Mr. Rogers red sweater is in the Smithsonian:
https://www.si.edu/object/nmah_680637
To be fair, when Mr. Rogers first came out, most people still had black and white tvs. I can remember when a neighbor was the first person I knew to own a color tv. The neighbors all went over to marvel at it. Even when it was available, few people owned one because they were expensive. If memory serves, the neighbor paid somewhere in the neighborhood of $800 for it, which was quite a lot of money in those days.
There were no computer chips in tvs in those days, just vacuum tubes. If a tv broke, most people called the tv repairman to come out and fix it. The local drug store used to have a display where you could bring your burnt-out tv tubes to the store to figure out what type they were, then you bought the corresponding tube to replace it. My father often went down to the store to get a replacement to fix our old tv. We had the same tv set the entire time I lived at home and even through college. I was the one that finally bought them a color tv.
The fact that tvs were black and white back then may explain why it took so long to establish today's "red for Republicans and blue for Dems" color scheme. Before color tv, it didn't really matter.
I'm also wondering whether all the different color schemes for the two parties over the years might not be comms in and of themselves. If they were cheating back then -- and they undoubtedly were -- the colors could indicate which candidate needed a "boost" at the voting booth. Just a thought, but they could have used the colors on election night to say, "we think Joe X is lagging a bit, so get ready to add a few extra votes for him to push him over the top."
Mr. Rogers red sweater is in the Smithsonian:
https://www.si.edu/object/nmah_680637
To be fair, when Mr. Rogers first came out, most people still had black and white tvs. I can remember when a neighbor was the first person I knew to own a color tv. The neighbors all went over to marvel at it. Even when it was available, few people owned one because they were expensive. If memory serves, the neighbor paid somewhere in the neighborhood of $800 for it, which was quite a lot of money in those days.
There were no computer chips in tvs in those days, just vacuum tubes. If a tv broke, most people called the tv repairman to come out and fix it. The local drug store used to have a display where you could bring your burnt-out tv tubes to the store to figure out what type they were, then you bought the corresponding tube to replace it. My father often went down to the store to get a replacement to fix our old tv. We had the same tv set the entire time I lived at home and even through college. I was the one that finally bought them a color tv.
The fact that tvs were black and white back then may explain why it took so long to establish today's "red for Republicans and blue for Dems" color scheme. Before color tv, it didn't really matter.
I'm also wondering whether all the different color schemes for the two parties over the years might not be comms in and of themselves. If they were cheating back them -- and they undoubtedly were -- the colors could indicate which candidate needed a "boost" at the voting booth. Just a thought, but they could have used the colors on election night to say, "we think Joe X is lagging a bit, so get ready to add a few extra votes for him to push him over the top."