Who wrote the Dear Abby advice columns?

Pauline Phillips, born Pauline Esther Friedman, wrote the Dear Abby advice column under the pen name Abigail Van Buren from 1956 through the late 1980s when her daughter, Jeanne Phillips, began writing the column; Jeanne Phillips continues writing the column and legally owns the pen name, as of 2015. Pauline Phillips died in 2013 at the age of 94.

Pauline Esther Friedman founded the Dear Abby advice column in 1956. Her older twin sister, Esther Pauline Friedman, wrote the similar Ask Ann Landers advice column. Dear Abby initially began as a column in the San Francisco Chronicle and ultimately became the nation's most widely syndicated column.