Despite my frequent disappointments, I like TV. Ma remembers me as an infant, barely able to stand, inches from the TV screen listening intensely as Miss Frances spoke directly to me. (She, apparently, was the originator of that technique.) I don’t remember that nor writing on that TV screen in crayon trying to follow her directions and communicate back with her. I do remember loving her and the show. I know real school was never as fun or as warm. Her show ran from 1952 to 1956, coincidentally when I began nursery school. She was replaced by THE PRICE IS RIGHT.
So, I wondered why she was not honored, well-known or at least acknowledged as a pioneer? My limited research indicates that she fought with the networks about the commercialization of children’s television and lost while making a few mistakes re: commercials herself. These issues of corporate control and the commercialization of everyday life have been boiling and simmering for- well that’s 60 years. A real role model, she stayed in the field, unsung, until her death in 2001.
Violets in the Grass 
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