Etiquette and Typed Personal Letters

 Even Emily Post was known to type personal correspondence in the 1930’s and 1940’s. It stands to reason that her etiquette books were sanctioning it, as well, at that time. As someone with arthritis, Etiquipedia has, at times, handwriting which is illegible and approves of typing one’s personal correspondence if one feels a letter will be too poorly written to read. — Above, a letter from Emily Post to a friend in 1940, from the Etiquipedia private library and future Etiquette Museum

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DEAR ANN: My handwriting is the worst I've ever seen. It is illegible and looks like the scribbling of a child. Because of this, I type all letters, invitations, thank you notes, and condolence messages. Last week a friend criticized me because I had typed a letter to a mutual friend whose husband passed away. She said it is better not to send any message than a typed one. Will you express your views on this subject? — Rozelle

Dear Roz: The old hide-bound rules of etiquette are fast bowing to common sense. And I say it's about time. It is better to send a typed note that can be read than a hand-written one which is illegible. — Ann Landers, 1969

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

Broken Engagement Gift Etiquette

A “hope chest” is also known as a “glory box” or “cedar chest.” It is a very traditional piece of furniture, which was historically used by young, unmarried women to collect household goods, linens, and more, all in anticipation of marriage. Handcrafted versions are still produced today and are often made from solid wood like cedar or cherry.

When You Don’t Walk Up the Aisle…

Dear Mrs. Post: When an engagement ends before the march to the altar, what happens about the hope chest? That is, my fiancé or, I should say, my ex-fiancé, gave it to me last Christmas, and I have been storing my linens in it. Am I supposed to make some attempt to send it back to him?

Answer: I think that this is one thing that you might be expected to keep. He can hardly give a left-over hope chest to another girl, and it has really become more personal to you, than to him, since you have been filling it with things made and collected by you. However, ask him whether he would like it. If he wants it, then send it back to him. — Emily Post, 1941

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

Service Plate Etiquette

Image from the book, “Reaching for the Right Fork”

Removing Service Plate is Simpler and Quicker

 

ACCORDING to correct (formal) service, the service plate is removed with either fruit-cocktail glass, or soup plate, and exchanged for a clean plate known as an “exchange plate,” because this in turn should be exchanged for any plate with food on it. But since a kitchen-served meat and vegetables is not admitted at a formally-served dinner, an exchange plate would seem strangely out of place. Therefore, the answer is to do what is most expedient. This probably would be to remove service plates and whatever may be on them, (one double stack in each hand), and bring in the filled ones (one in each hand). 

Above, another look at silver service plates. — Photo of page from an early 1900 book on proper place settings, by Wallace Silvermiths.

This answer is to the question: “When the main course of a meal is served on plates in the kitchen and brought in by the maid (which is often done these days in this part of the country) should the service plate be removed at the time that the fruit cocktail or soup is removed, or should the place plates be left standing and only the first course removed, and the place plates be lifted as each hot plate with the main course is put down?”

As I already have said, it would seem simpler as well as quicker to remove service plate and whatever is on it and leave the place bare until the already filled, hot plates are put down. This is a “practical” service suggestion, in contrast to that which is “formally” correct." — Emily Post, 1941

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

Lipstick Etiquette and Marketing

After the death of EmilyPost in 1960, her granddaughter in-law Elizabeth Post took over writing her books and her syndicated columns. They were nearly all, however, under the banner of “Emily Post Etiquette.” The Elizabeth Post cosmetic and beauty line was available however, as early as the 1930s to the 1950’s,  if not even later at that. Brava to Elizabeth for carving out her own business niche, especially in the long shadow of her husband’s grandmother!

💋 TRUTH ABOUT KISSING! 💋

Almost since man first beheld woman and found her desirable, the kiss has been immortalized in poetry, sculpture and painting. What a shame that today something has been added to kissing that is so disturbing to so many men.

MEN, bless them, too often feel it's ungentlemanly to talk about lipstick smears. But think about it, they do! And they just don't want any part of it.

Perhaps, you, as a busy woman, haven't realized the full consequences of lipstick smears. And if you did, most likely you didn't know what to do about it. For until recently there was nothing you could do except not wear lipstick, which of course is unthinkable.

A woman a housewife, probably very much like yourself has now done something about lipstick smearing — not only when kissing, but when eating, drinking and smoking as well,

She has invented a clear liquid that is brushed lightly over lipstick and is guaranteed to prevent lipstick smearing. It is not a lac- quer. It is not a basecoat. And it. does not change the color of your lipstick. It's an amazing new product called LIP-STAE- and it's wonderful. 

