|  | BILL PIERCE |  | The Nov. 23, 1970, cover of TIME |  |  | |
“Sesame Street began in February 1966 at a dinner party given by Mrs. Cooney, then a producer for public television in Manhattan. Among the guests was Lloyd N. Morrisett, vice president of the Carnegie Corporation. Recalls Mrs. Cooney: ‘I was complaining about poor children's programming. Something clicked in Lloyd's mind: TV and preschoolers. Was I interested?’ She was, fanatically and shrewdly…It was hardly the first occasion that funders had heard such a plea. But it was the first time they had ever met a persuader of Mrs. Cooney's talents. By the time she was through, her Children's Television Workshop had been granted $8,000,000 by the Carnegie Corporation, the Ford Foundation, the U.S. Office of Education, and related Government agencies.
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