Action for Children's Television

Overview

The ACT Collection documents the work of Action for Children's Television (ACT), a national grassroots organization founded by Peggy Charren in Newtonville, Massachusetts in 1968.Book cover image of The Family Guide to Children's Television by Evelyn Kaye

ACT aimed to ensure quality and diversity in television programming for children and adolescents and to eliminate commercial abuses directed at children. The work of this organization, which had thousands of members across the United States, had a major impact on the content and scheduling of children's television programs and advertising, culminating in the passage of the Children's Television Act of 1990, for which ACT lobbied vigorously.

The ACT Collection includes materials from 1968 to the organization's disbanding in 1992. In addition to the complete office records of the organization and a comprehensive collection of ACT's publications, the following materials are included in the collection:

  • Research reports on children's television, many sponsored by ACT.
  • Federal Communications Commission, Federal Trade Commission reports and other government documents relating to children's television.
  • Legal documents relating to court cases brought by ACT or in which ACT members testified.
  • Contents of ACT's reference library, including extensive subject files, collections of news and magazine articles and files on individual television programs.
  • Over 1,400 videotapes of children's programs, public service announcements, and commercials, many of which were recorded by ACT staff to document examples of positive and negative programming or advertising; included are programs nominated for awards by ACT.

Book cover image of Changing Channels by Peggy CharrenFinding Content

The ACT Collection is represented by an archival description in HOLLIS; some portions of the Collection are unprocessed. Select individual titles can be found by searching "Action for Children's Television" as author/creator in HOLLIS.

Contact us for a copy of the inventory for the unprocessed portion of the collection.

Other Resources on Children's Television

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