Post WWI Manners for Immigrants

In 1919, shortly after WWI women’s magazines were promoting fashionable shoes of the day, while women themselves were teaching homemaking and table manners to new immigrants to the United States. 

Women Help Food Campaign and Offer Table Etiquette Lessons for Patriots

Public domain image of an Opticon circa 1895

The county home-demonstration agent of Monroe County, New York, has converted her small car into a “Victory Special.” Demonstrations are given from the car, and equipment is carried for exhibits of labor-saving devices. In July the “Victory Special” made 34 visits to community meetings, and the agent's message reached 3,646 persons. In one city in Iowa the women connected with home-demonstration work have issued a statement of war-time etiquette called “Table Manners for Patriots.”

In Bristol County, Massachusetts, which contains many manufacturing towns, a food-demonstration truck has been very successful. Demonstrations out of doors in various villages have been well attended, the truck being used in the afternoon and early evening. A special effort was made to reach the Portuguese, French and Italian people. These people would not come to an indoor meeting, but eagerly collected on the sidewalk to watch the demonstration. They were glad to receive literature written in their own language.

In various towns of Windham County, Connecticut, the canning campaign carried on by home-demonstration agents was furthered by the use of an outdoor stereopticon which threw views on a screen over a store window. This attracted good audiences, and nine demonstrations were given, two of these being to foreigners with the aid of an interpreter. – The Inyo Independent, 1919

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