What Lip-Stae Will Do For You

1. It will keep lipstick on you; of him, cigarettes, glasses, linens.
2. It leaves no odor on the lips; makes them softer, more lovely than lipstick alone.
3. It doesn't crust or cake; Lip- Stae actually becomes part of the lipstick itself.
4. It is completely safe; approved by Good Housekeeping.

Look what Emily Post says about Lip-Stae:

Mrs. Post, the indisputable authority on all matters of etiquette, minces no words. She says emphatically, “It’s bad manners to smear your hostess’ linen and glassware, and it is inexcusable when there is Lip-Stae.”

Kiss! Smoke! Eat! Drink! Lip- Stae is guaranteed to keep your lipstick on you all day, OFF everything else.

Only 60 and $1 (plus tax) — Newspaper Advertisement, 1949

 

One can only imagine what chemicals may have been in this product. I’m not sure there was much oversight when it came to women’s beauty products at the time. Then again, in the US and in Great Britain, lipstick was considered so important to women during World War II, the United States government kept a large stock of red lipstick in the munitions factories and other places where women were employed in the war effort. Winston Churchill deemed we that British women needed their lipstick to feel more feminine, so it was not rationed during the war, nor afterward.

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

For the Socially Scared Stiff

Helpful etiquette book suggestions for California college co-eds of 1936 -
Barker, Mary P.: “The Technique of Good Manners.” A guide to the “how and when” of efficient living. Gives common failings and suggestions for self improvement. Written especially for men. Barker, Mary P.: “Good Manners for Young Women.”  A similar guide for women, Post, Emily: “Etiquette.” The blue book of social usage.

For Scared Stiff Aggies… Etiquette Books Reviewed & Recommended in 1936

One goes to school not only to learn the three R's, but to prepare for contacts with one's fellowmen. In order that one may be an efficient social unit it is necessary to know the rules of etiquette, or good manners. Are you ever in doubt how to answer that certain invitation; how to sign your name to a letter? Are you one of those shy, self-conscious persons who are “scared stiff” every time you are introduced? Social life is a game with definite rules. Why not start now to learn the “do's”and the “don'ts”? 

The following books will help you:

Pierce, Beatrice: “It's More Fun When You Know the Rules.” Etiquette problems for girls. Very cleverly written. Simple explanations of correct etiquette for ordinary occasions of a girl's life. Partial contents: People judge you by your table manners; entertaining with the all-important problem of refreshments; looking your best; how well do you talk? when you go traveling; here comes the bridesmaid.

Eldridge, Elizabeth: “Co-ediquette.” Poise and popularity for every girl. Advice on clothes, rushing, dates, dances, football games, campus politics, conduct in dormitories, and many other phases of college life. Written in a lively, informal style. 

Hadida, Sophie C.: “Manners for Millions.” Correct code of pleasing habits for everyday men and women. See yourself in caricature.

Stevens, Wm. Oliver: “The Correct Thing.” A guidebook of etiquette for young men. Much good advice packed into a little book of 150 pages. Contains chapters on sports, making speeches, college fraternities and applying for work, in addition to the usual ones on table manners, letter writing, etc. 

Barker, Mary P.: “The Technique of Good Manners.” A guide to the “how and when” of efficient living. Gives common failings and suggestions for self improvement. Written especially for men. Barker, Mary P.: “Good Manners for Young Women.” 

A similar guide for women, Post, Emily: “Etiquette.” The blue book of social usage. -California Aggie, 1936 

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

Profiles in Etiquette— Emily Post

 In the 1945 edition of Emily Post's book “Etiquette,” Post quoted a disgruntled reader of her work, bridling at the prospect of imitating New York's “Cafe Society,” a group known to be less mannerly than “pretentious and vulgar.” Just who, the reader demanded to know, are these Best People, whose example Post commends throughout her book? Her answer follows: 

“There is nowhere to go to see Best Society on parade, because parading is one thing the Best Society does not intentionally do. And yet it is true (and this is one of the things harder to make clear) that in the forefront of the public parade are to be found a certain few who are really best. But they are best in spite of, and not because of, the publicity they attract. When I say that ‘people of taste do this or think that,’ I naturally have in mind definite people whose taste is the most nearly perfect among all those whom I know. Or on occasion, perhaps, I go back in memory to the precepts of those whose excellence has remained an ideal. In other words when I write of people of quality or fashion or taste, I always select the individual people who ideally serve as models... In other words... Best Society, Best People, or People of Quality can all be defined as people of cultivation, courtesy, taste, and kindness – people, moreover, who are very rarely disassociated from their backgrounds.” – Emily Post
From “A Short History of Rudeness” by Mark Caldwell

