Ann Landers was a pen name created by Chicago Sun-Times advice columnist Ruth Crowley in 1943 and taken over by Esther Pauline "Eppie" Lederer in 1955. For 56 years, the Ask Ann Landers syndicated advice column was a regular feature in many newspapers across North America. Owing to this popularity, "Ann Landers", though fictional, became something of a national institution and cultural icon.
The creator of the "Ann Landers" pseudonym was Ruth Crowley, a Chicago nurse who had been writing a child-care column for the Chicago Sun newspaper since 1941. On March 29, 1943, Crowly began writing a second column in which she gave advice. She used the name "Ann Landers", taken from a family friend Bill Landers, so as not to confuse the two columns. Unlike her eventual successor Esther Lederer, Crowley kept her identity as Landers secret, even enjoining her children to help her keep it quiet. [1] Crowley took a three-year break from writing the column from 1948 until 1951. After 1951, she continued the column for the Chicago Sun-Times which had begun to syndicate it [1] to 26 other newspapers. Crowley continued to write the column until her death, at 48, on July 20, 1955. In all, she spent a total of nine years writing advice as "Ann Landers". She also was featured on the 1953–1955 DuMont Television Network series All About Baby . [2]
In the three-month period after Crowley's death, various writers, including Connie Chancellor, took over the column. [1]
By including expert advice from authorities, which none of her competitors did, Eppie Lederer won a contest to become the new writer of the column, debuting on October 16, 1955. [3] The column opened with a letter from a "Non-Eligible Bachelor" who despaired of getting married. Her advice was, "You're a big boy now...don't let spite ruin your life." [4] Lederer went on to advise thousands of other readers over the next several decades. Eventually, she became owner of the copyright. [5]
News America Syndicate distributed the Landers column before it was sold to King Features, [6] and Landers moved to the new Creators Syndicate. [7] On February 13, 1987, after years of seeking to run the column, [6] the Chicago Tribune announced the Landers column was moving there, [7] and the Sun-Times replaced her with Ruth Crowley's daughter Diane Crowley and Jeff Zaslow of The Wall Street Journal . [8] [9]
In 1985, the attorney general of Illinois, Neil Hartigan, wrote to Ask Ann Landers requesting assistance in dispelling the hoax that a film was going to depict Jesus as gay. Lederer replied that "Hoaxes die hard, and the zanier the hoax, the more difficult it is to try to convince people that it is not true". She advised readers not to believe the hoax. [10] [11]
Lederer chose not to have a different writer continue the column after her death, so the "Ann Landers" column ceased after publication of the few weeks' worth of material which she had written before her death.
Sometimes she expressed unpopular opinions. She repeatedly favored legalization of prostitution and was pro-choice on abortion, yet denounced atheist Madalyn Murray O'Hair. [12] In 1973, she wrote in support of the legalization of homosexual acts, saying that she had been "pleading for compassion and understanding and equal rights for homosexuals" for 18 years, [13] and wrote in 1976 that she "fought for the civil rights of homosexuals 20 years ago and argued that they should be regarded as full and equal citizens". [14] Nevertheless, for years, she described homosexuality as "unnatural", a "sickness" and a "dysfunction". [15] [16] [17] Not till 1992 did she eventually reverse her opinion, and even then only after reviewing research and receiving nearly 75,000 letters that gay and lesbian readers wrote to her saying that they were happy being gay; she wrote that "it is my firm conviction that homosexuality is not learned behavior", adding that while being gay could be suppressed, it could not be altered. [18] [19]
Even so, in 1996, she wrote regarding gay marriage, "Before you gay-rights folks land on me with both feet ... I cannot support same-sex marriage, however, because it flies in the face of cultural and traditional family life as we have known it for centuries." [20]
In 1995, Eppie commented thus in The New Yorker about Pope John Paul II: "He has a sweet sense of humor. Of course, he's a Polack. They're very anti-women." Polish Americans responded with outrage. She issued a formal apology, but refused to comment further. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel canceled her column after that incident. In the same article she noted that President John F. Kennedy's father, Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., was anti-Semitic. [21]
A 1995 "Ann Landers" column said, "In recent years, there have been reports of people with twisted minds putting razor blades and poison in taffy apples and Halloween candy. It is no longer safe to let your child eat treats that come from strangers." The vague warning was criticized for causing fear dishonestly, as there have been no documented cases of children receiving poisoned candy during door-to-door Halloween trick-or-treating. [22]
In her March 28, 1965, column, regarding ownership of wedding gifts, Lederer wrote that "the wedding gifts belong to the bride." She went on to state that the bride should "consult a lawyer about the checks. In some states this could be considered community property." The advice was mistaken because only gifts given after the marriage would be considered community property in some states (or else because wedding gifts—if so designated—can be considered back-dated gifts to the bride). The response also fails to explain why checks should be treated any differently from any other property that was given as a wedding gift. The column has provided teaching material for law professors and law students. [23]
In a 1996 column, she "informed" her readers that they should avoid throwing rice at weddings, lest birds eat it and explode. Such advice was erroneous, as milled rice is not harmful to birds. She later recanted. [24]
After Lederer died in June 2002, her last column ran on July 27. Lederer's daughter Margo Howard (who wrote Dear Prudence ) said the column would end, according to Lederer's wishes. Creators Syndicate President Rick Newcombe said Lederer's editors, Kathy Mitchell and Marcy Sugar, should start a column of their own. Though Mitchell and Sugar were reluctant, many readers wanted the column to continue. Thus, the Annie's Mailbox column began on July 28, 2002, in approximately 800 newspapers. Newspapers were given three possible choices: In addition to Annie's Mailbox, classic Ask Ann Landers, and Dear Prudence. [25] [26] [27] In 2016, the authors responded to a reader question by saying, "[T]here are two of us, and neither of us is named 'Annie.' ... The Mailbox was named in honor of Ann Landers, with whom we both worked for many years. Hence it is 'Annie's Mailbox' with an apostrophe. ... After all, there can be only one Ann Landers. We simply do the best we can to honor her legacy." [28]
Annie's Mailbox was syndicated in numerous newspapers throughout the US until June 30, 2016. On that date, Mitchell and Sugar wrote "...we say farewell. It is time for us to step aside and take advantage of opportunities neither of us has had the time for until now." They also introduced columnist Annie Lane, known as Dear Annie. [29]
A few months after Eppie Lederer took over as Ann Landers, her twin sister Pauline Esther "PoPo" Phillips introduced a similar, competing column, Dear Abby, using the pseudonym "Abigail Van Buren", which produced a lengthy estrangement between the two sisters. [30] Phillips wrote her column until retiring in 2002, at which time her daughter, Jeanne Phillips, took over.
