Frances Horwich biography
Date of birth : 1907-07-16
Date of death : 2001-07-22
Birthplace : Ottawa, Ohio, U.S.
Nationality : American
Category : Arts and Entertainment
Last modified : 2010-07-15
Credited as : Television personality, host of the "Miss Frances' Ding Dong School" television show,
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Miss Frances was born in Ottawa, Ohio. She earned her Master's degree in education from Columbia University and received her Doctorate at Northwestern University. She became the head of the department of education at Chicago's Roosevelt College.
"Miss Frances' Ding Dong School" was developed by the show's producer, Reinald Werrenrath, Jr. together with Judith Waller, director of public affairs programming for the NBC Central Division and began to air in the Chicago area on NBC. The show quickly gained popularity among young children and was quickly broadcast nationally, Monday through Friday, in November of 1952. In that year, she won the George Foster Peabody Award. The show at one time is suspected of having a 95 percent share on all preschoolers. In 1954, Miss Frances moved to New York, where she supervised all of NBC's children's programming. She held this position until 1956, when the show was canceled in favor of The Price is Right. Horwich owned the rights to Ding Dong School and syndicated the show until 1965.
By 1970, Miss Frances returned to Chicago and became involved with local programming once again. She eventually retired with her husband, Harvey, to Scottsdale, Arizona. She died of congestive heart failure on 22 July 2001 at the age of 94.
Miss Frances is famed for her uncompromising principles. In addition to resigning from NBC in protest of what she felt was commercialism over education, she would never advertise products a child could not use and would never advertise toys she felt glorified violence. She is also cited as inventing the approach of talking to the viewing audience as if they were there with you. Other notable users of this style were Mr. Rogers and Sesame Street. Miss Frances was mentioned by name in four different Peanuts strips by Charles Schulz (8 June 1954, 30 August 1955, 19 March 1956, 27 August 1956). Miss Frances was inducted into the Silver Circle of the Chicago Chapter of the National Academy of the Television Arts and Sciences on June 2, 2001. In 2006, an Ohio Historical Marker was placed by the local Daughters of the American Revolution chapter in her hometown of Ottawa, Ohio.
