page_title: Ask Ann Landers
section_title: The Esther Lederer years (1955–2002)
hierarchical_section_title: Ask Ann Landers / The Esther Lederer years (1955–2002)
caption_attribution_description: Esther Pauline Friedman Lederer, better known as Ann Landers, newspaper advice columnist.
context_page_description: 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.
context_section_description: 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. 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." Lederer went on to advise thousands of other readers over the next several decades. Eventually, she became owner of the copyright.
  News America Syndicate distributed the Landers column before it was sold to King Features, and Landers moved to the new Creators Syndicate. On February 13, 1987, after years of seeking to run the column, the Chicago Tribune announced the Landers column was moving there, and the Sun-Times replaced her with Ruth Crowley's daughter Diane Crowley and Jeff Zaslow of The Wall Street Journal.
  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. 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, 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". Nevertheless, for years, she described homosexuality as "unnatural", a "sickness" and a "dysfunction". Not till 1992 did she eventually reverse her opinion, and even then only after reviewing research and receiving nearly 75,000 letters that gays and lesbians 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.
  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."
caption: Esther "Eppie" Pauline Friedman Lederer, a.k.a. 'Ann Landers', 1961
exif: {}