Etiquette of Gilded Age Newport

 Long before the season opens all the dates are taken, invitations sent out and gayeties planned. Newcomers settling at Newport, provided with the finest introductions, may desire to give handsome entertainments, but they will find themselves sadly disappointed.

NEW YORK'S CLOSE ARISTOCRACY

It is, of a truth, easier for a camel to go through the needle's eye than for a newcomer to get into New York society on one season's introduction. New York's society is conducted very much on the lines of a popular theater. Long before the season opens all the dates are taken, invitations sent out and gayeties planned. Newcomers settling at Newport, provided with the finest introductions, may desire to give handsome entertainments, but they will find themselves sadly disappointed. This will be from no ill-will or lack of hospitable inclinations on the part of the leaders of Newport, but simply because they have no vacant chair at their dinners nor a leftover card from their balls to offer new friends.

Of course, if there is a death or illness in a family a vacancy is created, and then one of the outsiders is called in to fill the place. But if you wish to get well into the New York swim you must, particularly if you are a hostess, take time by the forelock and begin in August to plan the next winter's campaign. As to impromptu entertainments and informal affairs, they are almost unknown in exclusive society, and if you want to know whence comes this new etiquette you will learn that it is an adoption of another English custom. — Los Angeles Herald, Number 233, 21 May 1899

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

The British Pudding Course

From the book, “What have we here?”

A British silver-plate, “double decker” pudding set, with 6 pudding spoons, 6 pudding forks, a serving spoon and a serving fork. - The “pudding course” is the British equivalent of the American “dessert course” or “French sweets” course.

The two meanings of "pudding":

"Pudding" can refer generically to the sweet, final course of a meal, what Americans know as "dessert." (Because it's the UK, this has class implications. Nancy Mitford, in a famous essay comparing the speech of upper-class Britons with everyone else, categorized "pudding" as used by the elite and "sweet" as used by the proletariat)

But a pudding can also be a specific dish and a British pudding still isn't the same as an American one. American puddings are closer to what the Brits would call "custard."

A British pudding is a dish, savory or sweet, that's cooked by being boiled or steamed in something: a dish, a piece of cloth, or even animal intestine. The earliest puddings, in this sense of the word, were sausages; black pudding, a type of sausage made with pig's blood, is sometimes included in a traditional English breakfast.

Other puddings are sweet, such as "spotted dick" - a sort of steamed cake with currants that's barely sweet and, like many puddings, flavored with suet, or beef fat, rather than butterJam roly- poly, or roly-poly pudding, is traditionally steamed; it consists of a pastry made with suet, spread with jam, and rolled up.

And just to make things a bit more confusing, some dishes are referred to as "puddings" that are sometimes baked but formerly were boiled or steamed. The best example is sticky toffee pudding, a date cake with caramel sauce that's traditionally steamed but is now often baked. (It also might originally be Canadian, not British) - From Libby Nelson on Vox

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

Gilded Age Dinner Etiquette

With the etiquette of seating precedence in the United States versus that of the seating precedence of dinners with members of the British Peerage

“When a dozen or a score of ladies and gentlemen are assembled for the avowed purpose that they may enjoy each other’s society in a festivous way, it would seem to be the dictate of common sense that they should be allowed to pair and to group themselves according to their personal likings, or, at least, according to their affinities and sympathies. To a certain extent that is possible in America; not so in England. There comes in the awful and paramount question of rank and precedence. Lord A would like to have Mrs. B, or perhaps Miss C, for his table companion; but no, although there may be other Lords present, as he is an Earl or a Marquess, and the man of the highest rank present, he must take in the hostess and sit by her side, although the dinner may be given in honor of plain Mr. and Mrs. D; and Lady A, if she be present, must be taken in by the host, and if she is not present, then the lady next in rank...” – Photo of the dining room at the Ventfort Hall Mansion and Gilded Age Museum, Massachusetts

It is a point of general agreement among men of sense that the customary formal dinner party is one of the most oppressive and exhausting forms of so-called social pleasure. To men who do not go to their friends’ houses for the sake of getting something good to eat and to drink it is a frequent occasion of wonder why, when we wish to be particularly attentive to certain of our acquaintances and to enable them to enjoy each others’ society, we ask them to dinner. Beyond a question, it is not that we may enjoy their society, or they ours, for of no one does a dinner guest see so little, with no one does he talk so little, as with his host and his hostess. And yet it would be difficult to say with whom he has more social intercourse of any interest on such occasions except the lady whom he “takes in,” or, possibly, his neighbor on the other side of him. 

