Photo: Walt Seng; Distributed by PBS, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
Fred McFeely Rogers was born in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, in 1928. He studied music composition at Rollins College in Florida.
He went into television after seeing it at his parents’ home and disliking much of what children were watching. He worked at NBC in New York and then helped start WQED in Pittsburgh, a public station.
The Neighborhood
“Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” went national on what became PBS in 1968. Each show began with Rogers changing into a cardigan and sneakers. He wrote the songs and voiced many of the puppets in the Neighborhood of Make-Believe.
He dealt with hard subjects like divorce, death and fear. He also was ordained as a Presbyterian minister in 1963.
Before Congress
In 1969 he testified before a Senate subcommittee when public broadcasting funding was threatened. Sen. John Pastore, who chaired the hearing, said afterward that Rogers had earned the money.
The show made its last new episodes in 2001. Rogers died in 2003. His red sweater is in the Smithsonian’s collection, and a statue of him stands on Pittsburgh’s North Shore.
