“Dear Mary Haworth” [pronounced HAY-worth] begins the letter published in the Washington Post. For more than thirty years advice columnist Mary Haworth fielded hundreds of thousands of letters from avid readers of her newspaper column.
Mary Haworth was the pen name of Mary Elizabeth Young, who wrote her first “Mary Haworth’s Mail” column in 1936. She was a divorcee, mother of two young daughters and devout Catholic. Her advice was candid and constructive. Some called her “a one-woman clinic on personal problems.” At times, she solicited advice from psychiatrists and lawyers, which she passed along to readers. Her attitudes adapted with the times, from counseling war brides-to-be during World War II to declaring divorce a “reconstructive social surgery” in the 1960s.
“Mary Haworth’s Mail” was the most widely read and discussed feature in the Washington Post. Her column was syndicated in 1944, and appeared in over 150 newspapers across the U.S.
Read decades of “Mary Haworth’s Mail” in the Mary Elizabeth Young papers at UW’s American Heritage Center.