Resource Database

Peggy Charren

Founder, Action for Children’s Television, Faculty, Harvard University

Description

From the Jewish Women’s Archive website (http://www.jwa.org): Peggy Charren was born in 1928 and raised in New York City, where she felt that “the whole world was Jewish.” She attended Hunter College High School and Connecticut College. Her parents were committed Roosevelt Democrats and sent her to a summer camp where she learned union songs. Charren’s uncle, Sidney Buchman, was a Hollywood writer who was blacklisted during the McCarthy hearings; the spectre of McCarthyism scared Charren and helped forge her lifetime commitment to free speech and First Amendment rights. As a mother of two young daughters in the 1960s, Charren noticed that there were few appealing television programs for kids. She was determined to create a better selection for her children and for others. She gathered a few other women with young children and formed a non-profit organization called Action for Children’s Television (ACT), which advocated for higher quality, less commercialized children’s television programming and fought censorship. They used the law to challenge the broadcast industry and appealed to the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission for better alternatives in children’s television. Their efforts ultimately led to the passing of the Children’s Television Act of 1990. For her work on behalf of children’s television, Charren received the Trustees Award of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, as well as a Peabody Award. Although she closed ACT in 1992, Charren is still known as the “Grande Dame of kids’ TV.”

Topic(s): Advertising/Marketing, Educational Media, Legislation/Public Policy

User Type(s): Academic, Advocate, Journalist, Policymaker

Address

Harvard Graduate School of Education
Appian Way
Cambridge , Massachusetts 02138

Contact Information

Phone(s): 617-495-3541
URL(s): http://www.gse.harvard.edu

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