This spring has seen the passing of two giants in the history of WNET. John Jay Iselin and James Day were collectively crucial to the development of WNET from the 1950s through the 1980s. Both former presidents of WNET, they helped define the development of public television into the medium it is today.
In the early days of public television, the medium was dominated by lectures given by instructors in front of plain backgrounds. One of the programs to break out of that mold was performer and historian Max Morath’s “The Ragtime Era” which was pioneering in its use of sets, costumes and make-up.
In this recently unearthed 1960 episode from the WNET archives, Morath delves into the history of Tin Pan Alley.
