Gilded Age Points in Etiquette

You should exchange calls with individuals before inviting them to your house. – Gilded age silver calling card tray, with a playful pup chewing on a newspaper, dated May 4, 1891. The card tray is featured in the book, “What Have We Here?: The Etiquette and Essentials of Lives Once Lived, from the Georgian Era through the Gilded Age and Beyond...”

   

• Letters should never be crossed. 
• Letters of introduction should be brief.
• Always offer ladies the right arm.
• Ladies do not talk across the street.
• Never wait over fifteen minutes for a tardy guest.
• Walk around a lady’s train; don't step over it or on it.
• “Yours, etc...,” is a rude ending to letters as a rule.
• Say “Good-bye” on leaving, not “Good morning” or “Good evening.”
• In bowing, the inclination of the head alone is necessary.
• Much underscoring in a letter is vulgar and meaningless.
• A gentleman walking with a lady returns a bow made to her.
• Nothing is more vulgar than finery and jewelry out of place.
• It is the place of the one introduced to make the first remark.
• The custom of sending flowers to funerals is growing in disfavor.
• Don’t keep flowers for your friend’s coffins. Give them while living.
• Never pass an acquaintance without a salutation of recognition.
• Always speak to an acquaintance with a smile in your eye; avoid grinning.
• “Yours truly,” is the correct form for closing business but not friendly letters.
• Upon introduction, enter at once into conversation.
• Upon leaving a room, one bow shall include all.
• A call should not be less than fifteen minutes in length.
• A note requires as prompt an answer as a spoken question.
• Regrets in reply to invitations should contain the reason therefor.
• At table you are not required to thank the one who waits on you.
• You should exchange calls with individuals before inviting them to your house.
• The custom of leaving a blank margin on the left hand side of each page of a letter is obsolete. – San Jose Weekly Mercury, 1880

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