ObservanceWednesday, November 10, 2027
Sesame Street Day
- Date
- Recurs
- Every year on November 10
- Category
- Kids & Family
Sesame Street Day marks November 10, 1969, the day Sesame Street began regular broadcast through the National Educational Television system. The show was not entertainment with lessons slipped in: it grew out of a 1966 feasibility study commissioned by the Carnegie Corporation, its stated target audience was inner-city disadvantaged children aged three to five, and the U.S. Office of Education agreed to cover half its budget. The anniversary is thoroughly documented; the observance built on it is not.
History
In 1966 Lloyd Morrisett, then a vice president of the Carnegie Corporation, asked Joan Ganz Cooney — a public affairs producer at New York's WNDT, Channel 13 — to study whether television could teach preschoolers. The report that resulted, "The Potential Uses of Television in Preschool Education," is the document the show was built from. A dinner-party conversation is usually credited as the origin; the University of Maryland's historical note describes one, but the Joan Ganz Cooney Center itself calls that version "lore."
What followed was unusually deliberate for television. Cooney and Morrisett founded the Children's Television Workshop in March 1968, according to the University of Maryland's note on the CTW records; the same finding aid's abstract says 1966, and the more specific date is the better bet. The Carnegie proposal set the terms in a line CTW's own report quotes back: "education is its primary aim and entertainment the means." In December 1968 the instructional goals were fixed in three categories — symbolic representation, meaning letters, numbers and forms; problem solving and reasoning; and the natural environment, family and home, and simple rules of behavior. The target audience was stated outright: "inner-city disadvantaged children from 3 to 5 years of age."
The money came from a coalition, most of it public. The initial budget was fixed at $8 million, covering a research year and a second year producing 130 hours. Carnegie's first partner was the Ford Foundation, and the U.S. Office of Education agreed to meet 50 percent of the budget; the Office of Economic Opportunity, NICHD, the National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities, the Markle Foundation and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting also contributed. Five prototype episodes were broadcast on a UHF channel in Philadelphia in June 1969. Regular programming began on November 10, distributed through National Educational Television affiliates — the system that became the Public Broadcasting Service the following year.
A March 1970 Yankelovich survey in Bedford-Stuyvesant found the show reached 90 percent of its potential audience in those homes, about 60 percent of them regular or daily viewers. The audience went from 1.2 million homes within weeks of the premiere to 3.2 million homes daily by May 1970. The Educational Testing Service evaluation by Samuel Ball and Gerry Ann Bogatz found learning gains that increased steadily with the amount of viewing. The season collected three Emmy Awards and a Peabody; the show has since won more than 100 Emmys, more than any other program.
Timeline
- 1966 — Lloyd Morrisett, then a vice president of the Carnegie Corporation, asks Joan Ganz Cooney, a public affairs producer at New York's WNDT, to study television's potential in preschool education, and funds a three-month exploratory study.
- March 1968 — Cooney and Morrisett officially found the Children's Television Workshop.
- June 1969 — Five prototype shows are broadcast on a UHF channel in Philadelphia.
- November 10, 1969 — Regular programming begins, distributed through National Educational Television affiliates.
- April 1970 — CTW announces that it has been incorporated as an independent production company, with Cooney as president.
- 2000 — The Children's Television Workshop is renamed Sesame Workshop.
How to observe
Read the Workshop's own account of the first year. "The First Year of Sesame Street: A History and Overview," CTW's December 1970 final report, is free in the federal ERIC database — a production explaining itself to its government funders, with the audience research attached.
Read the three instructional goal categories, then watch one episode and try to assign every segment to one of them. The skeleton is still visible, and it teaches more about how the show was engineered than any retrospective.
If you want the actual beginning, go to the 1966 report rather than the premiere; the Joan Ganz Cooney Center has republished it in a reformatted edition. It is short, and it says plainly what the show was supposed to do before anyone knew whether it would work.
Frequently asked questions
When did Sesame Street premiere?
