Ann Landers

Pen name, created 1943 · American newspaper advice column

Ann Landers was never one person. The pen name was created by the Chicago Sun-Times columnist Ruth Crowley in 1943 and taken over in 1955 by Esther “Eppie” Lederer (1918–2002), who wrote it for forty-seven years to a readership of some ninety million. A column that ran every day lived on what readers mailed in — poems, jokes, homilies, mostly unsigned — and reprinting them under a famous byline is how a great many anonymous pieces, this poem among them, ended up credited to her.

Traced to source

3 quotes we’ve traced to Ann Landers

“Fathers Should Give the Gift of Time to Their Children”

Disputed

“Nobody Will Ever Win the Battle of the Sexes. There's Too Much Fraternizing with the Enemy”

Disputed

“Our Host Certainly Is Outspoken" "Outspoken By Whom?”

Disputed

Not actually Ann Landers

Often misattributed to Ann Landers

Famous lines widely pinned on Ann Landers that we’ve traced to someone else.

“Fathers Should Give the Gift of Time to Their Children”

actually Unknown — an anonymous Father’s Day poem

“Insanity Is Hereditary. You Can Get It from Your Children”

actually Sam Levenson

“Niagara Falls: The First Great Disappointment in Married Life”

actually Oscar Wilde

“Nobody Will Ever Win the Battle of the Sexes. There's Too Much Fraternizing with the Enemy”

actually Unknown — an anonymous newspaper quip

“Our Host Certainly Is Outspoken" "Outspoken By Whom?”

actually Unknown — a stock joke in print by 1901

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