count to ten? No! How to name all the capitals in the United States? No! Here’s what he’s teaching: 'You are like nobody else. There is only one person in the world like you, and... people can like you exactly
the way you are.'"
- David McCullough, historian (Fred Rogers Center)
the way you are.'"
- David McCullough, historian (Fred Rogers Center)
Rogers' decision to use media to teach peacemaking skills to children was prescient.
"Life is a curious journey. Certainly when Fred and I married, neither he nor I expected to find ourselves on the road that was ahead of us... from what he saw on television in 1951, he knew in his heart that there could be a connection between television, the real needs of human beings (particularly children), and spirituality." - Sara Joanne Rogers (Fred Rogers Center) |
Banner Image: On set 1976 (Corbis Bettmann)