Did Ann Landers And Dear Abby Makeup
Back when newspapers were a thing that the majority of people read physical copies of, communication columns were a mainstay and a regular feature in major newspapers and magazines effectually the earth. They provided answers to all manners of questions from anonymous communication seekers, hoping for an unbiased look at any problem was at hand.
Advice columns began in the 1890s — although some reports say as early as the 1690s — as precursors to today's forums and online communities. Before people could mail service their questions to the masses and receive communication from anyone willing to requite it (whether yous like it or non), people wrote in to advice columnists.
In the Usa, more than specifically, people wrote to columnists similar Love Abby and Ask Ann Landers.
They're two of the nearly famous communication columnists to come out of that particular era, and they dominated for half a century. Honey Abby, published originally in the San Francisco Relate, was the most widely syndicated paper column of the time, with 110 million readers. In 1990, Beloved Abby received 55,000 letters. Ask Ann Landers, published originally in the Chicago Sun-Times, had 90 million readers. Their columns presented a unique opportunity not just for the communication asker, but for readers: they sparked conversations over oftentimes controversial subjects. They were likewise somewhat controversial themselves.
Because Abby and Ann were twin sisters.
Those aren't their real names, of form. The twins were born Pauline and Esther "Eppie" Friedman in Sioux City, Iowa, in 1918. Their parents were Russian Jewish immigrants who came to the United States in 1908, and they had 2 older sisters, Helen and Dorothy.
The twins didn't begin cavalcade writing until they were in their 30s, and prior to that, they were exceptionally close. They went to the same higher. Worked on the college paper together (they ran the gossip cavalcade; I know, you didn't see that one coming). On their 21st birthday in 1939, they had a double ceremony to marry their husbands. Wearing identical wedding dresses. They both relocated to Eau Claire, Wisconsin, in the 1940s when their husbands got jobs at the aforementioned visitor.
They weren't just twin sisters: they were best friends. But a shadow darkened the doorstep of their relationship shortly later on their move to Eau Claire, and it allegedly began with an increasing wealth disparity betwixt the ii sisters. The family unit of Pauline's hubby bought controlling interest in the company he worked for, and the movement proved to be a financial game changer for them. Eppie and her husband were non as fortunate, and every bit the socioeconomic chasm widened, the closeness they used to enjoy grew strained.
The communication columns were the final straw.
In the early on 1950s, Eppie and her family moved to Chicago. She became aware that the Chicago Sun-Times's current advice columnist was retiring, and applied for the role. Eppie's stiff writing skills and extensive ties, which she gathered afterwards years of political activism and volunteerism, secured her the job, and she began writing as Ann Landers in 1955. Ask Ann Landers became a new, unique vocalisation of wisdom, one who was just every bit much an advocate every bit an advice giver, openly speaking out confronting racism and antisemitism. And while the early on vox of Ann Landers reflected Eppie'due south social conservatism, especially around gender roles, the Ann Landers of the 1970s and beyond grew increasingly feminist and pro-choice.
3 months after Eppie became Ann Landers, Pauline decided to start an communication cavalcade, too. She had helped her sis write responses on the side, considering the overflow was likewise much for Eppie to handle alone. It made Pauline realize that she could make a go of this, as well.
She and her family moved to Hillsborough, California, later that year. Pauline contacted the editor of the San Francisco Chronicle to pitch herself as their newest advice columnist, who could do a better job than their electric current ane. She named this columnist Abigail Van Buren, or Dear Abby for brusk. She wrote up sample responses to previously published columns, and that was that. Honey Abby grew enormously pop and adapted a similar mentor-similar persona equally Ann Landers, with a healthy dose of humorous quips thrown in. She was also unabashedly feminist, antiracist, and a potent Jewish advocate.
Was there room in this land for two equally talented communication columnists who happened to be twin sisters? The sisters weren't sure. From the beginning, Eppie allegedly saw Pauline's motility as undermining and even hostile to her blossoming career. And although they didn't want to be pitted against each other, media at the fourth dimension took their competing columns and ran with it, comparison their writing styles and preferring i over the other (such as The Times reporting that Love Abby was "slicker, quicker, and flipper" than Ann Landers). To continue the rivalry to a minimum, they attempted a truce by like-minded not to vie for syndication confronting one another in other U.S. cities.
That all went down the bleed over i newspaper in particular: their hometown newspaper. In 1956, information technology came out that Pauline allegedly offered Beloved Abby to the Sioux City Journal at a reduced rate, under one status: that they promise not to run Ann Landers.
The sisters didn't speak once again for ten years.
Life magazine reported on their estranged relationship in 1958. Although the twins however clearly loved each other, they could not banish the resentment that had grown over the constant comparisons and cheerfully hurled insults at each other for the globe to see. The magazine called it "the about feverish female feud since Elizabeth sent Mary, Queen of Scots to the chopping block."
Apart from i some other, and despite the competition betwixt the 2 of them, their careers flourished. Eppie, as Ann Landers, received over 1,000 speaking invitations only in the first iv years of her taking over the advice column, and fabricated 100 appearances in thirty cities. Love Abby became the most widely syndicated column in the world, with appearances in 1,400 newspapers. She received then many letters that she employed four full-time mail openers, six letter answerers, and a research assistant.
And yet information technology was not all they wished information technology could exist: the rivalry did bother them. "My career flourished," Abby wrote, "but I walked around with a hole in my middle."
The sisters met once again publicly in 1964 for their 25th nuptials anniversaries, reconciling some of their differences, but the rivalry never fully died. Eppie claimed to accept never read a single Honey Abby column in a 1979 Telly appearance; two years after, Pauline called her sister inferior and envious in a magazine interview.
Although their shared history and closeness could not be completely banished past the hard feelings brought on by their columns — they had periods where they faxed each other on a regular basis —information technology never appears that they fully repaired their human relationship.
The rivalry continued even to the end of their lives. Eppie died in 2002 of multiple myeloma, at the age of 83. Her daughter, Margo, took offense to Pauline's daughter, Jeanne, publicly expressing her grief over her aunt'southward death. Dear Abby's distributor also offered up the bye letter Eppie wrote to her sis to all Ann Landers'due south paper clients, free of charge. Citing that Jeanne had no relationship with her mother and had not seen her in decades, Margo called it all a "crass" endeavour to gain new clientele. Jeanne took over the Dear Abby column after Pauline developed Alzheimer'due south that year, and Pauline died in 2013 at the age of 94.
It was a rivalry that revisited the sisters again and again later on their columns' creation, and one that passed down to their daughters. For all the wonderful, insightful advice that the sisters were able to give to tens of thousands of individuals over the decades, one would accept hoped that the twins could have taken some of their own communication to heal their relationship with each other.
Source: https://bookriot.com/dear-abby-and-ann-landers/
Posted by: davisthattere.blogspot.com
0 Response to "Did Ann Landers And Dear Abby Makeup"
Post a Comment