1930's Radio Soap Operas

1930's Radio Soap Operas
Radio emerged as a vehicle for mass communication and entertainment during the 1920s but did not begin to dominate and influence American culture until the 1930s. During this decade America's radio programming, advertising and influence over the American public flourished since ownership of radios increased dramatically. While once considered an avenue for public service, radio programming of the 1930s sought to satisfy Americans' needs for Escape , community and connection to others all the while selling American products. This phenomenon was best illustrated through Soap Operas . Denounced by critics as low-culture, neurotic, crude and irrational, daytime Serials were a medium for advertising a myriad of products aimed at female consumers, often acknowledged by researchers as the primary purchaser of household goods. "Soaps" were largely written and produced by women for women and focused on realistic storylines that illustrated the social and economic tensions of the era. These daytime series dealt with socially controversial issues that were central to women, providing housewives a way to participate in a community while confined to their homes. These women were not merely passive listeners but many wrote to their favorite characters and to the sponsors and producers of their favorite program to provide advice and suggestions about the storylines.  Soap Operas represented a new relationship between the broadcaster, sponsor and audience.

The Rise of the Radio 
For many Americans during the 1920s and early 1930s, the radio was luxury. But as time passed, the cost of purchasing a radio deceased causing the likelihood of household ownership to increase. In 1930 the average cost of a radio was $78, but by 1940 the cost decreased to $38 (Craig 186). Correspondingly, 40 percent of households owned a radio in 1930, and by 1940, 86 percent of households owned a radio (Lenthall 56). While this price would still have been expensive, the improved technology allowed radio maintenance to become cheaper and easier. Research and evidence suggest that even many impoverished families were willing to sacrifice in order to buy a radio (Craig 187). Radio was so popular that by the end of the 1930s it was ranked the favorite recreation activity in a Fortune magazine survey, and many people indicated they would rather give up going to the movies than give up their radios (Lenthall 57). Radio was such an integral and important part of life during the 1930s that one man commented, "'If we lost the radio, I'd be willing to dig my own grave.'" (Lenthall 57). Even those households without radios would find ways to listen to their favorite programs. Some people listened with their neighbors; others listen in public places; while several used "grapevine radios" which ran a long wire from a neighbor's radio to a speaker in their Home allowing them to listen to what their neighbors played (Lenthall 59). Radio provided a way for Americans to connect through a common program broadcast on the major networks nationwide. These programs created a common culture that bridged segments of the American population.

Marketing to Women
As radio grew, the emerging national networks (the Columbia Broadcasting System and the National Broadcasting System) needed programs to fill their air-time and corporate sponsors to finance this air-time. Many of the programs broadcast during this period targeted specific segments of the population through both genre and sponsorship. Men listened to Sports , Comedy hours, and night-time Serials .  Children listened to stories of superheroes, villains and Cowboys . Families gathered around the radio to hear President Roosevelt's Fireside Chats, musical hours, and variety programs. Women listened to daytime talk shows and Soap Operas .
Between the hours of 9 a.m. and 6 p.m., radio programming was directed at women's needs and interests. Early in the 1930s much of daytime programming on both CBS and NBC was considered a "hodge-podge" by executives who recommended "greater thought and structure for the daytime schedule" (Gomery 45). Although this goal would not be achieved until the 1936 -1937 season, the sale of sponsorship air time helped create Soap Operas ' prominent and anchoring role in daytime programming. Initially reluctant to sponsor women's daytime programming, corporate advertisers like Colgate-Palmolive and Proctor & Gamble were lured into purchasing large amounts of air time by broadcasting executives who offered discounts to advertisers who purchased a one hour block of time instead of 15-minute segments (Cantor and Pingree 37).

