Ann Landers. Photograph by Fred Palumbo, 1961. Courtesy of the Library of Congress (New York World-Telegram and the Sun Newspaper Photograph Collection: LC-USZ62-111600).

Landers, Ann (4 July 1918-22 June 2002), syndicated columnist, was the pen name of Esther Pauline Lederer, who was born in Sioux City, Iowa, to Abraham B. Friedman, a peddler, and Rebecca Rushall. Her parents, Jews who had fled persecution in Russia, had immigrated to the United States ten years earlier. Beginning as a chicken peddler, Abraham Friedman, an astute businessman, saw an opportunity to make money in the up-and-coming movie industry and became an exhibitor and distributor. He eventually owned a chain of theaters in three midwestern states and became one of the first movie-house operators to sell popcorn. In later life Eppie, as Esther was affectionately nicknamed, often said that her stable midwestern upbringing provided her with the basis for a happy life.

Eppie grew up with three sisters but was closest to her twin, Pauline Esther, nicknamed Popo. The two girls dressed alike and shared friends, and as teenagers they hung around their father's local theater, which featured burlesque acts as well as movies. Eppie always claimed that she and Popo received their sex education from chatting with the burlesque stars between performances. After graduating from high school the twins attended Morningside College in Sioux City and remained inseparable. When each of them fell in love, they left college and married their boyfriends in a joint ceremony on 2 July 1939, two days before their twenty-first birthdays. Eppie's new husband was a hat salesman, Jules W. Lederer; early in their marriage they had a daughter, Margo.

Eppie and Jules Lederer moved to Eau Claire, Wisconsin, where she settled into the comfortable domestic routine of a suburban housewife as her husband prospered. She also became active as a volunteer in community-service organizations and in local politics, eventually becoming chairwoman of the Eau Claire County Democrats. Naturally gregarious, Lederer made many friends, and her work with the Democratic Party introduced her to prominent people outside her immediate circle. In 1955 when their daughter was a teenager, the Lederers moved to Chicago because of Jules's business interests, and Eppie, who had never worked outside the home, now found herself looking for activities in her new setting. One of the city newspapers, the Chicago Sun-Times, ran a syndicated personal advice column, "Ask Ann Landers," that answered queries from readers, most of them women, and Eppie Lederer became a regular reader.

In a chance conversation with a Sun-Times reporter whom she had met on a train, Lederer learned that the column had originated at the local paper in 1942, that it ran under a pseudonymous byline, and that "Ann Landers" was in fact a staff member named Ruth Crowley. She also learned that Crowley had a difficult time keeping up with the deluge of mail that she received from readers. A few weeks later, on an impulse, Lederer called the paper to see if she could help Crowley answer her mail. She was told that Crowley had died the week before, so the Sun-Times was searching for a replacement by holding a contest among its staff. Although Lederer had no journalistic experience--other than coauthoring a campus gossip column with her sister Popo when the two were in college--she asked to be one of the contestants and as a trial was given some letters to answer. She shrewdly turned to some of the well-known friends she had made over the years, matching their areas of expertise to readers' questions, and used their answers in her responses. Her incisive quotations from the likes of the priest and educator Theodore Hesburgh, the Supreme Court justice William O. Douglas, and the nationally known physicians at the Mayo Clinic impressed Sun-Times executives, and she was hired.

Lederer's first column under the byline Ann Landers appeared on 16 October 1955 and thenceforth ran several times weekly in newspapers throughout the country. It became a huge success, and Lederer emerged as a new breed in a long-established genre that had been known for treacle, schmaltz, and tears; indeed, advice columnists were historically known as "sob sisters." Lederer would have none of it: she offered sympathy when sympathy was called for, but her columns focused on commonsense solutions to what, as she made her readers aware, were problems shared by many, and she never hesitated to turn to leading experts for help when a particular situation proved especially knotty.

Couched in a snappy, no-nonsense style that was often humorous and even mildly sarcastic, her candid advice on virtually every topic earned her a huge following, and "Ann Landers" became a household name. Most letter writers--who were identified in print only by initials or by epithets ("Dumbfounded in Denver," "Heartsick Mom," and so on)--sought information on problems with personal relationships, specifically with spouses, children, relatives, friends, and employers, but they also wrote for advice about health and legal issues, pets, and even such mundane matters as how to hang a roll of toilet paper (Ann Landers opted for leaving the end behind rather than in front, though many readers wrote in to disagree).

What "Ask Ann Landers" offered to the multitudes was free therapy, at a time when the minority of Americans who could afford professional help for their problems were increasingly turning to psychiatrists, psychologists, and other "paid friends." Readers felt able to chime in when they disagreed with particular bits of advice that Ann Landers gave, but they were just as likely to write in support of her opinions and to offer a few of their own. Though the question-and-answer format was maintained, "Ask Ann Landers" as re-created by Eppie Lederer had the feel of a forum that represented a nationwide community.

Lederer wrote her column for nearly half a century; at her death it was syndicated in more than a thousand newspapers and had an estimated 90 million readers. Lederer herself remained in Chicago, living in a luxury apartment on Lake Shore Drive; she usually worked at home, reading letters while relaxing in the bathtub. Through the years she wrote all her columns on an old manual typewriter. Lederer was employed by the Sun-Times until the mid-1980s, when the column, and Lederer, moved to the rival Chicago Tribune.

Lederer later acknowledged that writing the columns did not come naturally at first. Her personal experience of the world's woes was limited: she had grown up in a happy family without discord, had enjoyed economic privilege, and was comfortably married and had a child whom she and her husband both doted on. But Lederer had a gift for empathy and was naturally sympathetic to people's problems, and these traits served her in good stead. A greater challenge came from having to select three or four letters for each column from the thousands she received every week, but Lederer mastered this task, too. She quickly learned that most personal concerns were age-old and shared by many. She could therefore choose representative letters--which were then edited for length and content before publication--and know that her replies would speak to many other readers as well.

When people wrote in with intimate accounts of especially distressing situations--the details of which were often too graphic to be published--Lederer sometimes offered the writers one or two brief lines of pointed advice at the end of her column without printing the letter or even identifying the problem but usually ending with an upbeat word of encouragement--as in "Note to J.M. in Wyoming: You need legal help, and you need it immediately. Good luck, and let me know how things work out." On the other hand, she did not shy away from a subject that had heretofore been taboo in family newspapers: as the conservative postwar era gave way to the free-for-all 1960s and beyond, readers' sexual problems also found their way into print, and Lederer handled their queries in a straightforward and tasteful fashion.

She also began addressing AIDS and its treatment when the disease became a national issue in the early 1980s. On politics and religion Lederer remained nonpartisan in print, though she found opportunities to encourage civic participation and often urged her readers to seek advice from clergymen of their choice. As Ann Landers, Lederer did not eschew controversy; over the years her forceful stands on a number of contemporary issues found expression in her columns. She supported gun control, abortion rights, and--to the dismay of advocates of animal rights--vivisection. And she could be blunt, chastising correspondents if she felt that their behavior or comments deserved criticism; obtuse men in particular were a frequent target and were often addressed as "Bub" or "Buster."

Through the mid-1970s Lederer's personal life continued to be happy, by all accounts, and she remained devoted to her husband, who in the late 1950s had entered into partnership with the founder of Budget Rent-a-Car and went on to head the company. In a curiously self-effacing gesture, she even had labels reading "Jules's wife" sewn into her clothing. The marriage came to an abrupt end in 1975; it was subsequently revealed that Jules Lederer had left his wife for another woman. Though Lederer had always made it clear to advice seekers that marriage, her own included, was difficult to sustain and required hard work, she had always believed that she had maintained her own union successfully; she was therefore stunned by Jules's abandonment. Nevertheless she chose to swallow her pride and reveal their separation and divorce in her column, and she received thousands of letters of sympathy and support from her readers. But she refused to give details of the breakup, and to all inquirers her reply was simply "MYOBB"--"Mind your own business, buster."

Lederer's success as "Ann Landers" inspired many imitators, including her own sister Popo, now known as Pauline Phillips. Phillips had begun writing her own advice column, "Dear Abby," in 1956 for the San Francisco Chronicle, under the pen name Abigail Van Buren; the column was eventually syndicated and rivaled "Ask Ann Landers" in popularity. As a consequence the sisters were estranged for several years, but they subsequently reunited.

Eppie Lederer wrote half a dozen best-selling advice books under the name Ann Landers. These include Since You Ask Me (1961), Ann Landers Talks to Teenagers about Sex (1963), Ann Landers Says: Truth Is Stranger (1968), The Ann Landers Encyclopedia, A to Z: Improve Your Life Emotionally, Medically, Sexually, Spiritually (1978), Ann Landers Speaks Out (1978), and Wake Up and Smell the Coffee! Advice, Wisdom, and Uncommon Good Sense (1996). Lederer also lectured widely; supported medical, educational, and charitable foundations; and received awards for outstanding public service from the American Cancer Society, the American Psychiatric Association, and the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation.

Lederer was still writing her column when she was diagnosed with cancer in early 2002; refusing treatment, she died at her home in Chicago. Her death was front-page news across the nation, and she was widely mourned as "America's mother." Years earlier Lederer had bought the rights to the name "Ann Landers," and prior to her death she offered the trademark to her daughter, Margo Howard. Howard, then writing an advice column of her own, declined. Lederer's columns, which she prepared well in advance of publication, continued to run for several months after her death; in the fall of 2002 "Ask Ann Landers" finally ceased for good.

Biographical information can be found in David Grossvogel, Dear Ann Landers: Our Intimate and Changing Dialogue with America's Best-Loved Confidante (1987); Margo Howard, Eppie: The Story of Ann Landers (1982); Ann Landers and Margo Howard, A Life in Letters: Ann Landers' Letters to Her Only Child (2003); and Janice Pottker and Bob Speziale, Dear Ann, Dear Abby: The Unauthorized Biography of Ann Landers and Abigail Van Buren (1987). See also Elizabeth Taylor, "Living by the Letter," Time, 21 Aug. 1989. An obituary is in the New York Times, 23 June 2002.