{"id":141235,"date":"2019-12-03T11:00:48","date_gmt":"2019-12-03T16:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=141235"},"modified":"2019-12-03T11:53:53","modified_gmt":"2019-12-03T16:53:53","slug":"the-radical-mr-rogers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/12\/03\/the-radical-mr-rogers\/","title":{"rendered":"The Radical Mister Rogers"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Collage by A.\u2009E. McClure\/ Yearbook photo courtesy of the Department of College Archives and Special Collections Olin Library, Rollins College, Winter Park, Florida.<\/p><\/div>\n

Twenty-year-old Fred Rogers did not like Dartmouth College. The Ivy was a \u201cbeer-soaked, jockstrap party school,\u201d as Maxwell King, Rogers\u2019s recent biographer, puts it<\/a>. <\/em>Dartmouth also didn\u2019t have a music major. But Rollins College, in Winter Park, Florida, did, plus a reputation as \u201cthe only New England college not located in New England.\u201d In 1948, after two years at Dartmouth, Rogers transferred to Rollins and minored in French. \u201cBold move,\u201d King summed on a phone call. Rogers had been a timid and sickly boy, overprotected. The switchover was \u201can instance of daring.\u201d \u201cAnd I think Rollins was the first place where Rogers really felt happy,\u201d King told me. He\u2019d once explained: \u201cI just felt so much at home there.\u201d<\/p>\n

When I attended Rollins, sixty years after Rogers, his oil portrait hung in the concert hall, and a blue zip-front cardigan and signed canvas sneakers were encased at the library, like relics. We used to joke that a Rogers endowment bankrolled the landscapers\u2014a huge, omnipresent force who cared for our subtropical surroundings\u2014and frat boys boosted the urban legend that the children\u2019s-TV host was an ex-Marine sniper.<\/p>\n

Today, I\u2019d shred those boys for wanting to bend the nonsmoking, teetotaling, vegetarian, pacifist mensch into a macho. Of course, Mister Rogers would not favor incivility. Mister Rogers would talk me out of it, slowly and softly. \u201cHe had this amazing ability to look into people and see past the adult fa\u00e7ade that we present, and take a really direct look at the aching kid that\u2019s within all of us\u2014and to decide what that kid needed,\u201d said the journalist Tom Junod, whose 1998 Esquire<\/em> profile is the basis of the recently released A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood<\/em>, starring Tom Hanks.<\/p>\n

The director Marielle Heller waited almost a full calendar, until Hanks\u2019s schedule opened up, to make it happen. \u201cTom was my first and only choice,\u201d she told me. Hanks was Rogers\u2019s favorite actor, perhaps because of his roles as the man-child in Big<\/em>\u00a0and the gentleman in Forrest Gump<\/em>. Hanks has also been the playful cowboy in the Toy Story <\/em>franchise and the boyish boss in Saving Mr. Banks<\/em>. All these characters are renditions of Fred Rogers\u2019s id\u00e9e fixe that not only does the kid remain in every grown-up, a grown-up is coming of age in every kid, and that our humanity depends on keeping them conversant.<\/p>\n

The last two years have seen a Mister Rogers boom: a documentary (the highest-grossing bio-doc ever), two biographies (Shea Tuttle\u2019s theologically driven Exactly As You Are<\/a><\/em> dropped in October), and this boffo film. But his undergraduate experience, that searching, shaping time between childhood and adulthood, has hardly been considered. In this peak Rogers moment, as a fellow alum, I had to ask: what was Fred Rogers like in college?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was different,\u201d\u00a0Joanne Rogers, his widow, told Jimmy Fallon last year. The couple met at the Rollins conservatory and were popular. \u201cIn his young days, he was lively and full of fun, but he talked\u00a0about his feelings\u2026\u201d Kids who were out of sorts would drop into his dorm room \u201cjust to talk,\u201d Fred Rogers once wrote. According to one athlete, \u201cHe had feelings for everybody, even the mean football players.\u201d Joanne thought to herself, \u201c\u2018Jeez, maybe he\u2019ll work at an orphanage!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Rollins\u2019s theater and chapel circa Rogers\u2019s time there.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