Clara, Lu & Em Colgate-Palmolive Ad

Not only did advantageous pricing attract companies to sponsor programs, but radio research suggested "that if listeners associated a show with its sponsors, they were more likely to purchase the advertised product" (Gomery 39). National grocery chain and early radio advertiser, A&P, sponsored several morning programs targeted to the female audience in 1930 and found that even in the midst of the Depression their sales increased. In 1932 A&P decide to advertise specific products only on Monday's shows and record the sale of these products on the following Tuesday. The collected data indicated "sales increased 29 percent the days following its being advertised on radio" (Allen 106). When A&P mentioned the price of the product, sales increased "an astounding 173 percent" (Allen 106). This data clearly indicated that corporate radio sponsorship of programs created increased revenue for the sponsors particularly when aimed at the female consumer. Additionally, women themselves acknowledged their own purchasing power in a 1932 study of 900 women from Pennsylvania. The study concluded "that 'the program sponsor should realize that the housewife in a majority of cases is the member of the family who has the most influence upon family purchases and is the one who spends the most time in the Home . She is, therefore, the member of the family most easily reached by radio broadcasts'" (Allen 106). Expenditures for daytime radio advertising more than doubled between 1935 and 1939 as sponsors realized that women were a perfect audience to reach through radio (Smulyan 91). Procter & Gamble, the largest user of network radio in 1935, sponsored 778 program hours that year, 664 hours of which were daytime programs, and by 1937 they were spending $4,456,525 on advertising, 90 percent of which going to daytime programming (Allen 117). The most common products advertised during daytime programming included breakfast cereal, toothpaste, drug products and Home remedies, food, and beverages.
As the 1930s progressed the soap opera became the perfect radio program to attract a dedicated audience of listeners and consumers by offering a storyline that featured recurring characters using products in an affordable fifteen-minute format.

Soap Opera Appeal
Advertising consumer products to the largest demographic of household consumers appealed to the sponsors of the soap opera, but it was the storylines of these programs that drew the audience to listen. These daytimeSerials promised "real life," "truly human" stories about "typical Americans" that served both the emotional interests of the listeners and the commercial interests of advertisers.
The daytime serial focused primarily on women's lives, particularly family relationships, domesticity, Marriage , and sexuality. The Drama that propelled the storylines of these Serials most often focused on the struggle of the protagonist to mediate the tension between Marriage and career or to deal with the fight for dominance or dependency between the genders (Hilmes 170). The most common situation for the soap opera heroine involved feeling out of place, especially in terms of social class, within her Marriage(Loviglio 78). In  Betty and Bob , Betty was married to Bob, the son of a millionaire who cut off the young couple to signify his displeasure over their union. In  Our Gal Sunday , "an orphan girl from the little mining town of Silver Creek, Colorado" married "England's richest, most handsome lord, Lord Henry Brinthrope." Each week the program addressed the question: "Can this girl from a mining town in the West find happiness as a wife of a wealthy and titled Englishman?" Michele Hilmes in Radio Voices suggests that the possession of wealth or social status served "as a symbolic substitute for the gender basis of social power" (172). Even though the situation of these daytime Serials might not contain realistic true-to-life scenarios, the female listener would be able to connect because of her own "limited ability to survive economically outside Marriage " (Hilmes 172).
In addition to having storylines women could connect to, these programs featured strong female characters often in the role of the protagonist. The typical heroine was unattached to a man, either because she was single, widowed or separated. If she were married her husband would not have represented a source of strength but rather a source of problems that the heroine must deal with. Male characters within these dramas filled ancillary roles usually as love interests and were often "problematic to some degree" (Hilmes 171). Often male characters would be "unstable, disabled, or criminal"; the most common disabilities were "blindness, crippling diseases or accidents…,amnesia, brain injuries, and other mental dislocations" (Hilmes 171, 173). The portrayal of men as subservient might have appealed to the American housewife as it was the only place in America where it would have occurred.
