Men’s 1911 Etiquette Do’s and Don’ts

“I know that women’s hats often annoy you more than yours possibly can them. I have been informed of these and all other arguments on the subject before. But you see, I didn't establish the custom. Convention did that and she still favors it.” – Ruth Cameron, 1911

A Few Etiquette “Do’s and Dont’s” for the Masculine Sex

• Never smoke when on the street with a woman. 
• Never smoke when in the room with women, no matter how well you know them, without asking their permission. 
• When you are smoking, never talk with your pipe between your teeth. Always remove it before speaking. 
• Always remove your hat in an elevator where there are women. Yes, I know that an elevator is not so very different from a street car, and men keep their hats on there, and I know that women’s hats often annoy you more than yours possibly can them. I have been informed of these and all other arguments on the subject before. But you see, I didn't establish the custom. Convention did that and she still favors it. 
• Never just touch your hat. The true gentleman always lifts it well off his head. 
• Never take a woman's arm in the street. If you wish to assist her you should offer her your arm, but that is not customary except at night or if she is aged or infirm. 
• When you are with a woman, always get off a car before her, so that you may help her off. 
• Never clean your nails or pick your teeth in the presence of your intimate friends any more than you would in public. It is just as unpleasant to them to have to see you as to the general public, and surely you owe them as much consideration. (Will the people who think that warning is not needed, anyway please watch and see how many really decent looking men they see offending that way?)
• Always rise when a woman enters the room where you are calling and remain standing until she is seated. 
• In the theater, if an usher helps you find the seat, let the lady precede you. Otherwise you precede her. 
• Don't sit in a street car with your feet stretched out in front of you where people will be apt to tumble over them. That is selfish and dangerous, as well as ill bred. 
• At the table, always remain standing behind your chair until your hostess is seated. I think it is a charming bit of domestic ceremony when this custom is carried out in the home circle and the father and children remain standing until the mother is seated.  – by Ruth Cameron, in The Morning Chat-Chat, 1911

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

Women’s Etiquette and Smoking

In foreign countries where women have always smoked openly, one may do as one pleases about using tobacco. Smoking is fashionable, therefore inconspicuous. In America, it has always been associated with women whose existence refined families refuse to recognize, so the woman who permits the public to see her while indulging in the doubtful habit, is not spared censure and loss of respect, even with wealth and name at her back. The world is getting used to black sheep from respectable folds.

We have accepted many innovations, but I doubt if the men of our families ever permit us to indulge the habit of smoking in public. There is a host of women who take a cigarette with husband or brother, but they are generally too discreet, too careful of appearances to lay themselves open to criticism on a matter that savors of the halfworld. Appearance we must observe, my friends. We must conform to the customs of the place in which we live, if they represent decency. In foreign countries where women have always smoked openly, one may do as one pleases about using tobacco. Smoking is fashionable, therefore inconspicuous. In America, it has always been associated with women whose existence refined families refuse to recognize, so the woman who permits the public to see her while indulging in the doubtful habit, is not spared censure and loss of respect, even with wealth and name at her back. The world is getting used to black sheep from respectable folds.

The daughter of a family in a small and rather straight-laced city went to a large city to earn her living. Her brother had preceded her, and both broadened rapidly in the unfamiliar atmosphere. They were so accustomed to dining at hotels that the difference between the unwritten laws of etiquette in home and large cities escaped their memory. The brother had been away from home so long as to he almost forgotten, and when he and his sister paid a visit to their home he was not recognized on the evening he escorted his sister to the dining-room of the principal hotel in the place. But she was, and it required just twentyfour hours for the news to reach the ears of the mother, who was quite as shocked as anybody in the city. 

She had been called away to a sick relation and expected the pair to eat dinner at home. They saw the chance for a bit of pleasure elsewhere, and took it without a thought of the manner in which the act would be looked upon. Only strangers could dine at that, or any hotel there unnoticed, and the fact that the man was taken for a stranger made it look worse for his sister. Both made light of the matter, as might be expected, but they never repeated the experiment through fear of public opinion which, after all has weight. I presume there are women who enjoy being conspicuous— I judge so from things they do —but the great majority prefer to keep on the side of good taste —and good sense. Smoking taints the breath and discolors the teeth —some physicians declare that it injures health —but if women want to take all these risks, and the men nearest them do not object, there is really nothing to he done save to appeal to them to spare the feelings of the public. –Betty Bradeen, 1909

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

Women, Tobacco and Etiquette

Dude! Where's your dudeen? — It is part of the etiquette of the "road." 

The woman smoker, far from being a result of a decadent civilization, is merely a survival of a rougher and harder life. Even today, the women who live the hardest lives compatible with twentieth century civilization smoke incessantly. Go into any tramps' lodging house and you will find not only old and young women, but bits of girls scarcely in their teens puffing contentedly, not at cigarettes, but clay pipes charged with black twist tobacco. It is part of the etiquette of the "road" for the men after they have vigorously puffed at their "dudeens" to hand them to the woman tramps who have no supply. — London Chronicle, 1910

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