Margo Howard is an American writer and former advice columnist. She is the only child of businessman/innovator Jules Lederer and Eppie Lederer, the niece of Pauline Phillips, and the cousin of Jeanne Phillips.
Pauline Esther Phillips, also known as Abigail Van Buren, was an American advice columnist and radio show host who began the well-known "Dear Abby" newspaper column in 1956. It became the most widely syndicated newspaper column in the world, syndicated in 1,400 newspapers with 110 million readers.
The Chicago Sun-Times is a daily nonprofit newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has long held the second largest circulation among Chicago newspapers, after the Chicago Tribune.
Savage Love is a syndicated sex-advice column by Dan Savage. The column appears weekly in several dozen newspapers, mainly free newspapers in the US and Canada, but also newspapers in Europe and Asia. It started in 1991 with the first issue of the Seattle weekly newspaper The Stranger.
Ellie Tesher is a Canadian journalist and advice columnist.
An advice column is a column in a question and answer format. Typically, a reader writes to the media outlet with a problem in the form of a question, and the media outlet provides an answer or response.
Jules Lederer (1917–1999) was an American business executive and innovator.
Jeanne Phillips, also known as Abigail Van Buren, is an American advice columnist who has written for the advice column Dear Abby since 2000. She was born in Minneapolis to Pauline Esther Phillips, who founded Dear Abby in 1956.
Marie Manning was a newspaper columnist and novelist in the early 20th century. She wrote the first newspaper advice column, Dear Beatrice Fairfax, in 1898, the precursor to modern versions such as Dear Abby and Ann Landers.
Dear Abby is an American advice column founded in 1956 by Pauline Phillips under the pen name "Abigail Van Buren" and carried on today by her daughter, Jeanne Phillips, who now owns the legal rights to the pen name.
Dear Prudence is an advice column appearing several times weekly in the online magazine Slate and syndicated to over 200 newspapers.
Amy Dickinson is a former American newspaper columnist who wrote the syndicated advice column Ask Amy. Dickinson has appeared as a social commentator on ABC's Good Morning America and NBC's The Today Show.
Helen A. Bottel was an American newspaper columnist who wrote the long-running, nationally syndicated advice column Helen Help Us! in the 1960s and 1970s.
Richard S. Newcombe is the founder and chairman of Creators Syndicate, which currently represents more than 200 writers and artists and has expanded to include Creators Publishing. Since the company's founding in 1987, the roster of talent has included Ann Landers, Hillary Clinton, Bill O'Reilly, Hunter S. Thompson, Herblock and the comic strips B.C., The Wizard of Id, Archie and Mickey Mouse. Creators Syndicate is located in Hermosa Beach, California, and distributes its content to 2,400 newspapers, magazines, websites and other digital outlets around the world.
Creators Syndicate is an American independent distributor of comic strips and syndicated columns to daily newspapers, websites, and other digital outlets. When founded in 1987, Creators Syndicate became one of the few successful independent syndicates founded since the 1930s and was the first syndicate to allow cartoonists ownership rights to their work. Creators Syndicate is based in Hermosa Beach, California.
Rick Kogan is a Chicago newspaperman, a Chicago radio personality and a noted author.
Esther Pauline "Eppie" Lederer, better known by the pen name Ann Landers, was an American advice columnist and eventually a nationwide media celebrity. She began writing the "Ask Ann Landers" column in 1955 and continued for 47 years, by which time its readership was 90 million people. A 1978 World Almanac survey named her the most influential woman in the United States. She was the identical twin sister of Pauline Phillips, who wrote the similarly popular "Dear Abby" advice column as Abigail Van Buren.
Savage Love: Straight Answers from America's Most Popular Sex Columnist is a non-fiction book by sex columnist Dan Savage. It was first published in 1998 by Plume.
Ruth Crowley was an American nurse, newspaper writer, and television personality.
Since around 1979, a chain letter has falsely claimed that a film is in the works in which Jesus will be depicted as gay and involved in a promiscuous swinger lifestyle. Born of half-truths regarding The Many Faces of Jesus, Jens Jørgen Thorsen's abandoned pornographic film about Jesus, the hoax initially implied that the film's would-be producer was a magazine that had run a poll about Thorsen's plans. The narrative has morphed over time to claim that the supposed film is an adaptation of the 1997 play Corpus Christi, which does depict Jesus as gay, although not in a sexualized manner.