To the Manner Born: The Real Story of Emily Post

In the 1922 original edition of “Etiquette,” Emily Post's guide to the practices and manners of "Best Society," 81 pages are devoted to all matters nuptial. There's a sad irony, then, to the fact that Emily Post became the foremost authority on etiquette as the result of an unhappy marriage. In 1905, as biographer Laura Claridge recounts in “Emily Post: Daughter of the Gilded Age, Mistress of American Manners,” Post's husband, Edwin, was the victim of a blackmail ploy by a newspaper publisher who threatened to reveal Edwin's affair with a starlet. Edwin, who had lost much of his wife's inheritance playing the stock market, set up a sting to expose the publisher's scheme, then confessed to his wife, who had no choice but to support his decision. The successful sting, along with Edwin's infidelities, was widely reported. The publicity caused Emily much humiliation, and the couple divorced the following year.

Love, sex, money and public shame: 48 years after Post's death, we're still often flabbergasted about the right way to conduct our affairs regarding the first three, and desperate to avoid the last. Even as we celebrate a loosening of social strictures—and equate casualness with self expression—with freedom comes anxiety. (Witness the proliferation of advice books dealing with the etiquette of casual Fridays, e-mail and text messages, and even one-night stands.) With the current financial crisis and political uncertainty, how to address an invitation to an afternoon tea may seem trivial, but, says Peggy Post, Emily's great-granddaughter-in-law and a director of the Emily Post Institute, we long for the structure of established rules more than ever in times of social and economic uncertainty. “Etiquette gives people the blueprints to deal with times of stress,” she says. Perhaps this is why Post was so uniquely qualified to write that blueprint: her life was shaped by stress, both personal and societal.

Post was born within months of the depression of 1873, and grew up in a world where the divide between rich and poor was rapidly expanding. As the daughter of Bruce Price, the architect who designed New York's Tuxedo Park, she enjoyed the diversions of the Gilded Age, consorting with the Astors, Morgans and Vanderbilts. But after her divorce from Edwin she set about reinventing herself as a career woman, gradually shedding the persona of a high-society divorcée for that of a serious professional writer. “I suspect it was good for her to fail in her marriage,” says Claridge. “It helped her come into her own. If she hadn't been so brutally divorced, Emily Post wouldn't have come to be.”

She didn't dispense with society altogether, though; instead, she capitalized on her familiarity with the upper classes by writing novels about romances between American blue bloods and European royalty. By 1920, she was such an authority on the mores of the American aristocracy that her friend the Vanity Fair editor Frank Crowninshield inveigled her to write “a book about how to behave,” as she liked to tell it. (In truth, Claridge writes, Post had been angling for the task for some time.) He believed the country was sorely in need of guidance: “All those new war wives desperate to know how to write a thank-you note, all those immigrants who had made it to our country before the rules tightened, all those new money people, ashamed to admit they had no idea how to behave in society.”

Two years later “Etiquette” came out, the result of Post’s queries to her friends and her friends' children, and liberal plagiarizing of similar guides to correct behavior at home and in the world. The book, now in its 17th edition, has been updated over the years by Post’s grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Written as a fast-paced social drama (Post imagines a dinner party gone awry thus: “You have collected the smartest and the most critical people around your table to put them to torture such as they will never forget. Never! You have to bite your lips to keep from crying”), the book today is as delicious, and as dated, as an Edith Wharton novel. But those who think Post was overly concerned with raised pinkies and serving spoons underestimate her, says Claridge.

“People want to laugh at her, to devalue her,” she says. “We don't like to be told how to act, especially about matters that seem fairly trivial. You feel put down when other people know these apparent rules. Emily Post believed in having rules, but thought that everyone should have equal access to them. Your only obligation is to make the other person feel OK.”

Claridge developed a passion for her subject only after she was well immersed in the project. Three years after she started the book, she was diagnosed with a rare form of brain cancer. For a while she lost her memory, including her awareness of who Emily Post was and why she had been writing about her. After six months of chemotherapy to remove the cancer, she regained her memory, and came to see Post as an inspiration. “Even in the hospital, my behavior toward the nurses, toward my roommate, was influenced by her. I realized that life is short, and you want to do the best you can while you’re here. It's the golden rule, and she kind of encouraged that.”

If Post remains linked with superciliousness in the public imagination, it's because of our appetite for instruction, not her insistence on protocol. During the Great Depression, she gave radio broadcasts advocating hospitality, quoting from “Etiquette” and its revisions. As Claridge writes, “Letters flooded the radio office, sometimes begging for help: ‘How many inches should I sit from the edge of the table?’ and ‘When taking my place at table, should I approach my chair from the right or the left side?’” An anxious nation wanted reassurance about how to sit at the table, even if it had no guarantee of where the food on it would come from.