Although few listeners could claim to have experiences similar to those in the soaps, audience research suggested that the "emotional pain" of the characters "struck listeners as "true-to-life'" (Loviglio 79). Herta Herzog from the Office of Radio Research at Columbia University found the top three reasons listeners gave to tuning in to Soap Operas was "emotional release ('a chance to cry'); commiseration (it 'made them feel better to know that other people have troubles, too'); and as 'a source of advice' about their own problems" (Loviglio 79).
The format of the soap opera also increased it appeal. The slow pace of the storylines, which often took days to recount the activities of a 24-hour period, made "the story easier to follow should a devoted housewife have missed a day or be cleaning an upstairs bedroom when a crucial scene occurred" (Nachman 368). Nearly all Soap Operas opened with a recap to fill-in any missing information a listener would need to know before the show proceeded and ended with a teaser for the next episode. This fifteen minute format for the show and the announcer's introduction and conclusion to the episode made it the perfect program for the busy housewife.
The storylines, the characters, and the format of Soap Operas attracted lower and middle-class women confined to their homes during the day. In addition to selling products, Soap Operas sold women "hope for a more attentive spouse, a more appreciative, less selfish child, a more committed lover, or a less meddlesome parent" (Nachman 375). Soaps not only provided an Escape , but they also made women's luckless or lonely lives seem less bleak than many of those on the air.
Even though Soap Operas catered to the interests of their female listeners and some were created by women, they were constrained by sponsors, producers and network censors. Daytime Serials "addressed and created an explicitly feminine" culture while "reinforcing and acknowledging the differences between men's and women's lives within the hierarchy of American culture" (Hilmes 174). These programs provided women with a fantasy world but one in which women were still wives and homemakers.
Many programs dealt with controversial issues that the female protagonist had to overcome, but nearly all resolved them in a way that reinforced traditional female roles. In an episode of Today's Children , Frances Moran contemplates postponing her Marriageto Bob so that she might fulfill her desires for a career. She receives advice from Judge McCoy, a family friend, who tells her "'The male has ever been the provider and protector—the female has ever been the bearer of the young—and do you women of today think you can suddenly and completely change the natural laws that have gone on since time began?'" (Hilmes 162). Ultimately, Frances chooses to marry Bob and give up her career aspirations: "'My dream—my painted dream—I guess—yes, I guess my place is here—with Bob'" (Hilmes 163). This episode of Today's Children  represented the majority of soap opera storylines that introduced controversial issues dealing with gender roles, but in the end the conflict is resolved by endorsing the traditional roles of women.
One program that defied traditional gender roles was The Story of Mary Marlin, in which a young wife with a small son accompanied her newly elected senator husband to Washington only to have her husband vanish and her assume his senatorship. Not only did this serial feature a widowed woman in power, but the creator, writer and producer Jane Crusinberry fought the network to include relevant political issues into the storylines. By setting Mary Marlin in Washington, Crusinberry meant to feature sensitive political issues, including unions, juvenile delinquency, and elections, all of which caused sponsors and networks discomfort (Hilmes 176-7). Because of this both the sponsors and the network worked to censor Crusinberry's treatment of these subjects.
Other shows featured unconventional family situations. Judy and Jane, a program featuring two women as business partners, political allies, and friends who lived together, introduced a bankrupt, homeless immigrant movie producer named Ben Feinstein into the storyline and the Home in 1937 (Loviglio 85). Many programs also featured multiethnic communities of working class immigrants like Ben Feinstein. The Guiding Light , The Right to Happiness , and Life Can Be Beautiful, in addition to Judy and Jane, all featured Jewish immigrants as central characters (Loviglio 96). The inclusion of these types of characters represents the changing understanding of the population of the United States at this time. What it meant to be American changed during the 1930s, and radio Soap Operas reflected this change.
Soap creators and the audience understood that daytime Serials were meant to "go too far" and be excessive in presenting "actions and characters who offended various sensibilities and provoked impassioned audience responses" (Hilmes 177). Even if these Soap Operas explored taboo situations they always ended in accordance with the social norms of the age.

