Fred Rogers dedicated his life to understanding childhood. He took that knowledge to the medium of television with his groundbreaking PBS series, “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.”
Over more than 30 years Mister Rogers created a relationship with millions of children, each of whom felt like they were visiting with a trusted friend. Mister Rogers looked directly into the camera and sang and talked to each child watching. His radical kindness, acceptance, and empathy created a place that as TV Guide described: “… makes us, young and old alike, feel safe, cared for and valued… Wherever Mister Rogers is, so is sanctuary.”
Each “visit” starts with the donning of the sweater and sneakers signaling the transformation from Fred Rogers to Mister Rogers. That seemingly simple routine is part of a larger message and an invitation. The message: I care about you, no matter who you are and no matter what you can or cannot do. The invitation: Let’s spend this time together. We’ll build a relationship and talk and imagine and sing about things that matter to you.
Don’t be fooled by what appears on the surface to be a simple television show. There‘s a reason for everything Mister Rogers does, from taking off his jacket and putting on a sweater to using the Neighborhood Trolley to travel to Make-Believe.
Originally founded in 1962 as the National Instructional Television Library (NITL), AIT operated in Bloomington, Indiana for almost fifty years, creating educational television programming for National Educational Television (NET) and later PBS. The organization prided itself as leader in developing educational material for a television age and believed that evolving televisual technology could, according to one AIT catalogue, “complement traditional teaching by providing ‘field trips’ through time and space, demonstrations, and simulations.” A shift in emphasis from “television” to “technology” in 1984 marked the expansion of AIT to include development of instructional materials for computers and other technologies. The mission of AIT paralleled the various audio-visual instructional activities at Indiana University’s own Audio-Visual Center (AVC) and the NET Film Service, which, through a network of collaborative efforts, produced and distributed educational programming for nearly half a century.
Remember those surreal educational television shows that PBS used to air in the mornings? Those.
The Library of Congress and WGBH in Boston have embarked on a project to preserve for posterity the most significant public television and radio programs of the past 60 years: The American Archive of Public Broadcasting. The American people have made a huge investment in public radio and television over many decades, calculated at more than $10 billion. The American Archive will ensure that this rich source for American political, social, and cultural history and creativity will be saved and made available once again to future generations.
In August 2013, the Library and WGBH received a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to engage in the first phase of a long-term project to preserve public media. During this first phase, scheduled to end in September 2016, the Library and WGBH are overseeing the digitization of approximately 40,000 hours of programs selected by more than 100 public broadcasting stations throughout the nation. Dating from the 1940s to the 21st century and emanating from all regions of the nation, these programs will be available to scholars, researchers, educators, students, and the general public at the Library’s audiovisual research centers and at WGBH.