Today we might scoff at the very phrase “Best Society,” and be more likely to eat our meals standing over the sink than at any table. “But we're still obsessed with etiquette,” says Peggy Post. Great-grandson Peter Post's “Essential Manners for Men,” one of the many manners guides put out by the Post Institute, made the New York Times bestseller list in 2003. Of the hundreds of e-mail queries the institute receives each month, around half are about weddings (the first time many people think about etiquette, Peggy Post says), but topics include gym protocol, tipping and the eternal conundrum “How do I eat a [fill in the blank]?” “People are so afraid of committing a faux pas,” she says. “They don't want to embarrass themselves and don't want to be mean to other people. Most of these are common respect issues.”

At the height of her fame, Post had a radio show and syndicated newspaper column, and advised the White House on protocol. But the image of her as an unbending automaton was fixed. When she attended a dinner at the Gourmet Society, papers made news of the fact that Post had spilled lingonberries on the tablecloth. In fact, her eyesight had been impaired by a recent operation. As Claridge writes, “Forcing Emily Post to stand in for the one thing she had always emphasized should be forgotten and forgiven—an innocent mistake—journalists were gleefully casting the doyenne of etiquette as part of a system they feared, not one that she endorsed.”

It wasn't until after her death that some were able to appreciate the broader implications of Post’s life work. When, two weeks after her death in 1960, Nikita Krushchev staged his shoe-banging tantrum at the U.N., Life magazine suggested the Soviet leader had displayed poor etiquette. In an article titled “What Would Emily Post Have Said?” the magazine argued that there is “a connection worth tracing between manners and politics.” Today, when political candidates make a show of practicing good manners (“Can I call you Joe?”), then fail to treat each other with honesty or respect, they commit the worst sort of faux pas. “She used to say manners are a sensitive awareness of the feelings of others,” says Peggy Post. “It doesn't matter what fork you use. It is a matter of substance over style.”— By Jennie Yabroff Newsweek, 2008

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

Relaxing Etiquette Reveals Poor Form

The image above is a great example of what can happen when etiquette standards become relaxed. If one has an elbow on the table, it invariably leads to slouching, poor posture and to the casual observer, points out how graceful your dining companion looks beside you!  
What got into Emily Post’s head in 1938? When her best selling book was published in 1922, EmilyPost was 50 years old. I have often suspected that with advanced age, Emily slowly began to relax her standards. After all, this was the woman who served bar-b-que’d meats at an afternoon tea… “Reportedly, on Martha’s Vineyard, Emily Post was accused of ‘losing it’ when she served members of the Garden Club barbecued meats, rather than the anticipated tea sandwiches. When town members gossiped about her social gaffe, she responded that grilled meats seemed more festive for the occasion than “old-fashioned ladies food.’”

ONE BY ONE our most sacred. traditions and beliefs are destroyed. Now we read of Emily Post, high priestess of etiquette, eating dinner with her elbows on the table.

When we were kids we were taught that a table elbower was almost as low in the social plane as the shameless wretches who resorted to the unspeakable tooth-pick. 

The story said Emily's fellow diners at the Gourmet club, New York, were shocked at her sudden emancipation of the elbow though she tried to prepare them for the surprise to come by first knocking over a bowl of lingonberries.

The human elbow has never been regarded as one of nature's lovelier creations and it has always been our idea that the rule banning its display at meal times was more esthetic than scientific. 

Many an American grows to manhood without ever discovering why nature equipped him with a pair of elbows. And then he visits New York and takes a ride on the subway during rush hour.

Meanwhile, the elbow is in danger of disappearing completely in Italy and Germany. The Fascist-Nazi straight arm salute is gradually reducing it to the status of an unused hinge.

While we are grateful to Miss Post for the return of the American elbow from exile, her liberalism might have gone a bit further. Up to press time the napkin tucked under the chin has not been declared constitutional. – By William Ritt for the Imperial Valley Press, February 1938

 

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

Kid’s Etiquette in the 1980’s

You don't sleep in tents and cook hotdogs on a grill at these camps; you take dance classes and learn “the right way to do things.”

Courtesy Camps

What comes to mind when you think of summer camp? Daddy Long Leg spiders? The time you short-sheeted your counselor's bed? Whatever you think of, it probably deals with lots of dirt, and lots of fun.

But what would you do if you found out you were spending the summer at a "manners" camp? You don't sleep in tents and cook hotdogs on a grill at these camps; you take dance classes and learn "the right way to do things."