Audience Response
Radio in general allowed listeners to develop intimate relationships with the voices and characters of their favorite shows. Listeners of All Shows became invested in the programs thereby creating "ethereal radio communities" (Lenthall 67). These ethereal radio communities created relationships between performers or characters and listeners. Listeners drew upon these characters for advice and support, and many characters became role models for their listeners (Lenthall 73). For women, it was the soap opera heroine.
Not only did these characters fill a social gap in these women's lives, but they combated loneliness and isolation by providing an imaginary community in which the listener could participate. The storylines of these soaps provided a spring board for discussion and even active change in the listeners' real lives. Research of audience behavior suggested that "serial listeners frequently discussed their stories with friends and relatives, fiercely debating the morality—and realism-of characters and their actions" (Hilmes 163).  Soap Operas provided a common program that women could listen to thereby building a common culture specifically for women. Within this radio community the female listener could build real life bonds through the discussion of the programs with friends all the while exploring issues central to women.

Furthermore, many radio listeners wrote letters to their favorite shows or characters. In fact, networks encouraged listeners to write letters as a way to gauge the programs popularity. Daytime serial listeners often wrote to their favorite characters as if they were real people, some even sent gifts or advice on what they should do in the current plot situation (Hilmes 163). These listeners were often dismissed by critics as being deluded or neurotic; but more often than not, the authors of these letters grasped the differences between fantasy and reality and were much savvier than critics suggest. Many fan letters emphasized real-life suffering as a reason for appreciating the program (Loviglio 94). Still other letters contained specific requests for plot direction or advice on how the writers should deal with a particular situation. The producers of the daytime serial dramas paid considerable attention to the letters written by fans. Producers used these letters as "indicators of characters' or stars' popularity, as gauges of public opinion over controversial plot developments, as support for inclusion or exclusion of material" (Hilmes 163). Moreover, some listeners wrote letters threatening to discontinue purchasing the products advertised during the program. Procter & Gamble received threats from listeners who stated they would stop "buying Kleenex if The Story of Mary Marlin did not take a particular turn or if the company pulled its sponsorship" (Loviglio 95). Another listener wrote, "'The day Sally marries Joe [I] will stop listening to the program and using Kleenex'" (Hilmes 178). Still another threatened, "'If Elizabeth is allowed to spoil the Mary-Peter Romance , [I] will never use [the] product again'" (Hilmes 178). Through this it is clear that many listeners had a clear understanding of the dynamics of the radio industry and knew how to lobby to make their values dominate the plot (Hilmes 178).
While critics of the soap opera genre categorized the listener as unstable and irrational, many soap fans understood that their favorite programs were drawing large audiences of not only women, but Children , and unemployed men. These listeners were acutely aware of the audience response to daytime serial dramas so much so that a woman writing to President Roosevelt in 1933 after his first Fireside Chat "suggest that he broadcast 'at the beginning of a weekday coast to coast program such as… Myrt and Marge…when the whole country is turned on for their program…I believe this will ensure a greater audience'" (Loviglio 94). This listener clearly understood that large audiences of Americans tuned into serial dramas nationwide underscoring the importance and prevalence of this genre of programming.
Soap opera fans were not merely passive listeners, and instead of writers, producers and sponsors determining the content of the soap opera, listeners took an active role in determining the plot lines aimed at their wants by writing to producers and sponsors.

Success of Soaps
The soap opera enjoyed its greatest success in the 1930s and 1940s. According to Variety statistics, the network daytime schedule in 1936 consisted of 55.3 percent of serial dramas (Hilmes 151). The soap opera grew from four programs in 1932, to ten in 1934, and 28 in 1936. By the end of the decade 61 Soap Operas were being broadcast nationwide (Summers 35, 48, 65, 81). The growth of the soap opera proved that daytime radio had unprecedented listener loyalty and could be extremely profitable for sponsors whose products appealed to the listener. For sponsors, network daytime policies and women's serial dramas presented a windfall of profits.  Soap Operas flourished during the 1930s because manufacturers of household products "experimented with an untried form of entertainment" (Cantor and Pingree 32). For women, these Soap Operas created a specifically female culture and community of listeners.

References

• Allen, Robert C. "An Institutional History of Soap Operas ." Speaking of Soap Operas . Chapel Hill: Universtiy of North Carolina Press, 1985. 96-129. Print.
• Cantor, Muriel G, and Suzanne Pingree. "Soaps on Radio." The Soap Opera. Beverly Hills: Sage publications, 1983. 31-46. Print.
• Craig, Steve. "How America Adopted Radio: Demographic Differences in Set Ownership Reported in the 1930-1950 U.S. Censuses." Journal of Broadcasting & Electrionic Media 48.2 (2004): 179-195. General OneFile. Web. 19 Nov. 2009.
• Gomery, Douglas. "Radio's Social, Cultural and Political Impact: The First Mass Medium." A History of American Broadcasting in the United States. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2008. 38-47. Print.
• Hilmes, Michele. "Under Cover od Daytime." Radio Voices. Minneapolis: University of Minneapolic Press, 1997. 151-182. Print.
• Lenthall, Bruce. "Radio's Listeners: Personalizing Mass Culture." Radio's America: the Great Depression and the Rise of Modern Mass Culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007. 53-82. Print.
• Loviglio, Jason. "Public Affairs: The Soap-Opera Cultural Front." Radio's Intimate Public: Netwrok Broadcasting and Mass-Mediated Democracy. Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis Press, 2005. 70-101. Print.
• Nachman, Gerald. "The Soap Factory." Raised on Radio. New York: Pantheon, 1998. 366-387. Print.
• Smulyan, Susan. "Radio Advertising to Women." Selling Radio. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1994. 86-92. Print.
• Summers, Harrison B, ed. A Thirty-Year History of Programs Carried on National Radio Networks in the United States 1926-1956. 1958. New York: Arno Press, 1971. Print