Rogers, Fred McFeely - Timeline Biography

03-20-1928 - 02-27-2003

Fred Rogers earned a bachelors in music composition before working for various NBC shows during the early 1950s. In 1953, he moved to station WQED in Pittsburgh and started a weekly puppet show called "The Children's Corner." Many of the characters developed on that show--including King Friday XIII and Lady Elaine Fairchilde--carried over into "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood," which Rogers created in 1968 and brought to the newly formed Public Broadcasting System the following year.

Rogers was a lifelong advocate for state-funded educational media, testifying in 1969 before a US Senate committee hearing regarding budget cuts for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. But Rogers is most remembered for "Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood," which ran for 895 episodes from 1968-2001 and garnered four Emmy Awards. At its peak in 1985, 8 percent of US households tuned in to each show to see the sweater-wearing Presbyterian minister use puppets to teach kids about tolerance and self-esteem.

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