Overview
Frances Rappaport Horwich (born Frances Rappaport, July 16, 1907 – July 22, 2001) was an American educator, television personality and television executive. As Miss Frances, she was the host of the children's television program Ding Dong School, seen weekday mornings on the NBC network in the 1950s and nationally syndicated between 1959 and 1965.
Family and education
Horwich was born on July 16, 1907, in Ottawa, Ohio. She was the daughter of Samuel and Rosa Gratz Rappaport. Her father had emigrated from Austria and owned a general store in the town. Her mother had emigrated from Russia; she was the youngest of their children. Her mother taught her children various types of needlework and crafts. Her father taught his children how to relate to people by giving each of them a chance to work at the store counter when they were tall enough to see over it. He sent all of his children to college; her two brothers became pediatricians and her two sisters also entered the health care field. She attended grammar and high school in Ottawa. Horwich earned her bachelor's degree at the University of Chicago in 1929; her first teaching assignment was a first grade class in Evanston, Illinois, from 1929 to 1932.
She then became the supervisor of the Works Progress Administration's nursery schools in Chicago until 1935. She earned her master's degree in education at Columbia University in 1933 and directed junior kindergartens in Winnetka, Illinois, from 1935 to 1938. Horwich was named dean of education at Pestalozzi-Fröbel Teachers College in Chicago in 1938, where she worked until 1940. She earned her doctorate at Northwestern University in 1942. While working toward her degree, Horwich was a counselor for students at Chicago Teachers College. She then left the Chicago area for a time, becoming the head of the Hessian Hills School at Croton-on-Hudson, New York, and teaching for two years at the University of North Carolina. When she returned to the Chicago area, she became the head of the department of education at Chicago's Roosevelt College beginning in 1946.
Horwich met her husband, Harvey, an attorney and Air Force historian, when both were religious school teachers at Chicago's KAM Temple. The couple had no children.
Ding Dong School
Ding Dong School was developed by the show's producer, Reinald Werrenrath Jr., and Judith Waller, director of public affairs programming for the NBC Central Division, for station WNBQ-TV (now WMAQ-TV). The concept of the show was to create a television nursery school with a television teacher while the pupils would be watching and participating from their homes. It was designed to be viewed from the height of a small child and cameras were adjusted to picture the set and host from that standpoint. Props were deliberately kept simple so they could be recognized by young children. The development team made a list of people who seemed to be good candidates for the program. Horwich was one of those on the list; she was contacted and invited to audition for the show. Her only connection with television before this had been as part of discussion and panel shows which were televised.
She was hesitant about being the only person on camera but agreed to audition. Horwich won the job and was still somewhat uneasy about being on television alone, but she decided to give it a try. Because it was felt that the show would be a terrible broadcasting mistake, it was decided to air it during the morning hours of October 2, 1952 with no publicity regarding it. No one was prepared for the 150 positive telephone calls the station received just after the show had aired or for the amount of viewer mail praising the program. Each show began with the ringing of a hand-held school bell and the Ding Dong School song sung by Horwich. The show quickly gained popularity among young children and was broadcast nationally on the NBC network, Monday through Friday, beginning in March 1953.
On the network, the show quickly had 2,400,000 daily viewers and was beating Arthur Godfrey's morning television program in the ratings. She was named Woman of the Year in Education by the Associated Press for 1953. She was the author of many Ding Dong School branded books for children; the network also produced Ding Dong School merchandise such as pencils and coloring books. Horwich only endorsed items which were not expensive and were educational. A PTA for Ding Dong School was established to help parents and Horwich communicate.
Sudden celebrity
The couple's lifestyle changed dramatically after Ding Dong School. Horwich rose at 4:30 AM on weekdays to go over her lesson plan for the day's broadcast and was in bed by 9 PM Neither Horwich nor her husband were prepared for the way the television show made Horwich a celebrity. Horwich's husband, Harvey, had been in Korea with the Air Force during the planning stages of Ding Dong School. When he arrived home, the couple planned a vacation in the Bahamas. Since Horwich did not like to repeat programs, she recorded kinescopes to be broadcast while she was away. When the couple boarded their flight to Miami, 14 young children were also on the plane with their families. The children recognized "Miss Frances" and sang the Ding Dong School song all the way to Miami. After arriving in the Bahamas, the couple believed they could now begin their holiday.
On the second night of their stay in the hotel, the restaurant's calypso band began playing the Ding Dong School song as Horwich and her husband entered the dining room. Her husband viewed all of this with good humor, saying, "Just call me Mr. Frances".
Children's programming
In 1954, Horwich was appointed Head of Children's Programming for the NBC television network, where she supervised all of NBC's children's programming. She moved to New York in early 1955 and Ding Dong School was then broadcast from New York. Horwich resigned from NBC in protest of the commercialism of children's education. She refused to advertise products a child could not use or that appeared to glorify violence. Since Horwich owned the rights to Ding Dong School, she was able to sign with Chicago's WGN-TV to broadcast the show beginning in August 1958; the program had been off the air since being canceled by NBC. Horwich and her husband moved to Hollywood in 1959 for taping and syndication of the show, The show was syndicated until 1965. Beginning in 1962, she also served as an advisor on children's activities for Curtis Publishing Company.
In 1965, Horwich was hired as the Director of Children's Programming for the new UHF television station in Chicago, WFLD. In 1970, Horwich discovered she was two quarters of work short of qualifying for her American Federation of Television and Radio Artists pension. She was hired to do some specials on education by WMAQ-TV.
Later years
Horwich moved to Scottsdale, Arizona, in 1973 because of her husband's health; Harvey died in 1974. After moving to Arizona, she did some lecturing at Arizona State University and worked at a local public broadcasting television station. A month before her death, Horwich was inducted into the Silver Circle of the Chicago Chapter of the National Academy of the Television Arts and Sciences on June 2, 2001. The awards honor those who have worked 25 years or more in television and have made significant contributions to the local industry. In 2006, an Ohio Historical Marker commemorating her life was placed by the local Daughters of the American Revolution chapter in Ottawa.
For children
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External links
* * Biography at Jewish Women's Archive