Frances Horwich

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.

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 was a bright student and was allowed to skip grades during her education. She described it as "being thrown out" of school and said she was "a badly-adjusted 15 year old" when she entered the University of Chicago.

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 two were married on July 11, 1931. The couple had no children.

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.

Initially the program was an experiment which was intended to air only once. Those watching the show's development and rehearsals were very skeptical about the venture. One station executive thought it was either the best or worst television show he had ever seen; another thought it would spell the end of television. The station's technical staff was also not encouraging. Two cameramen made remarks about the program when they believed they were out of earshot of Horwich. They did not realize that years of teaching in classrooms had made her a fine lip-reader.