One of these camps, The Emily Post Summer Camp, meets at the Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach, Florida. The session lasts for four days. Kids take dance classes to learn both old-fashioned and modern dancing. They learn telephone manners, how to write thank you notes, and how to behave properly at the table. They even have time left over to swim and play games!

But not all the kids who go there are happy about it. Barbara Smart, who handles public relations for the camp, says "It would be fibbing to say that they're all delighted to be here. None of them are kicking and screaming. but it may be the step just before that." Smart says the kids end up enjoying the camp, though: "They have two hours of class and the rest of the afternoon free they may not have been to a place like the Breakers before. and they make lots of friends here."

Christopher Brett, a thirteen year old from Palm Beach, went to the camp last year. He liked it so much, he's going back this year. "It was really fun, but at the same time you got to learn all this stuff. I think it was funner than other camps, especially at the place it was."

Another camp, the L'Ecole des Ingenues, in Atlanta, Georgia, takes manners even more seriously. The camp director. Anne Oliver, calls it "more than just an etiquette camp." It's more like an old-fashioned finishing school for teenage girls. They learn how to act when they go to the ballet, which fork to use during a meal, the proper way to behave at tea time and other social events.

Oliver says there is an "etiquette epidemic" right now. When the camp started in 1976, fewer people were interested in manners. "When I opened, parents were sending their daughters. Now, almost ten years later, the girls are asking to be sent." – By Julie Langsdorf for Gannett News Service, 1985

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

Top Ten Etiquette Changes by 1950

Trousers on women... “Slacks are not incorrect dress for resort areas, sports, and lounging at home,” says this expert, “but are improper for city wear. Of course,” she adds, “some women are mistaken to wear them ever.”

10 Important Etiquette Changes Listed by  

Emil Post’s Assistant

Anne Kent, personal assistant to Emily Post for more than 15 years, has listed for the December issue of Cosmopolitan magazine the ten most important changes in etiquette. Here they are:

1. First-name calling. Miss Kent finds no fault with this practice in circles where it’s taken for granted. She says that position and age should be respected, and children shouldn't call adults by their first names.

2. Trousers on women. “Slacks are not incorrect dress for resort areas, sports, and lounging at home,” says this expert, “but are improper for city wear. Of course,” she adds, “some women are mistaken to wear them ever.”

3. The younger set (past eighteen) after midnight. The modern young woman and her young man head for home alone or with other young friends, stopping off for a late snack.

4. Posture. “I don't believe we should revert to the ram-rod stiffness required when our grandmothers were young women,” says Miss Kent, “but a little more gracefulness of posture would eliminate a great American eyesore.”

5. The typewriter supersedes the pen. The typewriter for personal correspondence is now not merely approved but favored. Formal notes, such as answers to formal invitations, should be penned by hand. And letters of sympathy seem warmer and more sincere if handwritten.

6. Manners after divorce. Years ago, divorced couples shunned each other. But today, many of them remain good friends or, at least, on speaking terms.

7. Women and nicotine. Sherry’s, a famous old New York society restaurant, forbade any woman to light a cigarette on the premises. The modern woman reaches for a cigarette almost whenever or wherever she has the whim.

8. Calling on new neighbors. This old American custom is vanishing, a casualty of World War II. Miss Kent believes that “people’s instinctive kindness will eventually bring back the courtesy call.”

9. Buffet meals replace big dinners. The modern hostess who gives a dinner party can prepare ahead of time, relax, and ask the guests to help themselves.

10. The decline of chivalry. Since gaining a more equal status with men, women no longer expect deference as the “weaker” sex. Unless she’s infirm or elderly, the modern woman must hustle for a seat on the subway. And that old hats-off-in-elevator rule has been completely revoked in business-building elevators.

According to Miss Kent, feminine independence has been paid for out of the currency of male chivalry. And many a woman seems to believe the purchase isn’t worth the price. – Whittier Star Review, 1950

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

Etiquette and Paper Napkins

Paper napkins can be very decorative, but they can also can be flimsy. If you choose to use, or must use paper napkins, it is okay to use more than one.  Paper napkins are generally recommended only for the most casual of dining, or for very large parties which would normally require a large abundance of linen cocktail napkins, or when crudités and other types of small finger foods are being served.

Dear Mrs. Post: I have always disliked paper napkins; in fact, when given one in a restaurant I always feel inclined to walk out. But my dislike seems to have become a boomerang. I am giving a large cocktail party, inviting over a hundred people and it is impossible to provide linen napkins for so many people. Do you think paper ones on such an occasion would be permissible?