This was fifteen years before desegregation, in the Deep South, at a pastel-colored liberal-arts college of fewer than 650 students. It was in a pocket of Orlando that is historically where well-heeled Northerners wintered. Thus the town\u2019s name, Winter Park. The long green that runs up to campus is called Central Park. The tony street it parallels, Park Avenue. Rogers\u2019s family would arrive from Pennsylvania in a convertible with their butler-chauffeur and take a big lakefront villa nearby during the coldest months. He was sensitive about being highborn, though many of his classmates were from even greater wealth. Another lasting friend of the Rogerses, Jeannine Morrison, remembers how the driver shuttled Rogers\u2019s adopted little sister around \u201clike a princess.\u201d They\u2019d see the drop-top go by, and \u201cRoge would say, Isn\u2019t that disgusting.<\/em>\u00a0He would get so furious,\u201d Morrison told me. He hid a Buick on the edge of campus. \u201cHe didn\u2019t want anyone to know he had it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eatonville\u2014Zora Neal Hurston\u2019s<\/a> majority-black hometown\u2014is a half hour from Rollins, and Rogers sometimes volunteered there. A report he penned for the Interfaith and Race Relations Committee, of which he was chairman, mentions their support of a drive for a nursing home that could function as a surgery and maternity for Winter Park\u2019s African American community. This was Jim Crowism. There was no doctor in Eatonville who accepted black patients. Rogers noted that while there was one in Orlando, it cost $8\u2014a lot then\u2014to see him.<\/p>\n

Just before Rogers\u2019s second year started, in the county next door, young black men known as the Groveland Four<\/a> were accused of raping a white teenager. A sheriff\u2019s posse murdered one of the men. An all-white jury hastily convicted the other three. This January, the four men were posthumously pardoned, but in Rogers\u2019s day, the local NAACP was on their defense. \u201cWe can imagine the dissonance,\u201d Michael Long, the author of Peaceful Neighbor: Discovering the Countercultural Mister<\/a><\/em>, said to me when I asked him about how those years in Florida at Rollins informed Rogers\u2019s sensitivity to race relations.<\/p>\n

Long observes in his book that the Rollins kids didn\u2019t join any direct action efforts. They screened documentaries and set up lectures and charitably dished resources such as books and lights at the substandard Jim Crow institutions. \u201cRollins was such a bastion of Southern white privilege,\u201d Long points out, \u201cthat the work undertaken by Rogers and his committee must have appeared to some of his fellow students as downright radical.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Pennsylvania, Rogers\u2019s parents had employed George Allen, the son of a black maid who\u2019d passed away. Allen lived with them, and taught Fred how to play jazz and pilot a plane. \u201cRogers is moving from that model where you invited black people into your family as help, to a model where black people are undertaking educational and medical initiatives in their communities and inviting white people to come help out,\u201d Long went on by phone. \u201cIt\u2019s beyond paternalism but not so forward as direct action. He\u2019s navigating a middle course that typifies the way he\u2019ll do things after college.\u201d<\/p>\n

Long paused. \u201cRollins really connects to the show\u2019s launch.<\/em>\u201d The taping began in September 1967, after that summer\u2019s Detroit riot. \u201cAgain, Rogers did not march for Civil Rights or preach electoral politics.\u201d Instead, he programmed \u201csuper intentionally.\u201d While whites were fleeing cities for enclaves in the suburbs, in the Neighborhood of Make-Believe, in the fourth episode, a black teacher stops by with her class of integrated schoolchildren and a smiling Mister Rogers greets them: \u201cI\u2019m glad to see you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOur interest in Rogers is peaking. But you cannot understand him\u2014or the interest in him now\u2014outside the historical frame,\u201d Long stressed. In our current imagination, Mister Rogers becomes an apolitical \u201cMister Feely-Feely. That, by the way, is how I think the Fred Rogers Center and its minions prefer to depict him.\u201d<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

While at Rollins, Rogers was a member of the International Relations Club, president of the French Club, on the Community Service Committee and the Welcoming Committee, in the Music Guild and the invite-only Key Society (recognizing \u201call-around efficiency\u201d); he was on the intramural swim team, in the choir, and staff at the chapel. To quote the chapel\u2019s dean: \u201cActivities are the trial run of growing up, when we try parts and roles for size and comfort.\u201d<\/p>\n

My involvement as an undergrad was limited to a post on the Parking Ticket Appeal Committee. It meant I was thick with campus security and had some power to get my associates out of fines. Rolly Colly, as we called Rollins, was ranked by Playboy<\/em> as \u201cthe hardest-partying small school in the country\u201d in 2010, the year after I graduated. A best-selling T-shirt adapted our motto Fiat lux<\/em> (\u201cLet there be light\u201d) into\u00a0Fiat luxury<\/em>.\u00a0The country club temper was out of control. Even so, we late-eighties babies comprised one of the last classes whose childhoods overlapped with Misters Rogers\u2019 Neighborhood<\/em>, and the school conjured the alumnus like a favorite son and tried to impart his brand of global citizenship on us. (Rollins plans to install a bronze likeness of Rogers in 2020.)<\/p>\n

