Few people have done more for children’s emotional education, benevolent masculinity, or zip-up cardigans than Fred Rogers. Of course, many have done much with some combination of that trifecta, but it was only this Presbyterian minister, whose soft voice coupled with a soft approach to children’s public television, who created work that indelibly touched and stayed with generations of children. A musician, educator, and savior of the Public Broadcasting System (I’ll get that to a minute), Mr. Rogers — as we all came to know and call him — was all of these things... and he was also, by his own admission, bi.
But let’s start at the beginning. So make sure to change into your sneakers, put on your favorite sweater, and settle in to get to know one of the luminaries of our youth. Oh, and don’t forget to feed the fish!
Fred McFeely Rogers was born in Latrobe, Pennsylvania in 1928 to James, the president of a brick company, and Nancy, a hospital volunteer who often knitted sweaters — sweaters which would later show up on little Fred’s famous show. While the boy grew up in a brick mansion with a well-to-do family and a sister, Elaine (whom the family adopted when he was young), Rogers had a lonely, isolated childhood. Schoolmates bullied him for being overweight and called him names, so he didn’t have many friends until he overcame his shyness in high school. In the meantime, introverted little Fred kept to himself at home, taking up the piano at five and often playing with puppets in his room.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’m sure you’re saying to yourself, but when will she talk about Fred being bi? Well, the answer is right now, neighbor!
In the 2018 biography The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers, author Maxwell King refers to a conversation Rogers had with Dr. William Hirsch, an openly gay friend of his, where he explained that if sexuality was measured on a scale of one to ten:
Well, you know, I must be right smack in the middle. Because I have found women attractive, and I have found men attractive.
Perhaps the television personality wasn’t intimately familiar with the Kinsey scale, but this self-assessment, including himself and his attraction to more than one gender, categorizes Mr. Rogers under the bi umbrella.
After graduating from high school, Rogers went off to college — first a year at Dartmouth, then finishing his degree with a music composition from Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida. While there are no reports of Rogers engaging in same-sex exploits (and, at any rate, one doesn’t have to prove their bisexuality with experiences — feeling or recognizing their potential for attraction to more than one gender is valid), Rogers met and soon married Joanne Byrd in 1952, who would be his wife for 50 years until his death.
But it was one visit home during college that changed the trajectory of Rogers’ life forever. During his senior year at Rollins, he came home and saw the arrival of a television in the family living room. Fascinated with this now-more-accessible advent of technology, Rogers flipped it on and was disappointed when he saw most of the shows offered for children’s programming was pie-in-the-face slapstick like Howdy Doody. Determined that this new educational tool could offer more, Rogers decided against going to seminary (which had been his next life plan) and instead decided to work in television.
It took him a while to find the right fit, though. At first, Rogers moved to New York and put in hours working as a floor director on a handful of shows, but commercial production wasn’t quite what he was looking for. Not losing faith, Rogers moved back to Pennsylvania and settled in Pittsburgh. He landed at WQED, a community-funded public education station where he started work as a program director in children’s programming. Rogers was content to work behind the scenes, continuing his childhood hobby of building and bringing life to puppets and composing music for The Children’s Corner. It was during this time Rogers also went back to studying religion, attending Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, and eventually becoming ordained as a Presbyterian minister.
After working on a few more programs for a few more years in Toronto (sometimes on-camera), the head of children’s programming saw how keenly Rogers spoke with and listened to children and encouraged him to develop his own program. Even though he had a solid setup with Canadian programming at the CBC, Rogers returned to Pittsburgh with his family (now including two sons) and developed a concept with his old friends at WQED.
And so, in 1968, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood was born.
Rogers worked closely with his friend from seminary, child psychologist Margaret McFarland, focusing the program on the emotional needs and growth of preschool children and how to handle concepts of growing up. The host covered everything from divorce to dealing with a newborn sibling, to smaller subjects like pets and joining a new school. Rogers’ approach to validation of kids’ feelings and managing emotions was compounded by his production style — a slow pace, gentle voice, and reliable programming structure with a kind and approachable demeanor. Rogers was involved in every facet of decision-making possible on the kids’ program — writing, editing, song composition, puppeteering all saw his involvement as well as hosting, singing, and producing the show.
Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood got picked up and distributed nationally on the new Public Broadcasting System (or PBS as we now know it). But it was not smooth sailing for the program, even out of the gate. The nascent PBS itself came into jeopardy. In 1969, Congress was deciding whether to give $20 million to PBS; the government was considering cutting that funding in half. After two days of Congressional hearings, Rogers was asked to speak in defense of the new program, and the importance of programs like his own contributing to children’s mental health:
At the end of the speech, Congressman Rogers expressed his admiration, and PBS got its necessary funding.
I don’t know about you, but that is a super heroic feat to me.
Other than a brief hiatus to focus on adult programming, Rogers continued to produce and host Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood for decades, receiving worldwide acclaim and popularity for his gentle but affirming programming for children. He received a Peabody Award for his work, as well as induction into the Television Hall of Fame. Over the course of his life, Rogers was given dozens of honorary degrees and was one of the most sought-after commencement speakers at colleges around America.
While Rogers sadly passed from stomach cancer in 2002, his death was mourned worldwide in newspapers and other media, his legacy lives on in multiple forms. His trademark red zipper sweater is now part of the permanent collection at the Smithsonian, and his show can still be caught in reruns decades after it went off the air. Rogers’ life and work have not only inspired a well-regarded documentary on his life, Won’t You Be My Neighbor? (2018), but also a biopic — A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019), starring Tom Hanks as Mr. Rogers.
With his gentle demeanor and passion for children’s emotional education, Rogers was a pioneer in public television, an educator in his own right — and a bi man who changed the world, one zip-up sweater at a time.
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