Answer: At a cocktail party napkins are not necessarily provided. And perhaps if you put your own in a pile on the table, they will be sufficient. In addition to these, you might get some paper ones, to have ready in case your supply runs out.

From Emily Post, “In Good Taste,” 1937

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

Etiquette at Club Teas

As has long been custom, being asked to pour at a tea is an honor. It should always be looked upon as just that. If a hostess asks you to pour at her afternoon tea, she sees you as friendly, cheerful, competent and, probably, a person who is tidy and detailed. — “If sufficient members of the committee take turns at pouring, it should not be too tiring for any one of them, and there is no question that club hostesses at the tea table would create a more friendly atmosphere.” ~ Emily Post, 1937

Let the Women Pour

Dear Mrs. Post: Our women's club is giving a large tea for approximately a hundred and fifty guests. Would you suggest that it is better at a tea of this size to let the hotel do all the serving, or do you think it more friendly to have members of the committee preside at the tea table?

Answer: At a tea for as many as fifty, the details of serving are more often than not taken care of by the caterers, or by the servants in a private house. However, in your case, if sufficient members of the committee take turns at pouring, it should not be too tiring for any one of them, and there is no question that club hostesses at the tea table would create a more friendly atmosphere. In any case, all the other details of replacing used cups and saucers with fresh ones and replenishing sandwiches and cakes and passing them will be taken care of by the hotel. 

Emily Post in “Good Taste Today,” 1937

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

Emily Post on Finger Bowl Doilies

Originally, the word “doily” referred to as small napkin or decorative “piece of linen.” The word doily, also originally “doyley” was first used in 1711. Over the decades, doily has come to mean a small, lacy, decorative mat or crocheted piece of lace for finger bowls or desserts to be placed on. – “ Finger-bowls and doylies are brought in on the dessert-plates. Each person at once removes the bowl and doyley to make ready for whatever is to be put on the plate.” – From the Etiquette of Gilded Age Dinners and Service

Don't Dirty a Doily

Dear Mrs. Post: When the finger bowl is brought to the table on the dessert plate, on which is a lace doily, how does one remove the finger bowl to the table, and where is it put? Is the doily removed with it, or is dessert put on the doily?

Answer: The doily should be lifted off with the finger bowl and both put down at your place wherever there is room. On no account put anything eatable on top of a lace doily.

Emily Post, in “Good Taste Today,” 1937 

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

Emily Post on Seeds and More

Remove all the seeds that you can with the fruit knife and fork, before lifting a piece to the mouth, and any seeds left in the fruit are removed between thumb and finger, or dropped into the cupped hand. They are in either case dried as completely as possible with tongue and between lips. 

My dear Mrs. Post: 

(1) How does one remove watermelon seeds from the mouth at table? 

(2) A friend told me that tablespoons are not the real serving spoons. I have always used them as such, which must be wrong. 

(3) is it ever all right to eat peas with a spoon, in ease, or must they be juggled with a fork? 

(4) Are little side dishes always taboo? 

(5) In a restaurant, when foods are sometimes served in separate dishes, is it correct to eat them directly from the serving dish or should all food be put from there over on the dinner plate?

Answer: 

(1) Remove all that you can with the fruit knife and fork, before lifting a piece to the mouth, and any seeds left in the fruit are removed between thumb and finger, or dropped into the cupped hand. They are in either case dried as completely as possible with tongue and between lips. 

(2) There are slightly larger spoons used for serving, but tablespoons answer perfectly. 

(3) Spoon absolutely taboo. Mash them slightly with the fork, if you must. But I can't see that there is any difficulty ever. 

(4) Correctly, yes. 

(5) You should put them on your plate, but there is no rule because conventionally side dishes are not used. - by Emily Post.-WNU Service, 1934

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

Etiquette of the “Little Dinner”

"The little dinner is thought by most people to be the very pleasantest social function there is." — Emily Post

The Little Dinner

The little dinner is thought by most people to be the very pleasantest social function there is. It is always informal, of course, and intimate conversation is possible, since strangers are seldom, or at least very carefully, included. For younger people, or others who do not find great satisfaction in conversation, the dinner of eight and two tables of bridge afterwards has no rival in popularity. The formal dinner is liked by most people now and then (and for those who don't especially like it, it is at least salutary as a spine stiffening exercise), but for night after night, season after season, the little dinner is to social activity what the roast course is to the meal.

