The Edge of Night comics were based on the Edge of Night television soap opera that ran on CBS from 1956 to 1974 and ABC from 1975 to 1984. This is why the Edge of Night booklets incorporated food and nutritional elements within the storyline, but why they have the melodramatic storyline and comic book format makes them even more unique. The Edge of Night was created as part of a study by the Cooperative Extension Service (then called the Agricultural Extension Service) titled “The effectiveness of cartoon booklets, information leaflets and circular letters in disseminating basic foods and nutrition information to low income families.” The study’s comic booklets, leaflets, and circulars all contained the same information and were sent to homemakers to determine if the materials could not only successfully convey their concepts, but if one format was more successful than the others.
However, the series appears much less strange when you take into account its context and intentions. It seems very strange when one booklet has a teen girl recount her tragic home life, then followed by another character discuss the importance of milk in a diet. They feature a melodrama about a married couple who help a teenage runaway and weaved into the story is information on food and nutrition. The serialized booklets made in 1973 and later distributed in 1989 appear at first glance to be an out-of-place oddity among Cooperative Extension Service publications. One resource just added to our Rare & Unique Digital Collections is the booklet series The Edge of Night, a “six-part drama” in comic book format.
Project Ceres is making these materials electronically accessible and more easily discoverable, so researchers can find methods agricultural education was presented in the latter half of the 20th century.
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