Few moments hit me with such force as when I began researching women behind the camera in classic TV.

I grew up watching Nick at Nite, so the titans of TV were always there for me. I grew to respect the William Ashers and Sheldon Leonards (to name just a few). They were fixtures. Household names.

It wasn’t until much later in my academic life though that I was struck with a thought.

“Ida Lupino couldn’t have been the only woman there…could she?”

She wasn’t.

Women like Lucille Kallen, Jean Holloway and Kathleen Hite wrote, produced and shaped the earliest years of television. They were there on the front lines, building and shaping television through its earliest years. They weren’t exceptions. They were architects.

Yet, few know their names. Fewer still know their stories.

I want to change that.

Women helped build this system. They wrote the words and crafted the stories. They made the television that created the industry we know today.

It’s time for them to get their due.