The service of a "little" dinner is the same as that of a big one. As has been said, proper service in properly run houses is never relaxed, whether dinner is for eighteen or for two alone. The table appointments are equally fine and beautiful, though possibly not quite so rare. Really priceless old glass and china can't be replaced because duplicates do not exist and to use it three times a day would be to court destruction; replicas, however, are scarcely less beautiful and can be replaced if chipped. The silver is identical; the food is equally well prepared, though a course or two is eliminated; the service is precisely the same. The clothes that fashionable people wear every evening they are home alone, are, if not the same, at least as beautiful of their kind. Young Gilding's lounge suit is quite as "handsome" as his dinner clothes, and he tubs and shaves and changes his linen when he puts it on. His wife wears a tea gown, which is classified as a negligé rather in irony, since it is apt to be more elaborate and gorgeous (to say nothing of dignified) than half of the garments that masquerade these days as evening dresses! They wear these informal clothes only if very intimate friends are coming to dinner alone. "Alone" may include as many as eight!—but never includes a stranger.

Otherwise, at informal dinners, the host wears a dinner coat and the hostess a simple evening dress, or perhaps an elaborate one that has been seen by everyone and which goes on at little dinners for the sake of getting some "wear out of it." She never, however, receives formally standing, though she rises when a guest comes into the room, shakes hands and sits down again. When dinner is announced, gentlemen do not offer their arms to the ladies. The hostess and the other ladies go into the dining-room together, not in a procession, but just as they happen to come. If one of them is much older than the others, the younger ones wait for her to go ahead of them, or one who is much younger goes last. The men stroll in the rear. The hostess on reaching the dining-room goes to her own place where she stands and tells everyone where she or he is to sit. "Mary, will you sit next to Jim, and Lucy on his other side; Kate, over there, Bobo, next to me," etc… — From Emily Post’s 1922 book, “Etiquette”

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

Formal Dinner Etiquette of 1952

A formal dinner setting — From “Your Reference Book of Silver Etiquette” by Emily Post for the Home Decorators Consultants, 1952

The truly formal dinner, the most ceremonious social function that exists, is rarely given by the American hostess of today.In fact, it is safe to assume that the formal dinner is now given only on State occasions in the few remaining great houses of this present day.

All other dinner parties, including the buffet dinner, may, therefore, be classed as informal dinners, regardless of how elaborate they may be. Too few of us have the houses, the servants, or the purses necessary to permit us to follow every last, exacting rule required by the formal dinner. For example: 

At the formal dinner butter is never served; rolls are placed on the tablecloth— never on a bread and butter plate; there must be a footman at least for every four chairs at the table.

However, all the correct rules governing the dinners originate with the formal pattern which is modified to suit the possibilities of each hostess. She may give her dinner parties whatever degree of formality she wishes, or finds practical. — From the Home Decorators Consultants, 1952

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

Emily’s “Good Taste” #3

A 1940 letter from Emily Post to a friend. This letter is part of a group of letters from Emily Post to a friend in the 1930’s and 1940’s. This group of letters was acquired for the Etiquipedia Etiquette Museum, scheduled to be opened within the coming 5 years.

Good Taste Today

Part 3

Dear Mrs. Post: After we were married two weeks ago, my husband was presented with a radio by his fellow office workers. They gave it to him at the office and he brought it home. Now he thinks that I should write a note to his boss, thanking every one, whereas I feel that they did not intend this to be a wedding present to me personally. If they had they would have sent the radio to our house, wouldn't they? 

Answer: I think you are perfectly right that it was a present to him individually and that you should not bo expected to thank them. In fact, I think If you wrote a note now it would be like getting up to take a bow to an audience who has applauded your husband's speech. 

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Dear Mrs. Post: Should people who come to my beauty shop be properly spoken of as customers, clients, patrons or what? And should ladies who come regularly to my shop and whose names I naturally know very well be called Mrs. Jones and Mrs. Brown, or Madam? 

Answer: You speak of your "customers" and you call those whom you know personally by name (i. e., Mrs. Jones and Mrs. Brown) and you call strangers "Madam." – By Emily Post in the San Bernardino Sun, 1939                

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

Emily Post- “Good Taste Today,” 1939

A typed letter from Emily Post to a friend. This letter is part of a group of letters from Emily Post to a friend in the 1930’s and 1940’s. This group of letters was acquired for the Etiquipedia Etiquette Museum, scheduled to be opened within the coming 5 years.– Property of the Etiquipedia private library

Good Taste Today

Part 2

Dear Mrs. Post: What would be your suggestion for clothes to wear at a club breakfast, which begins at noon and continues with an all-afternoon program? 

Answer: Street-length afternoon dresses would be proper, and hats. 

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Dear Mrs. Post: My daughter is being graduated this year from high school and she and I had thought it would be nice for me to invite her teachers to tea some day after school. I have never met any of the teachers but I hardly think, under the circumstances, that fact would matter. My mother seems to feel that this gesture would be all right in all the many more friendly smaller communities but that in this big city it would be looked upon by them as presumptuous rather than courteous. We are naturally very much disappointed at mother's criticism of our plan and wondered if she is right about this. 

