Charles Hardy, III

Journalist Charles Hardy and University of Georgia historian Deborah Herman both reflect on the history and impact of advice columns on the lives of bourgeois American women. Herman looks at six months' worth of Dear Abby columns in the 1950s to determine the state of and attitudes toward marriage during that decade.

Mike Frisch, a professor of History at the University of Buffalo, currently working at the University of Pennsylvania, discusses oral history. Frisch spoke with Fresh Air contributor Charles Hardy. (INTERVIEW BY CHARLES HARDY)