Dinner guests assemble slowly in the drawing room, and wait an awkward quarter or half an hour, during which everybody is simply in a state of expectancy, during which nobody says anything that can well be omitted, and the end of which everybody welcomes with a look, if not with words, of relief. The male guest takes in the lady to whom he is assigned by the care of his hostess and the bidding of his host; by her side he sits while they eat a certain quantity of food and drink an uncertain quantity of wine, exchanging, in the intervals of service, a few sentences, rarely of more interest to either than the paragraphs of the personal column in a newspaper; at the dessert there is a little general chat of about the same quality; after dinner there is half an hour or an hour of like conversation in the drawing room; the guests separate after having enjoyed each other's society really less than if they had casually been thrown together for an hour in a railway car or on the deck of a steam-boat; there is a formal “visit of digestion” to the hostess within a week, and this is the end of a society dinner.

There are exceptions; but as a general rule everybody except the gourmands is more or less bored. The only end really attained is that the host and hostess have paid certain social debts. This is, we are sure, an expression of the general feeling at out dinner parties, and yet we go on giving them and going to them, and we shall go on doing so for a time, the duration of which is, at present, quite beyond human conjecture.

In England, as well as in America, this appreciation of formal society dinners prevails to such an extent that there it is finding its expression in the social literature of the day. It was Sir George Cornwall Lewis, we believe, who said that life would be very endurable if it were not for its pleasures; and among these pleasures formal dinners seem now to be rated as the greatest by almost general consent. But in England, they have in all society, except the lower middle-class, a drawback or dead weight, from the oppression of which we republicans are relieved, if not entirely, yet in a great measure.

When a dozen or a score of ladies and gentlemen are assembled for the avowed purpose that they may enjoy each other’s society in a festivous way, it would seem to be the dictate of common sense that they should be allowed to pair and to group themselves according to their personal likings, or, at least, according to their affinities and sympathies. To a certain extent that is possible in America; not so in England. There comes in the awful and paramount question of rank and precedence. Lord A would like to have Mrs. B, or perhaps Miss C, for his table companion; but no, although there may be other Lords present, as he is an Earl or a Marquess, and the man of the highest rank present, he must take in the hostess and sit by her side, although the dinner may be given in honor of plain Mr. and Mrs. D; and Lady A, if she be present, must be taken in by the host, and if she is not present, then the lady next in rank.

A writer in a recent number of the Saturday Review, recounting the many perplexities of dinner-giving, mentions this as chief among the very preliminaries – the making up of the party. In the consultation upon that important point, he remarks that it is admitted that “the Glendowers would be all that could be wished; but Lady Glendower’s rank would necessitate her being taken in to dinner by her host, although she is a person of far less importance than Lady Lothbury, and it is desirable that she should be the honored guest of the evening.” This is no whimsical exaggeration; it is a plain and simple setting forth of a practical and constantly recurring difficulty.

Nor are Americans exempt from this perplexing drawback to the pleasure of entertaining when they are in England, as the entertainers as well as the entertained. Here is a case in point. An American lady of high social position, beautiful, intelligent, and wealthy, lived some time in London, and received at her own house the best society of the British capital. She was delighted with it, whether as guest or as hostess. But in the latter position always, as in the former frequently, she found herself in a state of irritating perplexity and disappointment because of this question of precedence. Lest she should give offense, she was obliged to inform herself minutely as to the claims of her guests on the score of rank, in order that she might not be guilty of the solecism of letting Lord F, who was only an Earl, go out of the room before Lord G, who was a Marquess, or of placing Lady H, who was a Viscountess, below Lady I, who was only a Baronet's wife. And then there was the complicated question of what was due to Lords and Ladies K, L, and M, who were only sons and daughters of Marquesses and Earls, and as such entitled to different degrees of precedence.

Moreover, her little personal preferences and desires to show particular attention were thus all swept aside. She could not make up her parties to her liking. At last at one dinner which she desired should be in particular honor of a certain friend, she boldly availed herself of her republicanism, and wrote to one of her expected guests, a nobleman of high rank with whom she was on terms to take such a liberty, asking him if he would oblige her on this occasion by waving his claims to precedence, and not be offended if she gave her arm to Mr. He in the frankest and pleasantest way assented; and, indeed, it may be presumed that he cared nothing at all about the matter, except to please his hostess.

