Esther Lederer spent 47 years writing a newspaper advice column under what pseudonym, competing with her twin sister Abigail Van Buren?
Eppie Lederer Eppie Lederer Esther Pauline "Eppie" Lederer (née Friedman; July 4, 1918 – June 22, 2002), 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 "Dear Abby" advice column as Abigail Van Buren. Lederer was a profile-raiser for several medical
Pauline Phillips name Abigail Van Buren, after the Old Testament prophetess from the Book of Samuel: "Then David said to Abigail ... 'Blessed is your advice and blessed are you." "Van Buren" was used after the president, Martin Van Buren. Phillips says that because she applied for the columnist job without notifying her sister first, it created bad feelings between them for many years. Each wrote her own advice column, and as competing columnists, they sometimes clashed; in 1956, Phillips offered her column to the "Sioux City Journal" at a reduced price, provided the paper refused to print her sister's column. The