Charren, Peggy

Charren, Peggy (b. Walzer) (1928–  ) consumer activist; born in New York City. The mother of two children, she founded an art prints store (1951) and ran Quality Book Fairs (1960–65) in Newton, Mass. In 1968, upset at the violence and other defects she saw on children's television programs, she founded Action for Children's Television in her suburban home. Her watchdog group became a national organization that worked strenuously to improve the quality of children's television. She disbanded the organization (1992) because the passage of the Children's Television Act (1990) incorporated the results of many of her goals. She wrote Changing Channels: Living Sensibly with Television (1983) and was a visiting scholar at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (1987).