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Oral history interview with Joan Ganz Cooney [electronic resource], 1998.

Creator: Cooney, Joan Ganz
Project: Carnegie Corporation project. Pt. 2.
(see all project interviews)
Phys. Desc. :transcript: 80 pages sound file : digital preservation master, WAV files (96 kHz, 24 bit)
Location: Columbia Center for Oral History
Full CLIO record >>

Biographical Note

President, Children's Television Workshop.

Scope and Contents

Early childhood and education: Phoenix, Arizona; influence of parochial schooling on philanthropic values; Dominican College of San Rafael, University of Arizona at Tucson, degree in early childhood education; desire to work in television, move to New York City: publicity work for soap operas and U.S. Steel Corporation; volunteer for Partisan Review; work for Public Broadcasting Service [PBS] Channel Thirteen: producer of cultural and political debates; work for weekly show Court of Reason; U.S. policy on Cuba, civil rights, communism, education for young children, documentaries, winning Emmy for documentary Poverty, Anti-Poverty and the Poor; funding problems at Channel Thirteen; interest in potential power of educational and public television; research on affective versus cognitive learning styles and impact on creation of television shows for children; colleagueship with Lloyd Morrisett; Carnegie Corporation of New York [Carnegie] funding of 1966 three-month study of cognitive development, influence of psychologist Samuel Rabinowitz's research on how infants learn through sight; Children's Television Workshop: Sesame Street proposal, support from government, positive reception from Carnegie and the Ford Foundation, role of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in targeting middle-class and disadvantaged children, efforts to gain nationwide audience; work with Jim Henson with puppets and Joe Raposo with music, status as semi-autonomous arm of National Educational Television; influence of Head Start, work with Educational Testing Service on curriculum; changing standards in television; creation of Non-Broadcast Materials Division for income, end of government monetary support in early eighties, expansion of programs to other countries.

Subjects

Access Conditions

Copyright by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, 2022. The Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York hold a non-exclusive license to enable library activities.

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