These Are My Children is a short-lived American television soap opera

Soap opera

A soap opera, sometimes called "soap" for short, is an ongoing, episodic work of dramatic fiction presented in serial format on radio or as television programming. The name soap opera stems from the original dramatic serials broadcast on radio that had soap manufacturers, such as Procter & Gamble,...

 which ran on NBC

NBC

The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...

 from January 21, 1949 to February 25, 1949. The show was broadcast live from Chicago, Illinois, airing fifteen minutes a day, five days a week, at 5:00 p.m. EST.

These Are My Children was the first soap opera to air on a major television network. Created by Irna Phillips

Irna Phillips

Irna Phillips was an American actress and most notably writer who created and scripted many of the first American soap operas.Phillips created radio and TV soap operas including:...

 and directed by Norman Felton

Norman Felton

Norman Felton is a British-born American television producer, best known for his involvement in shows such as The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and Dr. Kildare, both on NBC.-Background:...

, the show was based in large part on Phillips' early radio soaps Today's Children

Today's Children

Today's Children was a name shared by two thematically related American radio soap operas created and written by Irna Phillips, the earliest of which was her first nationally networked series.-1933-1938 series:...

and Painted Dreams

Painted Dreams

Painted Dreams is an American radio soap opera that was the first daytime radio soap opera program in the United States. It premiered October 20, 1930 and last aired in July, 1943....

. Children centered on an Irish

Irish people

The Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...

 widow, Mrs. Henehan and her struggles to run a boarding house as well as help her three children and new daughter-in-law Jean. Critics were not impressed; Television World ended their review with: "There is no place on television for this type of program, a blank screen is preferable."

Phillips would go on to create many popular daytime dramas, and Felton produced primetime soaps Dr. Kildare

Dr. Kildare

Dr. James Kildare is a fictional character, the primary character in a series of American theatrical films in the late 1930s and early 1940s, an early 1950s radio series, a 1960s television series of the same name and a comic book based on the TV show, and a short-lived 1970s television series...

and Executive Suite

Executive Suite

Executive Suite is a 1954 MGM drama film depicting the transfer of power in a corporation in trouble. The film stars William Holden, Barbara Stanwyck, Fredric March, and Walter Pidgeon. It was directed by Robert Wise and produced by John Houseman from a screenplay by Ernest Lehman based on the...

.

Cast: Alma Platts (Mrs. Henehan), Jane Brooksmith (Patricia Henehan), Martha McClain (Penny Henehan), George Kluge (John Henehan), Joan Arlt (Jean Henehan), Margaret Heneghan (Aunt Kitty Henehan), Eloise Kummer (Kay Carter), and Mignon Schreiber (Mrs. Berkovitch)