Etiquette for Presidents’ Day Parties

Patriotism in the United States was celebrated proudly and openly throughout the country at the turn of the 20th century. February is still a particularly patriotic month, celebrating Presidents George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.– Above – Patriotic themed table-scape for a 5 course formal dinner, from a Wallace Silver hostess book of 1900. 

IN SOCIETY'S REALM

This is the season when the “Colonial Party” opens and is ready for picking. There is no record to show who invented this species of social functions whether he was first in a little Iberian village, or second in Rome, but whoever he was there is little doubt that he is dead, so that the honor of the invention would be of no import to him. Some attribute its origin to George Washington, and others to Thomas Jefferson. As the former is admitedly the father of this country and the latter of the Democratic party, it seems an injustice to lay a second offense at the door of either.

A Colonial Party is one of the few occasions on which etiquette allows us to libel our sensible old ancestors. A favorite character which misrepresented at these gatherings is that of the Father of his Country, and if the ghost of the esteemed patriot could be presented and see some of the caricatures of its earthly habitations there would probably be an upheaval at Mt. Vernon. 

The callow youth, with a touch of velvet just below his nose, and with as much nobleness of face or figure as a Christmas turkey on the day after Christmas, dons a wig and a suit of clothes which were evidently made for a man, has powder rubbed on his face, and then proceeds to perspire, and try to look benignant, and imagines he is creating a sensation. There are usually from four to six George Washingtons at every Colonial Party: never less and often more. No two were ever known to resemble each other even to the extent that they would be mistaken for fourth cousins. The specimens are all original, painfully so.

Martha has never been neglected by the social colonist of today and the Puritans, too, are compelled to work over time. The cavaliers of the Old Dominion are annually blackguarded to the amusement of those concerned in the transaction. But after all, when the unsophisticated gaze back in retrospective, they must admit that our ancestors did not live in vain. – The San Jose Herald, February 1900

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