An etched marble plaque, \u201cLife Is For Service,\u201d was bolted onto one of the walls lining an arcade outside my sorority. We were told that Rogers jotted that down on some paper and stored it in his wallet for the rest of his life. He did. But collegiate Rogers was also a funnyman. \u201cRoge liked to cover the \u2018Ser,\u2019\u201d Morrison told me, \u201cso that it read \u201cLife Is for vice.\u201d Once, when the senior boys were mandated to come to the evening meal in coats and ties, \u201cHe rolled up in a coat and a tie, and no pants!\u201d At Rollins, he wrote satirical lyrics to \u201cRow, Row, Row Your Boat,\u201d later sung by him as the grandiose puppet King Friday XIII:<\/p>\n

Propel propel propel your craft
\nGently down liquid solution
\nEcstatically ecstatically ecstatically ecstatically
\nExistence is but an illusion<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Here and there, The Sandspur<\/em>, the school weekly, reported that Rogers had composed a new fugue or \u201chonored everyone with some of his original songs\u201d at a Halloween bash. When he acted with Anthony Perkins (Alfred Hitchcock\u2019s future Psycho<\/em> lead) in the play \u201cThe Madwoman of Chaillot,\u201d the review said Tony gave a \u201csmooth performance\u201d and Freddy \u201cadded a successful comic touch, although he lacked projection.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

“The inimitable Fred Rogers\u201d at a Halloween party in 1950. Clipping from the student paper courtesy of the Department of College Archives and Special Collections Olin Library, Rollins College, Winter Park, Florida.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

After Rogers transferred in, Rollins\u2019s long-serving, much-loved president bowed out. Newcomer Paul Wagner had pioneered audio-visuals in the classroom and was \u201chunky\u201d and \u201cbossy,\u201d according to Joanne. He was the youngest college president in the country\u2014just thirty-one, the New York Times<\/em> and Newsweek<\/em> noticed.<\/p>\n

The trustees tasked their new \u201cBoy Wonder\u201d with economizing. Because football operated in the hole, it was axed. That probably didn\u2019t phase Rogers. However, when the president cut the housemothers from the men\u2019s dorms, Rogers sent him a five-page letter (referenced here for the first time): \u201cSo since college is a little life in our big life and our childhood is such a deciding factor to our adult happiness and the college freshman year corresponds to our childhood\u2014I\u2019m concerned about the freshmen,\u201d he wrote, underlining. Decisions at Rollins were traditionally crowdsourced (even classes were done as round tables) and that MO would stick with Rogers throughout his career.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

From Rogers\u2019s 1950 letter to President Wagner. Courtesy of Joanne Rogers.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Wagner did not respond, and the housemothers issue seems to have compelled Rogers to run for student government. He lost, but Rogers was among the students who formed an emergency steering committee when, not long after, Wagner sacked a third of the faculty in response to declining enrollment. Rogers was \u201csomething of a campus activist\u201d and \u201ca leader,\u201d King writes, dispensing quickly (and vaguely) with the phase in his biography. \u201cOne of the interesting aspects of Fred\u2019s role on campus in this period\u2014Joanne called him a \u2018rabble-rouser\u2019\u2014is that he never repeated it later in life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pro- and anti-Wagner factions poisoned the school and town. \u201cThis enormous explosion!\u201d said one of the deans, recalling how much of the student body went full-tilt for the twenty-three canceled profs. The New Yorker <\/em>punched Wagner in \u201cTalk of the Town,\u201d Time <\/em>and Life<\/em> covered the squeeze (\u201ca case history of what lies in store for countless small colleges\u201d). The student weekly foamed. I asked King whether he believed the nasty twelve-week ouster\u2014which concluded when cops walked Wagner off campus\u2014taught Rogers to keep clear of politics. \u201cHe didn\u2019t like conflict, contention, strife. He had this brush with that at Rollins and backed away from it,\u201d King said. \u201cFrom a programming standpoint, you can argue that he was quite radical. On a personal level, I think he became very cautious.\u201d<\/p>\n

