Etiquette Humor and Trade

"She sold a book and now wants to invite some lowly tradespeople into our home for a party!" — "Tradesmen" were those people in society who made money by working. Their social status was lower, and without title, even though many of these might have been more wealthy than those in the gentry. Clergymen and barristers filled the upper ranks of this social class, with merchants, farmers and shopkeepers making up the lower ranks.

Not the Daughter of a "Tradesperson"

One of the young men attached to the American embassy at Berlin tells a story to illustrate that modern advertising can cope even with the etiquette of Royal Courts.

"A young American woman wished to be presented at the Court of the King of Saxony. The high officials, having inquired into her social standing at home, objected. They represented to her that the King could scarcely receive the daughter of a retail boot seller. 

The young woman cabled home and told her father of the situation. The next morning she received his answer: 'Can't call it selling. Practically giving them away. See advertisement.'

That solved the difficulty. She was presented to the King as the daughter of an 'eminent philanthropist.'" — Harper's Weekly, 1912

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