Due arrangement took effect; but the result was far from being satisfactory. For her other guests were so evidently disturbed by this conspicuous derangement of social order and defiance of the laws of precedence that their trouble was apparent all through the entertainment. Their glances and their aside speeches could not be mistaken. At length, in despair, she gave up the contest, and gave up entertaining, and finally she left London because she could not endure this way of “doing society” according to the dictates of the herald’s office.

It is not necessary to be penetrated with that democratic disdain of rank and title which is so conspicuous an American characteristic, to regard this manifestation of aristocracy as almost puerile. That sensible people should be disturbed because persons who are their friends and in their own social set and rank of life, go out of a door before them, and more, that they should be so disconcerted because some one else goes out before a person of higher rank than he or she, that they cannot eat their dinner in peace and quietness, is a result of the aristocratic constitution of society which does not tend to elevate it in the estimation of reasonable men and women.

On state occasions, in aristocratic countries, precedence is, of course, to be observed; but in social entertainments what matter does it make where a Duke sits or stands so long as he sits or stands where and with whom he finds his pleasure? He is no less a Duke by the side of Miss X than he would be by the side of the Duchess of Z; nor would his rank be more or less recognized if he were with the one than if he were with the other. This fuss about precedence reminds us unpleasantly of the squabbles which centuries ago used to take place between Ambassadors for the places which their carriages should take in the streets, and even upon the road, which sometimes led to conflict and bloodshed.

The common sense of the world has long ago set down all such jealousy among the childish follies of an almost semi-barbarous condition of society. And yet there has of late been an attempt to introduce something like such rules of precedence among us at entertainments, in regard to Senators, members of Congress, and the like. All such frivolity might well be disregarded by us, except in the conspicuous case of the President of the United States. The weariness of “society” will not bear to be increased by this addition to its burdens. It has been said that a certain form of obituary eulogy has added new horrors to death. It is certainly true that precedence in society– except within certain easy and movable bounds– adds superfluous perplexity and oppression to the cheerlessness of formal dinner parties.– The New York Times, 1880

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

Rude American Chits Annoy Miss Brits

“The Lady Mauds and Lady Beatrices are sore at finding themselves outshone in the highest circles by American chits, who before coming abroad, were just ordinary misses in small provincial towns in the United States.”

‘Chit’ — A a dismissive and derogatory term for a an immature girl, lacking in respect. — Not satisfied with advising the young single women of England, Henry Du Pré Labouchère (British politician, publisher, writer and even theatre owner, in the Victorian and Edwardian eras) is now mainly remembered for the Labouchère Amendment, which for the first time in the United Kingdom, criminalised all male homosexual activity. 

- Photo Source Public Domain Wikipedia 

Our Girls Abroad

An Apology for the English Maiden’s Total Eclipse

Ladies Abroad Finding Themselves Outshone by the Girls of America— A Hint to English Mauds and Beatrices—Emancipation from Cant

The Lady Mauds and Lady Beatrices are sore at finding themselves outshone in the highest circles by American chits, who before coming abroad, were just ordinary misses in small provincial towns in the United States. It is a hard case to be thrust into the shade by these fair invaders. But soreness about it will only spoil good looks. Why not rather learn the art of war from the invading belles, who were not reared in hothouses, but in public free schools? In a great degree, they have conquered because they are in the habit of thinking themselves as good as no matter whom, and of not being shamfaced in the presence of mortals of uppermost rank. I don't think it occurs to the Mauds and Beatrices that very few uppermost personages, in no matter what country, have, or can have, much conversation. Having had allowances from their cradles upward there is no strenuous effort in their lives. And so that intensity of thought, feeling and will which makes a man a man, and sublimates a woman, is wanting in them. 

