Soap operas have long been trivialized as low-brow women’s entertainment. Even the term “soap” is pejorative when describing television. But there’s a deeper story to tell about the genre that changed storytelling on the small screen.

Irna Phillips doesn’t get enough credit for her creation. She’s the Chicago woman who birthed the daytime serial for radio in the 1930s and ushered it onto television in the 1950s. Phillips established staples in the genre like the cliff-hanger; she was a prolific writer who knew the daytime audience wanted to see their own problems in stories. As she summed it up in 1947: “[T]heir own conflicts, their own heartache, their hopes and their own dreams. Everything isn't happiness, is it? No.”

Beyond the melodrama and romantic escapism, soaps took bold risks, embracing social consciousness with groundbreaking women-centered storylines.

“Daytime dramas have grappled with social change and offered thoughtful explorations of romantic and familial relationships to an extent rarely seen in evening schedules, with controversial subject matter airing to little notice and thereby little upset,” said soap scholar and University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee professor Elana Levine.

Whether you know it or not, soaps are a foundation of U.S. television. They’ve given us the medium’s longest-running scripted series — and worlds that do not end.

What Natalie read:

• “Afternoon Delight: Why Soaps Still Matter” by Carolyn Hinsey
• “Her Stories: Daytime Soap Opera and US Television History” by Elana Levine
• “The Survival of Soap Opera: Transformations for a New Media Era” edited by Sam Ford, Abigail De Kosnik and C. Lee Harrington
• “Worlds Without End: The Art and History of the Soap Opera” from the Museum of Television and Radio

Natalie Moore is a senior lecturer at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. Follow her on X at @natalieymoore.