Peggy Charren

Tired of seeing her own children watching monster cartoons and copious advertising for toys and sugary cereals, Peggy Charren was driven to change children’s programming.

She did just that by beginning her crusade in the 1960s and taking her advocacy of higher-minded television programming for children to Congress. Charren was the founder and president of Action for Children’s Television (ACT), which began as a small gathering of women in a living room, and grew to more than 10,000 members. ACT had meetings with the Federal Communications Commission and the National Association of Broadcasters, resulting in a reduction of advertising time on children’s shows.

Her appeals led to many successes including reinstating Captain Kangaroo on a Boston station that had replaced it, and lobbying Congress to pass the Children’s Television Act in 1990, establishing standards for children’s television.

Charren herself worked for a short time in television, at WPIX in New York before getting married. She was also an art and literature lover, and had once run a business that held book fairs for children. As a result many of her initial ideas for improvements in children’s television involved books and reading on-air.

Charren died on January 22, 2015, at her home in Dedham, Massachusettes. She was 86.