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May 22, 2006
Dear Mrs. Fairfax . . .
The Wall Street journal had a article today by Cynthia Crossen, "Deja Vu," about the first advice columnist, Marie Manning. A 20-year-old writer on the women's pages of the New York Evening Journal, she was asked by her editor if she thought three letters from readers could be used in the section.
It was 1898, and William Randolph Hearst's Journal was battling with Joseph Pulitzer's New York World for Gotham's readers; an advice column was unique -- why not give it a try?
Writing under the pseudonym "Beatrice Fairfax," Manning was soon getting more than a thousand letters a day, begging for help from a neutral listener.
What's so striking about them is the ageless quality of the passions, problems, the scandals festering behind the scenes.
We often sanitize the past, think of our grandparents, our great-grandparents living in some sort of desexualized world, prim and proper, certainly never consumed with life-changing decisions and the obsessions prompting the choices.
One young women wrote of her struggle to resist the urge to be with her boyfriend.
Tell me, please, how far a girl can go and still be good. My body cries out to be loved, but my parents believe it is a sin for a girl to even kiss a boy unless he is engaged to her at least. I want to do the things that cry out to be done from within me. But I do not want to be cheap, promiscuous or foolish. How far shall I go?
Aside from the amazing delicacy with which the reader phrases her question, what impresses the modern reader is the insight into the great passions at play -- and how love and sex (or is that love and marriage?) were inextricably connected in the late 19th century.
The mercenary aspects of marriage is nothing new. One women wrote during the Spanish-American War, wanting information on whether she'd get her man's death benefits if he was killed in Cuba. If so, she'd marry him; if not, why bother?
Manning left the newspaper business in 1905 to raise a family, but the Stock Market crash of 1929 forced her to return to work -- and to her readers.
I've never read Manning's column, but I'm hard pressed to believe there was ever a more moving letter than the one she received from a GI in France during the Second World War.
We're fighting at sunrise. All the boys are writing home, and I haven't anyone to write to. My girl is married, and I haven't any folks. I'm ashamed to let the boys see I haven't got a friend, so you won't mind if I write to you -- I've often read your column.
I wonder if that GI lived long enough to read her response. Are there any columnists today that inspire that kind of affection?
Posted by Mike Lief at May 22, 2006 10:09 PM
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Comments
This is a great post. Thank you. My day was so busy, I didn't have time to read the WSJ or this fine article.
First of all, it's terrific that women were writing for papers at the turn of the century. Authors at that time were generally taking a nom de plume, or so I thought. I know that Victorian marriage had an emphasis on combining wealth and building lasting family units, as opposed to today's love-and-lust approach.
Shocked to see the word promiscuous in the paper, even the question is one you wouldn't expect from such a daring community effort.
I'm guessing that Ann and Abby might have inspired devotion among readers but they were never my favorites. Too midwestern with the clipped responses. You could almost hear them snorting at their own punchlines.
The soldier who sent that letter had something to hang on for.
Posted by: Vermont Neighbor at May 22, 2006 11:49 PM
Does anyone know where to read more of these letters (and their answers, of course)? I've tried googling, looking through Amazon and Google books, but couldn't find anything.
Posted by: Maria at May 27, 2012 08:00 PM