Five Television Milestones We Owe to Irna Phillips

Everyone has watched a soap opera. Whether they did it faithfully for multiple decades, went through a phase in high school or college or when home with small children, or just on a sick day when they didn’t have the strength to lift a finger to change channels with their remote control, no one in America is unaware of programs like The Guiding Light, As the World Turns, General Hospital, All My Children or Days of Our Lives.

What very few people do know, however, is that the entire genre was invented by a women named Irna Phillips, and that, thanks to her, we have the following TV tropes that seem so obvious as to now be taken for granted: https://www.historyinthemargins.com/2025/04/04/five-television-milestones-we-owe-to-irna-phillips-a-guest-post-by-alina-adams/