This goes to the center of it. Until the election of Donald Trump, the documentary Won\u2019t You Be My Neighbor?<\/em>\u00a0was titled The Radical Mister Rogers<\/em>. The filmmaker (owing much to Long\u2019s book) realized that billing \u201cwould turn off people who needed to see it.\u201d Joanne told me the premiere at Sundance was attended by cross-party politicians; in fact, she\u2019d heard it \u201cpleased both sides.\u201d In the outright sense, she allowed, Rogers did not behave politically. \u201cMany parents wouldn\u2019t have let their kids watch.\u201d (The national broadcast of Neighborhood <\/em>was sponsored by the Sears-Roebuck Foundation, and \u201cSears would not have wanted to lose people.\u201d) \u201cBut if both sides were pleased with the doc,\u201d held Long, \u201ceither one side wasn\u2019t paying close attention or its treatment of Rogers\u2019s leftist politics was insufficient.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cRogers sure as hell was political\u2014the Neighborhood messaged countercultural values like diplomacy over militancy\u2014and he himself got vocal when the wellbeing of children was at stake,\u201d Long added. (The housemothers letter I found archived at Rollins is a precocious example of that.) He was close to Senator John Heinz of Pennsylvania, and lobbied for Heinz\u2019s bill to exempt one parent of military couples or single parents from deployment during the Gulf War. \u201cDoes the U.S. Congress have little or no understanding of early trauma due to premature separation anxiety?\u201d Rogers asked Heinz, upset when the bill failed.<\/p>\n

