Gilded Age D.C. Etiquette Advice

Grover Cleveland was the U.S. President in 1894. It was his second term of the Presidency. Women new to Washington D.C. not only would have looked to elder statesmen for etiquette advice, but to the wife of the President, as well. - Above, public domain image of Drawing of President Grover Cleveland’s and Frances Folsom’s, June 1886 wedding, at the White House, Washington, D.C.

The wife of a new Senator once told me that she was determined to make no social mistakes, so - wise woman that she was - she asked Senator Edmunds, who she knew was thoroughly conversant with every detail of official etiquette, by reason of his long career in the Senate, if it was not incumbent upon her to make her first visit to the wives of foreign Ministers. He replied: “Certainly not, madame; a Senator never makes the first visit upon a foreign Minister.”

So, thanks to her good sense in consulting an old Senator, this lady did not make the mistake that a few less wise new Senators’ wives have done of making first visits when etiquette required that they should receive them. Of course, as the Senate has increased in size the last few years, it can hardly be expected that foreign Ministers should call upon new Senators, but they ought to upon the old ones, and upon others whom they wish to know. 

I think the charming wife of one of the diplomats has adopted a very wise rule, as she remarked to a Senator’s wife to whom she had just been presented: “I know it is my place to call on Senators’ wives, but I wait until I meet them, and I shall now give myself the pleasure of calling on you. If the ladies of the diplomatic corps would follow the lead of this popular lady, they would avoid some of the mistakes that they now make in our official etiquette. - Kate Field's Washington, 1894

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