Working World

Joan Ganz Cooney is ranked number 83 in Deborah G. Felder’s book The 100 Most Influential Women of All Time, along with such notables as Eleanor Roosevelt, Amelia Earhart, and another pioneering female television executive, Lucille Ball. Cooney is credited with inventing educational television programming for small children, founding the Children’s Television Workshop and creating its groundbreaking show, "Sesame Street," now an honored American institution.

A native of Phoenix, Cooney received a degree in education from the University of Arizona and had early jobs in newspaper reporting and public relations for media companies RCA and NBC.

Eventually, she became a publicist for WNET/Channel 13, New York City’s PBS station. According to Wikipedia, Cooney took a 25 percent pay cut to take this opportunity to get into public broadcasting, where she produced roundtable discussion shows and documentaries.

In 1966, she conducted a nationwide study and wrote a paper called “The Potential Uses of Television in Preschool Education.” With the involvement and encouragement of Carnegie Corporation executive Lloyd Morrisett, the paper became a proposal to the Carnegie Foundation, seeking funding for an educational media organization. Additional private and public funding gave Cooney $8 million with which to launch the Children’s Television Workshop in 1968.

As executive director, Cooney set up CTW and had production personnel collaborate with educators, child development experts and researchers to develop a show that would blend entertainment and education for preschoolers to make learning fun and prepare them for the transition to school.

They also wanted to reach a broader audience that included low-income populations that did not traditionally watch public television. She told the Los Angeles Times that she wanted to make it “a kind of 'Laugh-In' for kids,” mimicking that show’s fast pace and multiple formats. All this was quite innovative, going against the stereotype of public broadcasting as pedantic and dry and for elitist and well-educated audiences.

The name “Sesame Street” aimed to conjure up a sense of exotic adventure (as in “open sesame”), while referencing an urban landscape familiar to the target audience: inner-city children. She hired Jim Henson, creator of the Muppets, and they developed a multiracial (and multi-species) cast of characters, such as Big Bird and the Cookie Monster, among others. "Sesame Street" first aired in late 1969. Over the years, the segments have dealt with subjects such as love and marriage, anger, death, pregnancy, childbirth and adoption. It also encourages understanding, tolerance and cooperation. “We consciously model the acceptance of all people, of treating people kindly,” Cooney told the Los Angeles Times.

With the success of "Sesame Street," Cooney developed other shows, such as "The Electric Company" (basic reading instruction) and "Square One Television." The Children’s Television Workshop was renamed Sesame Workshop and has continued to produce "Sesame Street" and other award-winning children’s shows. Product licensing and foreign distribution accounts for much of the revenue needed to produce the shows and run Sesame Workshop.

In 1990, Cooney stepped down as president of CTW, but at age 78, she still serves on the board of trustees as chairman of the executive committee of Sesame Workshop. She is the recipient of many awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1995, and has honorary degrees from many colleges and universities.

The Museum of Broadcast Communications says that Cooney “has enriched children’s television with her vision, has altered the public perception of and introduced record-setting audiences to public television, and has raised the level of expectation for children entering school.”

Suzanne Ridgway is a freelance writer and regular columnist for Working World and Working Nurse magazines. She also writes grant proposals for nonprofit organizations.