Whatever differences exist between the rabble-rousing college student, and the more restrained man we all knew on television, certain essential elements of Rogers were there all along.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Chantel Tattoli is a freelance journalist. She\u2019s contributed to\u00a0the\u00a0<\/em>New York Times Magazine,\u00a0<\/em>VanityFair.com<\/a>, the\u00a0<\/em>Los Angeles Review of Books, and\u00a0<\/em>Orion\u00a0and\u00a0is at work on a cultural biography of Copenhagen\u2019s statue of the Little Mermaid.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Though we’re in the midst of a Mister Rogers biography boom, few people have examined his rabble-rousing college years. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":873,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[419],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-141235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts-culture"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Radical Mister Rogers by Chantel Tattoli<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"December 3, 2019 \u2013 Though we're in the midst of a Mister Rogers biography boom, few people have examined his rabble-rousing college years.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/12\/03\/the-radical-mr-rogers\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Radical Mister Rogers by Chantel Tattoli\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"December 3, 2019 \u2013 Though we're in the midst of a Mister Rogers biography boom, few people have examined his rabble-rousing college years.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/12\/03\/the-radical-mr-rogers\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-12-03T16:00:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2019-12-03T16:53:53+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/gif-by-andrew-mcclure.-yearbook-photo-courtesy-of-the-department-of-college-archives-and-special-collections-olin-library-rollins-college-winter-park-florida..gif\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1000\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"536\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/gif\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Chantel Tattoli\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Chantel Tattoli\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"12 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/12\/03\/the-radical-mr-rogers\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/12\/03\/the-radical-mr-rogers\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Chantel Tattoli\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/b72857973f8c094d7664bfe723fb5103\"},\"headline\":\"The Radical Mister Rogers\",\"datePublished\":\"2019-12-03T16:00:48+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-12-03T16:53:53+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/12\/03\/the-radical-mr-rogers\/\"},\"wordCount\":2448,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/12\/03\/the-radical-mr-rogers\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/gif-by-andrew-mcclure.-yearbook-photo-courtesy-of-the-department-of-college-archives-and-special-collections-olin-library-rollins-college-winter-park-florida..gif\",\"articleSection\":[\"Arts & Culture\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/12\/03\/the-radical-mr-rogers\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/12\/03\/the-radical-mr-rogers\/\",\"name\":\"The Radical Mister Rogers by Chantel Tattoli\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/12\/03\/the-radical-mr-rogers\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/12\/03\/the-radical-mr-rogers\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/gif-by-andrew-mcclure.-yearbook-photo-courtesy-of-the-department-of-college-archives-and-special-collections-olin-library-rollins-college-winter-park-florida..gif\",\"datePublished\":\"2019-12-03T16:00:48+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-12-03T16:53:53+00:00\",\"description\":\"December 3, 2019 \u2013 Though we're in the midst of a Mister Rogers biography boom, few people have examined his rabble-rousing college years.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/12\/03\/the-radical-mr-rogers\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/12\/03\/the-radical-mr-rogers\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/12\/03\/the-radical-mr-rogers\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/gif-by-andrew-mcclure.-yearbook-photo-courtesy-of-the-department-of-college-archives-and-special-collections-olin-library-rollins-college-winter-park-florida..gif\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/gif-by-andrew-mcclure.-yearbook-photo-courtesy-of-the-department-of-college-archives-and-special-collections-olin-library-rollins-college-winter-park-florida..gif\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/12\/03\/the-radical-mr-rogers\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The Radical Mister Rogers\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"description\":\"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"width\":696,\"height\":696,\"caption\":\"The Paris Review\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview\",\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/b72857973f8c094d7664bfe723fb5103\",\"name\":\"Chantel Tattoli\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/6022a0f204fb26e84a6b93583fa75eb9662a5a2914d31febfe21d93c1528b7cb?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/6022a0f204fb26e84a6b93583fa75eb9662a5a2914d31febfe21d93c1528b7cb?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Chantel Tattoli\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/ctattoli\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Radical Mister Rogers by Chantel Tattoli","description":"December 3, 2019 \u2013 Though we're in the midst of a Mister Rogers biography boom, few people have examined his rabble-rousing college years.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/12\/03\/the-radical-mr-rogers\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Radical Mister Rogers by Chantel Tattoli","og_description":"December 3, 2019 \u2013 Though we're in the midst of a Mister Rogers biography boom, few people have examined his rabble-rousing college years.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/12\/03\/the-radical-mr-rogers\/","og_site_name":"The Paris Review","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","article_published_time":"2019-12-03T16:00:48+00:00","article_modified_time":"2019-12-03T16:53:53+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1000,"height":536,"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/gif-by-andrew-mcclure.-yearbook-photo-courtesy-of-the-department-of-college-archives-and-special-collections-olin-library-rollins-college-winter-park-florida..gif","type":"image\/gif"}],"author":"Chantel Tattoli","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@parisreview","twitter_site":"@parisreview","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Chantel Tattoli","Est. reading time":"12 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/12\/03\/the-radical-mr-rogers\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/12\/03\/the-radical-mr-rogers\/"},"author":{"name":"Chantel Tattoli","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/b72857973f8c094d7664bfe723fb5103"},"headline":"The Radical Mister Rogers","datePublished":"2019-12-03T16:00:48+00:00","dateModified":"2019-12-03T16:53:53+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/12\/03\/the-radical-mr-rogers\/"},"wordCount":2448,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/12\/03\/the-radical-mr-rogers\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/gif-by-andrew-mcclure.-yearbook-photo-courtesy-of-the-department-of-college-archives-and-special-collections-olin-library-rollins-college-winter-park-florida..gif","articleSection":["Arts & Culture"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/12\/03\/the-radical-mr-rogers\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/12\/03\/the-radical-mr-rogers\/","name":"The Radical Mister Rogers by Chantel Tattoli","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/12\/03\/the-radical-mr-rogers\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/12\/03\/the-radical-mr-rogers\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/gif-by-andrew-mcclure.-yearbook-photo-courtesy-of-the-department-of-college-archives-and-special-collections-olin-library-rollins-college-winter-park-florida..gif","datePublished":"2019-12-03T16:00:48+00:00","dateModified":"2019-12-03T16:53:53+00:00","description":"December 3, 2019 \u2013 Though we're in the midst of a Mister Rogers biography boom, few people have examined his rabble-rousing college years.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/12\/03\/the-radical-mr-rogers\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/12\/03\/the-radical-mr-rogers\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/12\/03\/the-radical-mr-rogers\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/gif-by-andrew-mcclure.-yearbook-photo-courtesy-of-the-department-of-college-archives-and-special-collections-olin-library-rollins-college-winter-park-florida..gif","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/gif-by-andrew-mcclure.-yearbook-photo-courtesy-of-the-department-of-college-archives-and-special-collections-olin-library-rollins-college-winter-park-florida..gif"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/12\/03\/the-radical-mr-rogers\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Radical Mister Rogers"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","name":"The Paris Review","description":"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization","name":"The Paris Review","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","width":696,"height":696,"caption":"The Paris Review"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/b72857973f8c094d7664bfe723fb5103","name":"Chantel Tattoli","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/6022a0f204fb26e84a6b93583fa75eb9662a5a2914d31febfe21d93c1528b7cb?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/6022a0f204fb26e84a6b93583fa75eb9662a5a2914d31febfe21d93c1528b7cb?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Chantel Tattoli"},"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/ctattoli\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/873"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141235"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141235\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":141269,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141235\/revisions\/141269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}