Marie Manning

Marie Manning (January 22, 1869 – November 28, 1945) was an American newspaper columnist and novelist in the early 20th century. She wrote the first newspaper advice column, Dear Beatrice Fairfax, in 1898, the precursor to modern versions such as Dear Abby and Ann Landers.

Early life

Manning was born in Washington, DC to Elizabeth Barrett and Michael Charles Manning. Her year of birth was unknown to even her immediate family and closest confidants during her lifetime. She was a one-year-old in the 1870 Census for Washington, D.C. She was educated at various private schools in the District of Columbia, graduating from Miss Kerr's, a finishing school for girls.

Her mother had died in childbirth and her father died when she was 18 years old. Her father took her to England in 1885 to live with relatives; here she studied British society and wrote her first novel, Lord Alingham, Bankrupt. It was published in 1902.

Manning began writing as a columnist for the New York World in 1896 at the "space rate" of $5 per week. After being granted an exclusive interview with the President of the United States, Grover Cleveland, she was promoted to permanent staff and her salary was raised to $30 per week. When the paper's editor moved to the New York Evening Journal in 1898, she followed at his invitation. There she collaborated with two other women to create a women's page entitled the "Hen Coop".

Dear Beatrice Fairfax

During the same year, the Hen Coop received three readers' letters seeking personal advice. Manning suggested a new column exclusively devoted to personal advice. The column was named Dear Beatrice Fairfax at her suggestion, after Dante's Beatrice and her own family's country home in Fairfax County, Virginia. The column began on July 20, 1898, as the first advice column in the United States.