Gilded Age Fans and Their Use

 A “Second Debut” for a post addressing the faux an fiction so prevalent online…

“In the Victorian era and the gilded age there were secret codes for sending signals to those one was romantically interested in! You could hold your hold your half-opened fan to your mouth to let someone know it was okay to kiss them! Isn’t that fascinating?!” Alas, this tidbit related to me by an instructor trainee is what I call ‘Fan Fiction’ — Fans were helpful to have if one was feeling warm in a crowded ballroom, or on a hot day, prior to electrical fans and air conditioning. They were also accessories to a woman’s wardrobe, and signs of social status, depending on what materials they were made of and the beauty of their design.

🪭 🪭 🪭 🪭 🪭 🪭 🪭 🪭

“Unfortunately, the fan language — and other, similar codes like the language of the handkerchief and the language of the parasol— were largely the result of advertising campaigns meant to popularize and sell accessories. There is little evidence that the fan language was ever in widespread use, though the concept was satirized by several writers in the 18th and 19th centuries. Besides being rather impractical, fan codes were a bit dangerous; an unconscious fidget or desire to actually fan herself could embroil a lady in a totally unintentional feud— or marriage. Not to mention the consequences if the matron acting as chaperone to a courting couple had, a few years earlier, employed the fan language to win her own husband!” -Esti Brennan, Clements Library Chronicles–  Photo credit, Nicole Brydon Bloom, Blake Ritson Photo: Barbara Nitke/HBO

An Early ‘Advertorial,’ Disguised as Fashionable Etiquette

An amusing little book has been published in Berlin, entitled “The Fan Language of Queen Isabella.” In its introduction, which copies the Spanish work of Fenella, it is as easy to make oneself understood in the language of the fan as in that of flowers, and since the sentences are of necessity short, it is easy to learn them by heart.” It gives a manual for this voiceless speech, consisting of the usual sentences in love and friendship, with appropriate directions as to their expression by means of the fan, in part as follows: 

• You have won my love—the right hand points with the closed fan toward the heart. 
• When may I see you?—touch the right eye with the closed fan. 
• I would like to be ever near you —fan the person in question with the open fan. 
• Be quiet; we are watched—hold the closed fan over the mouth. Dare I hope to win your love? —unfold the fan with a quick movement. 
• Do not be so cold —move the fan backward and forward with the right hand. 
• Do not be so jealous— rest the closed fan against the eyebrow of the right eye. 
• You may kiss me— press the half-open fan on the mouth. 
• Yes —rest the open fan upon the right cheek. 
• No —rest the open fan against the left cheek. 
• You are the darling of my heart—press the open fan against the heart and mouth. 
• Explain yourself clearly — look earnestly at the closed fan. 
• I give my consent—slowly close the fan. 
• Why do you wish to leave me?—fan violently with the half-open fan.

                        — The Los Angeles Herald, 1874

Maura Graber has been teaching etiquette to children, teens and adults, and training new etiquette instructors, for 34 years, as founder and director of The RSVP Institute of Etiquette.  She is also a writer, has been featured in countless newspapers, magazines and television shows and was an on-air contributor to PBS in Southern California for 14 years. She has been consulting as an etiquette authority for the HBO/MAX, Julian Fellowes’ drama, “The Gilded Age.”  Her books, “Reaching for the Right Fork” and “What Have We Here?” are available on Amazon.

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia