Newspaper Poll on Hat Etiquette

What the well dressed men of the 1920’s were wearing. – Image source, Pinterest

‘Hats On’ Signs Appear in L. A. Elevators

Signs stating that it is unnecessary for men to remove their hats when women enter the car appeared today in several elevators in downtown office buildings. They were posted as the result of the discussion of elevator etiquette which was conducted in The Evening Herald.

In the discussion of the question, 136 voted that hats should stay on, 19 that they should come off and 46 for a compromise. The compromise was that the hats should be removed in hotel and apartment house elevators and kept on in business block lifts.

One hundred and twenty-two men wrote letters to the “Elevator Etiquette Editor” and 59 were received from women. Twenty-seven signed anonymously without sex distinction. Those who voted for the hats on rule held that an elevator is a public conveyance, the same as a street car. — Los Angeles Herald, July 1920

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

Etiquette for After Dinner Coffee

Some hostesses prefer to pour the coffee themselves and have the coffee pot and coffee cups brought to the drawing room on a tray. For a formal party, however, this is not generally done.

Black coffee is always served after a formal dinner. The men usually have it in the dining room as soon as the ladies withdraw. It is served to the ladies in the drawing room. The filled coffee cups, with a sugar bowl in which is loaf or crystal sugar, are passed on a silver tray, the waitress returning to the drawing room for the cups about fifteen minutes later.

At more informal or family dinners, the making of coffee is sometimes looked on as quite a rite and is prepared in the percolator by the host or the hostess. Again, some hostesses prefer to pour the coffee themselves and have the coffee pot and coffee cups brought to the drawing room on a tray. For a formal party, however, this is not generally done.— Eileen Cumming, 1923

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

Understanding Real Etiquette

Remember... Real etiquette is in acting with polite consideration for others, not acting like trained monkey.

More from the 1920’s Etiquette Book Craze

Being polite becomes more difficult. Social blunders lurk on every side. One of the many books on etiquette, which are raining heavily on the public, says it is a serious “boner” for a man, dining in a restaurant, to pick a fallen fork from the floor, that function “properly” belonging to the waiter. It is also set forth, that dipping both hands in a finger bowl simultaneously, instead of one at a time, is blunder in the first degree. Real etiquette is in acting with polite consideration for others, not like trained monkey. — Livermore Journal, 1925

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

A “What’s Wrong” School of Etiquette

In the decade from 1920 to 1930, about a dozen books of etiquette were published and promoted, including those by Lillian Eichler, Emily Holt and Emily Post. One columnist thought etiquette’s popularity had waned by 1925, however, the 1920’s - 1930’s “Etiquette Era” was just taking a brief break, and would continue for over 10 more years. —Thousands and hundreds of thousands of assorted Americans are worrying over what is wrong with “this picture” and perspiring freely over the choice of forks at a banquet, or words at an introduction.

Frenzied Etiquette 

The latest great non-essential industry to occupy the attention of the American people appears to be a nation-wide concern for the manufacture, sale and use of a more strict etiquette. Led sheep-wise, by a publicity campaign comparable only to the merchandising effort that put Harold Bell Wright on the literary map of the universe, thousands and hundreds of thousands of assorted Americans are worrying over what is wrong with “this picture,” and perspiring freely over the choice of forks at a banquet, or words at an introduction. Like marathon dancing, this activity affords a somewhat painful picture to the observer, but brings with it the comforting thought that so much fruitless enthusiasm will soon burn itself out and be over with. 

The most painful aspect of the craze is the general tone of snobbishness and the laudation of ridicule and embarrassment as a means of teaching “good manners.” Knowledge of etiquette is, of course, nothing to become snobbish about, and the most casual thought will reveal the inadequacy of embarrassment as a preceptor. What the campaign would amount to if it amounted to anything, would be to make the American people a nation of self-conscious dummies, painfully eager to do the “right thing,” horribly fearful of doing the opposite, continually uncomfortable, gauche and ridiculous. There are as many don’ts in the average encyclopedia of cheap etiquette as there are symptoms in a patent medicine almanac. As the symptoms aim to catalogue every possible reaction of the reader’s sensory apparatus, so the admonitions of the etiquette books aim to interpose in every possible situation of daily conduct. 

The aim of the medicine man’s almanac was to make the reader acutely uncomfortable till he “falls for” the medicine man’s product and the aim of the etiquette books is the same. There’s no cause for alarm, of course, in the sudden rise of the “What’s Wrong” school of literature, because the craze for it is happily only a craze, and therefore impermanent. Its effects probably won’t endure long enough to stamp our national subconscious —we’re talking nonsense now —with an inferiority complex. We’ll get over it all right, but like the baby-talk stage of the flapper’s progress, it’s uncomfortable while it lasts. — San Diego Union, 1923

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

Table Manners on the Rails

Good manners, evidently! — The finger bowl, according to Pollock, is only one of a number of table refinements popularised by the dining car. Steak knives and a large variety of cutlery and silverware are included in the list. 

Americans Excelled In 1920’s Table Manners

Evolution in the table manners of the nation is laid at the door of the railway dining car, by Allan Pollock, manager of dining car service for Southern Pacific Company. The finger bowl, according to Pollock, is only one of a number of table refinements popularised by the dining car. Steak knives and a large variety of cutlery and silverware are included in the list. 

Equipment of the new $60,000 dining cars, eleven of which have been ordered especially for the company’s new 63 hour trains to the East this Fall will include such novelties as individual silver butter dishes with tiny ice compartments beneath the butter. “Twenty years ago,” says Pollock, “finger bowls were practically unknown in the homes and restaurants of America. People first became accustomed to using them on dining cars. Now few homes are without them. 

“Ten years ago dining car stewards seldom came in from a trip without telling of some passenger who carefully squeezed the segment of lemon into his finger bowl and tossed off the contents, as a sort of after-dinner chaser. It doesn’t happen today. American people now exhibit the best table manners of any nation.”— Eagle Rock Sentinel, 1926

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

Sugar Etiquette History in the US

 “Observing proprieties has become a national obsession. Everybody’s doing it. Etiquette used to be confined to paper-covered hand books.”– After WWI, world beet sugar supplies were very low, while cane sugar production was increasing, leading to tariffs on sugar. 

New Rules for Housewife in Latest Sugar Etiquette 

Observing proprieties has become a national obsession. Everybody’s doing it. Etiquette used to be confined to paper-covered hand books. Now it is applied to everything—even sugar. There are distinct rules for the use of sugar and the careful housewife is going to see that they are obeyed. ‘‘But it really is not proper” will floor all disputants who are tempted to use sugar the wrong way.

Take granulated sugar for example. It should be used for baking, cooking, sweetening and candy-making, but it certainly should not be used for iced beverages or for coffee, yet lots of women do not understand this. As a matter of fact, powdered sugar is the proper sweetening for iced beverages, and powdered sugar should also be used on fruits and cereals and for dusting pies and cookies.

There seems to be considerable common sense in sugar etiquette after all.

As for hot coffee and tea and cocoa and chocolate, that is where tablet sugar comes in. One really ought to make a table of sugar rules and hang it in a convenient spot on the kitchen wall. It would keep the housewife posted on what sugar to use in her cooking and also what kinds to put on the dining room table and when.

It would be convenient to consult the rules when making an icing and learn that confectioners sugar was proper for that and for fondants, or it would be just as convenient to glance at the rules and discover that brown sugar was for baked beans, ginger bread, candied sweet potatoes, all kinds of tarts and cakes and for sprinkling on the children’s bread. There seems to be considerable common sense in sugar etiquette after all. – Calexico Chronicle, 1922

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