Gilded Age Etiquette Observations

Consuelo Spencer-Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough, was a member of the prominent American Vanderbilt family. Her marriage to Charles Spencer-Churchill, 9th Duke of Marlborough became an international symbol of the socially advantageous, but loveless, “Dollar Princess” marriages, which were so common during the Gilded Age.

SENSIBLE SAYINGS

That leisure is wasted which is not made to yield improvement of some sort.

We cannot be wise in everything, but we can at least be punctual to our engagements.

There is more than sadness in some of the sacrifices made by our American girls to marry a title.

The man who fails to “grind his ax” is the one who fears that the country is going straight to destruction and proclaims it the most loudly. 

The man or woman who speaks in the simplest, most direct and unequivocal language, is least liable to be misunderstood or to suffer the mortification of explanation or correction. — Original in Good Housekeeping, 1890

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