For today’s Women’s History Month celebration, we want to honor the co-founder of Sesame

For today’s Women’s History Month celebration, we want to honor the co-founder of Sesame Workshop and the creator of Sesame Street–Joan Ganz Cooney! Please join us in thanking her for her many contributions to children’s television!

Mrs. Cooney has received numerous awards, including a Daytime Emmy for Lifetime Achievement in 1989 and, in 1990, was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame and received the Founders Award from the International Council of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. In 1995, President Clinton awarded Mrs. Cooney the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, and in 1998, she was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame. Mrs. Cooney was honored with the Annenberg Public Policy Center’s award for Distinguished Contribution to Children and Television, noting Sesame Street as being “the quintessential children’s educational program” and in 2003 she was honored with the National Endowment for the Humanities Award by President George W. Bush.

Mrs. Cooney received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Arizona and, shortly after, began her career as a reporter in her hometown of Phoenix. From 1954 to 1962 she worked as a publicist for NBC in New York and for the U.S. Steel Hour, a highly acclaimed CBS drama series. She was an award-winning public affairs producer for New York’s WNET/Thirteen before conducting the landmark study for Carnegie Corporation of New York in 1966, entitled, “The Potential Uses of Television in Preschool Education,” which led to the founding of the Workshop.

Sesame Workshop programs, including: Sesame Street, The Electric Company, Ghostwriter, and Dragon Tales – each offering educational opportunities around science, mathematics, reading and bringing new experiences to life – have been awarded over 150 Emmys and have received scores of other honors presented here and around the world!

Mrs. Cooney served as Sesame Workshop’s President and CEO until 1990 and currently serves as Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Workshop’s Board of Trustees. In November 2007, Mrs. Cooney introduced theJoan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop, an independent research and innovation lab that focuses on the challenges of educating children in a rapidly changing media landscape.

Mrs. Cooney is presently a Director at the Peter G. Peterson Foundation and a Lifetime Trustee of the Paley Center for Media, The New York Presbyterian Hospital, WNET Channel 13/Educational Broadcasting Corporation and of the National Child Labor Committee. She has also served as a member of the President’s Commission for a National Agenda for the Eighties, the President’s Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse, the Advisory Committee for Trade Negotiations, the Carnegie Foundation’s National Panel on the High School and the United Nation’s Reorientation of UN Information Activities Task Force.

Thank you, Mrs. Cooney, for everything you have given to children about the world. You are an innovator and have paved the way for kids to grow smarter, stronger, and kinder. We love you!

What’s your favorite Sesame Street memory?!