Then and Now

In December I read Sesame Street and the Reform of Children's Television by Robert Morrow. It was a great book that talked about the beginnings of the beloved show and how they've been working to improve children's programming ever since. The other night, I started Getting to Sesame Street: Origins of the Children's Television Workshop by Richard Polsky. I am barely a dozen pages in, so I can't tell you much about it yet, but there is something that I've already noticed. So far, they both paint a drastically different picture of Joan Ganz Cooney.

It wasn't until I read the Morrow book that I really understood who Cooney was and what role she played in the Workshop. She is one of the original creators of Sesame Street and founders of the Children's Television Workshop. (She wasn't alone in doing either of these two things, but I am going to talk about how these two books have conveyed her so I'll be focusing on her involvement.) I really liked the Morrow book because he explained the setting that Cooney was working in and the research she did to justify her decisions. I wish I had the book here so I could find some quotes for you, but it has disappeared back into the interlibrary loan system. My impression and what I remember from the book is that Cooney was working against a lot of nay-sayers. People were criticizing head-start programs so the education purposes she wanted were under scrutiny. Parents were up in arms about what the television was doing to their families and the violence it was bringing into their homes. This meant that she was under attack for her choice in medium. Despite that, she wrote grants that funded research that ultimately shaped and justified Sesame Street.

The Polsky book is a little different. Let me share with you a paragraph from the second page.

One evening in February or March 1966 in New York, at a dinner party given by Mr. and Mrs. Cooney, the conversation turned to television. Among the guests that night were Lloyd Morrisett, vice-president of Carnegie Corporation and log associated with the foundation's activities in early childhood education and its more recent interest in television, and Lewis Freeman, director of programming at WNDT. As. Mrs. Cooney recalled that evening, Freedman said he felt television was going to be the great educator of the future. Morrisett then became intrigued with designing a TV series for educating young children and suggested that Carnegie representatives soon meet with Freeman and Mrs. Cooney to discuss in detail television for preschoolers.

That difference has really struck me. In one book she is a heroine standing against criticism and fighting for low-income children. In the other a television show was seemingly handed to her on a sliver platter (or her own china). I don't want to be overly critical of Polsky or call him sexist. I've just started the book, and it was published in 1971. I am just fascinated by my own reaction. I had to actually set the book aside because I was put off by my hero being described as a housewife. I am going to be working woman who also has a husband, children, and dinner parties. In fact, I've thought a lot about how much time I want to take off of work when my children are born. I am not at all put off by the idea of staying home with them while they are babies. If my perception of her is changed this drastically just by reading a second book, won't it be great to actually meet her and see how she conveys herself instead of how other people present her.