Friends & Letters

By writing letters, we connect with friends and family in ways that are sometimes difficult to do in person.

On the 20th anniversary of the popular Friends television series, and shortly after Ken Burns’ The Roosevelts: An Intimate History wrapped on PBS in Chicago, we’re thinking about how we connect to our friends and family, and how we sometimes do that through letter-writing.

Friends celebrated the close-knit relationships of young people living away from their families in New York City during the 90s.  Do you remember the episode in Season 4 when Rachel writes a letter to Ross; he needs to read it for them to reunite. But he falls asleep and then “fakes it” when Rachel wants to discuss it, with funny consequences.

The Power of the Pen

Teddy Roosevelt, FDR and Eleanor Roosevelt depended on letter writing to formulate and share ideas, express their love and keep in touch, just as we still do today. The Roosevelts maintained long distance friendships through letter writing when they were called away from home by their duties as public leaders.

In the Roosevelt’s time, letter writing was more common and almost necessary. But today, as Friends demonstrates, we use letter-writing to convey our most intense thoughts with people important in our lives. Sometimes it’s easier to deliver our messages on paper, rather than verbally, especially, as in Rachel and Ross’ case, emotions are high.  Love letters. Condolence letters. Letters of apology. And even congratulatory letters. These are all cases when letters are beautifully appropriate and perfect.