Etiquette throws on them the onus of startling subjects of conversation. Having to talk de haut en bas, but there is no quick interchange of ideas. As it was 300 years ago, so now. Their lives being flat, they must fall back on buffoonery—a reason why Schneider’s dressing room at Les Varietes was “Le Passage des Princes.” License of speech is sure to be granted to any one whose talk tickles or is droll. There are few rosebuds in etiquette ridden courts who can so converse. But the United States free schools produce them in thousands. Originality in America is not confined to the unornamental sex. The conditions of life are so different there from what they are in England, and there is such emancipation from cant in most of the forms in which it tyrannizes us, that the beauty from Ohio, Illinois or Delaware is startingly novel, and whatever piquancy there is in her talk, comes home with a double force. 

Beauties from America 

There are such heaps of Miss Jennie Chamberlains in the United States, that hardly any one notices their points. Americans are astounded at the effect they produce on English noblemen when they come out at the Riviera or in London. As to the etiquette invented by Lords Chamberlain, those flowers from over the Atlantic are in happy ignorance. So they start topics in colloquies with royal personages instead of waiting for them to be started, and when they find they please, they go ahead. “Sir,” or “madam,” or “your royal highness,” used as commas, are in the conversation of ordinary persons. Then the young and fair Americans neglect no advantage which is derived from attention to personal appearance. They know how to dress, and they grudge no money that they can give to the best dentists. Being in the habit of dancing from infancy, their gestures are easy and not angular, always talk distinctly, and, if sometimes with a slight twang, in an audible voice. 

Our girls often mumble or run on in a chirruping jabber that really is not speech. They, too, often deal in set phrases which get soon exhausted. I think when a British girl is nice, she’s the nicest of any; and many more than there are could be charming, if they could only learn how to speak, and to move about in an easy, graceful way. The American girl has neat features, a delicate skin and a fine nervous system. But in the rest of the organization, nature has been wanting in generosity. The western woman or girl is a finer human being than the eastern. In the southern states, womanhood is nearest to perfection. Women there are reposeful—not precisely amusing, but intelligent, sweet and interesting. — Henry Du Pré Labouchere in London Truth, 1888

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

Differing Dining Styles — USA vs U.K.

Abigail Van Buren... “Letter on ‘manners’ stirs response.”

DEAR ABBY: My English husband and I howled with laughter when we read the letter from the Americans who had returned from England. Scotland and Wales and noticed the “strange” manner of eating. They said, “After cutting meat, they do not set the knife down and change the fork from the left hand to the right; they eat left-handed, which looks rather awkward.” Worse yet, these visiting Americans were not content to merely observe the “foreign” manner of eating, they attempted to instruct an Englishman in the “correct” way — theirs. What nerve! I’ll bet you get a ton of mail on this. — S and S in Menlo Park

DEAR S AND S: I did. Some samples;

DEAR ABBY: I married a man from Finland who always thought that European table manners were superior to ours because they never touch their food with their fingers as Americans so often do. However, after living in Indiana for six years, my husband has become slightly Americanized. Instead of using a knife and fork to eat a Big Mac or a piece of Kentucky Fried Chicken, he eats with his fingers. I'm so glad. It was getting a little embarrassing with company. And you should see him tackle an Ortego taco!— Susan M. Clarksville, Indiana

DEAR ABBY: Now I know where the phrase “Ugly American” originated. It was partly from people like your reader who had the nerve to visit a foreign country and criticize age-old eating habits. When I dined in England during World War II, my hosts were very charming; they must have been vastly amused as they watched me switch my fork from one hand to the other, but no one had the bad taste to call it to my attention. It’s like the American who asked the British sergeant why his stripes were upside down. Or Americans who ask foreigners, in their own country, why they drive on the “wrong” side of the street. —Jack Corzette, Houston

DEAR ABBY: I was born in England and now live in the United States While dining in an American restaurant, imagine my horror when I was asked to keep my fork from the main course to use for my dessert. This disgusted me no end At least we use clean utensils for each course. —Doreen in Pine Bluff, Arkansas

DEAR ABBY: Who do those Americans think they are to criticize the way the English use their eating utensils? I’m English, and one thing we do not do is struggle with the side of a fork to cut our meat. We use a knife. And we do not use our fingers to eat bacon regardless of how crisp it is, as I've seen countless Americans do. Have you ever chased the last few peas around your plate, trying to get them on a fork? Well, that’s where the knife comes in, to “rake” them, as you say, onto your fork. I offer this little rhyme a favorite with my countrymen,  ‘I eat my peas with honey, I've done it all my life, It may sound awfully funny, But it keeps them on my knife.’ — Born in England

DEAR ABBY: Please leave King Henry VIII at rest. The English learned their “strange eating habits” centuries before America was even born. So who is “wrong”? The American tourists who thought the English need eating lessons should visit China and “teach” the Chinese to use a knife and fork, and throw away those funny little sticks they’ve been eating with for 5,000 years! — Proud Canadian 

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

For Brits, “Roof is Introduction”

The fact that you and the other guests are under the same roof is introduction ... “Simplicity of both thought and action is the basis of good breeding. One must use her common sense as well as her kindliness of heart and take into consideration that pretension is always a mark of vulgarity.” 