November 10, 1969. "Beginning November 10, 1969 regular programming began," in the words of CTW's own first-year report.
Was Sesame Street originally on PBS?
No. It was distributed through National Educational Television affiliates; NET became the Public Broadcasting Service in 1970, the year after the premiere.
Who created Sesame Street?
Joan Ganz Cooney and Lloyd Morrisett, who founded the Children's Television Workshop and commissioned the research it was designed from. Jim Henson designed the Muppets. CTW was renamed Sesame Workshop in 2000.
Who created Sesame Street Day?
We could not establish it. No proclamation, resolution or Sesame Workshop announcement creating a November 10 Sesame Street Day appeared in the sources we checked. The date is the premiere anniversary, which is well sourced; the observance built around it is not.
What was in the first episode?
The Workshop's own first-year report does not say. It names the human cast — Gordon, Susan, Bob and Mr. Hooper — but ties none of its occasional guests to the premiere, and we found no primary account of that episode's content.
When is Sesame Street Day?
| Year | Date | Day |
|---|---|---|
| 2027 | November 10 | Wednesday |
| 2028 | November 10 | Friday |
| 2029 | November 10 | Saturday |
| 2030 | November 10 | Sunday |
| 2031 | November 10 | Monday |
Sources
- Children's Television Workshop (Joan Ganz Cooney, President), The First Year of Sesame Street: A History and Overview. Final Report, Volume I of V Volumes, December 1970, ERIC ED047821 — https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED047821.pdf → the 1966 Carnegie study and Morrisett's role as Carnegie vice president; Cooney as a public affairs producer at WNDT; the quoted Carnegie proposal line "education is its primary aim and entertainment the means"; the December 1968 instructional goals in three categories; the target audience of "inner-city disadvantaged children from 3 to 5 years of age"; the $8 million initial budget and the 130 hours; the Ford Foundation as Carnegie's first partner; the U.S. Office of Education meeting 50% of the budget; the other funders named; the five prototype shows on a UHF channel in Philadelphia in June 1969; "Beginning November 10, 1969 regular programming began"; distribution through National Educational Television affiliates; the March 1970 Yankelovich survey in Bedford-Stuyvesant (90% of potential audience, about 60% regular or daily); 1.2 million homes within weeks and 3.2 million homes daily by May 1970; the Educational Testing Service evaluation by Samuel Ball and Gerry Ann Bogatz; three Emmys and a Peabody in the first season; the April 1970 incorporation announcement with Cooney as president; the human cast and the "from time to time" guests.
- Joan Ganz Cooney Center, The Report that Started It All (December 6, 2019) — https://joanganzcooneycenter.org/2019/12/06/the-report-that-started-it-all/ → the 1966 report commissioned by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and Morrisett's offer to fund a three-month exploratory study; Cooney as a documentary producer at New York's Channel 13; the dinner-party origin described as "lore"; the Children's Television Workshop born in 1968; the November 10, 1969 debut; and the reformatted republication of the 1966 report. This source renders the report's title as "The Potential Uses of Television for Preschool Education"; the University of Maryland finding aid uses "in" rather than "for."
- University of Maryland Libraries, finding aid for the Children's Television Workshop records (Collection 0073-MMC-NPBA) — https://archives.lib.umd.edu/repositories/2/resources/1573 → the 1966 dinner conversation and the feasibility study title "The Potential Uses of Television in Preschool Education"; the official founding of CTW by Cooney and Morrisett in March 1968, and the abstract's conflicting "founded in 1966"; funders including the U.S. Office of Education, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the Ford Foundation and NET; the November 1969 debut; and the 2000 renaming to Sesame Workshop.
- Encyclopaedia Britannica, Sesame Street — https://www.britannica.com/topic/Sesame-Street → the 1969 debut on the National Educational Television network, "an entity that became the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) in 1970"; the Muppets designed by Jim Henson; and more than 100 Emmy Awards, more than any other program.
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