Introductions manners always improve with the cultivation of the mind, and we can turn the rule around, for the acquirement of good manners can only be attained by education and observations, followed by habitual practice. It would be a good thing if we had another Addison or Steel to turn our attention to the manners of our time, as these distinguished writers did in the ‘Spectator.’ The great mistake that most people make is in acquiring too much manner. Simplicity of both thought and action is the basis of good breeding. One must use her common sense as well as her kindliness of heart, and take into consideration that pretension is always a mark of vulgarity. 

Introductions are made indiscriminately in America and there is much to be learned in almost any set about the proper way to present one person to another. In the first place, you should never introduce one person to another unless you know that it is agreeable to both of them. “But.” you exclaim, “perhaps they are both at my home for an evening party!” Then these ladies should know the English law that “roof is introduction,” and remember that a casual conversation does not hurt anyone, neither does it entail a further acquaintance which might be awkward. In making an introduction the gentleman is always presented to the lady. The younger woman to the older woman.

In her own house a hostess should always extend her hand to a person introduced to her. At a dinner party the hostess need only introduce the gentleman to the lady that he is to take in to dinner. Even after introduction a man must wait for the woman to bow first when next they meet. When introducing a man, always give him his title, even if you are his wife. Introductions on the street are not in good taste, as one should not stop long enough on a promenade to present one person to another. If you are with someone and a friend stops her on the street, it is good taste for you to walk on slowly. • • • • Memo: Strive to live up to your favorable introduction. — By Idah McGlone Gibson

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

Emily’s Etiquette Book Backlash

“Saucers for vegetables are contrary to all etiquette.” – Advice from Emily Post’s 1922 “Etiquette––the Blue Book of Social Usage”

Emily Post was a New York socialite who turned to writing after her 1906 divorce. First trying her hand at novels, in 1922 and at the age of 50, Post’s reworked version of Emily Holt’s 1901 “Encyclopaedia of Etiquette,” titled “Etiquette––the Blue Book of Social Usage” was published. Countless etiquette books had already been written for centuries before, but within a year of Post’s book being published, the British press was poking fun at Americans. They delighted in mocking those they viewed as pushy and upwardly mobile, nouveau riche Americans, who bought Post’s book, striving to be part of what she called, “Best Society.”

Many English Papers Mock U. S. Customs

——————

Press Is Poking Fun at Supposed ‘Cultural Revolution’

LONDON— Certain English newspapers seem to delight in poking fun at American customs and manners, and some of the London publications make more or less a practice of parading the idiosyncrasies and habits of American tourists. This is especially true where American customs differ from the orthodox traits of the Englishman. 

A London newspaper with a circulation of 1,000,000 has featured the following paragraph regarding a “cultural revolution” which was taking place in the United States: “Cuspidors are being removed from countless American drawing rooms. Chewing gum is being scraped off parlor chairs. Several million Americans spend hours daily in practising the correct pronunciation of the words ‘aunt,’ ‘clerk,’ ‘derby’ and ‘advertisement’.” Then came the ironical information that “bootlegging is no longer the principal occupation of the cultured minds of America.” and that much more time is being spent “In reading the social culture advertisements and learning how easy it is to misbehave “unless one buys the book of good manners.” 

The British public is told that a great wave of etiquette is sweeping America. “Half America’s 110,000,000 people are now spending a large part of their time in watching the other half and seeing that they conform to the rules of social culture,” says this satirical Journal. Patrons of restaurants are pictured as spending so much time watching one another that they eat only about a half what they consumed before the wave of etiquette struck America. The paper quotes a Broadway manager as saying that “when a diner uses his knife on a salad or takes two bites at a strawberry, such a hush falls upon the assembly that one can even hear the orchestra.” — Associated Press Correspondence, 1923

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