Answer: To invite teachers who have shown no especial friendliness to your daughter and for whom she has had no especial liking, might seem to them surprising and possibly questionable. But any teachers she has always liked very much, and who would naturally be the ones she would like you to meet, will, I am sure, be delighted to come. She fact that you do not know them personally does not affect the propriety of your writing a note to each one saying that before Mary leaves school it would give you so much pleasure to meet the teachers of whom she has been especially fond, and inviting her to take tea with Mary and you on Friday, at half past four? – By Emily Post in the San Bernardino Sun, 1939                

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

Good Taste from Emily Post, Pt 1

Five things you probably didn’t know about Emily Post

Good Taste Today 

Part 1

Dear Mrs. Post: If the host carves and there is no maid at all, how should the vegetables and potatoes be served? Is it bad form to pass serving dishes from one to the other around the table.

Answer: If you help yourself there is, of course, the advantage of taking as much, or as little, as you want. However, there is also the question of hot serving dishes which, in fingers sensitive to heat, have been known to bo dropped! Even if the host serves the vegetables and potatoes as well as the roast, the plates can be filled according to each one's direction, such as: "May I have a rare slice of meat and just one potato, please?" This plan seems to me the simplest. But the only answer is to do what seems to you most practical. 

Dear Miss. Post: I went to a dinner some time ago where there was a guest of honor. After I had found my place at table I sat down, as I always have done. But much to my embarrassment the other ladies stood at their places and waited until the hostess asked them to be seated. I must admit that it took me several courses to regain my composure. The ancient advice of "When in Rome . . ." did not help in this situation, as I had never dined with this particular group of people. They must have thought me extremely rude, and perhaps I was, but I had never run into this display of politeness to the guest of honor. Will you write something about it? 

Answer: As you have said, many communities have customs of their own. Personally I have never heard of this procedure except in boarding schools. According to conventional usage every lady sits down as soon as she is told where to sit, or as soon as she finds her place card. The gentlemen stand at their places until the ladies are seated. In other words, what you did was (according to etiquette) entirely right. – By Emily Post in the San Bernardino Sun, 1939                

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

Early 20th C. Theatre Manners

“Very Inconsiderate To Giggle And Talk”

Nothing shows less consideration for others than to whisper and rattle programmes and giggle and even make audible remarks throughout a performance. Very young people love to go to the theater in droves called theater parties and absolutely ruin the evening for others who happen to sit in front of them. If Mary and Johnny and Susy and Tommy want to talk and giggle, why not arrange chairs in rows for them in a drawing-room, turn on a phonograph as an accompaniment and let them sit there and chatter!

If those behind you insist on talking it is never good policy to turn around and glare. If you are young they pay no attention, and if you are older—most young people think an angry older person the funniest sight on earth! The small boy throws a snowball at an elderly gentleman for no other reason! The only thing you can do is to say amiably: “I'm sorry, but I can't hear anything while you talk.” If they still persist, you can ask an usher to call the manager.

The sentimental may as well realize that every word said above a whisper is easily heard by those sitting directly in front, and those who tell family or other private affairs might do well to remember this also.

As a matter of fact, comparatively few people are ever anything but well behaved. Those who arrive late and stand long, leisurely removing their wraps, and who insist on laughing and talking are rarely encountered; most people take their seats as quietly and quickly as they possibly can, and are quite as much interested in the play and therefore as attentive and quiet as you are. A very annoying person at the “movies” is one who reads every “caption” out loud.— From Emily Post's 1922 book “Etiquette”

It ought to be superfluous to say that talking aloud, or continuous whispering during the progress of a play or opera or concert, usually on topics foreign to the occasion, is a rudeness to the performers and a bold impertinence to the rest of the audience. Some people are guilty of this insolence wittingly and unblushingly. For such we have no word of advice. Such instances should be met by something more effective than “gentle influence.” But many, especially young people, talk and laugh thoughtlessly, and from mere exuberance of animal spirits. It is to be hoped that on pausing to reflect they will carefully avoid forming a habit of public misbehavior that will ultimately rank them in the social scale as confirmed vulgarians. An intelligent listener never interrupts. 

Between the scenes of a play, or the successive numbers of a concert programme, there are pauses long enough for a brief exchange of comment between two friends who are sharing an entertainment, and they may enjoy the pleasure of thus comparing notes without once disturbing the order of the time and place. —From Agnes H. Morton's 1919 book “Etiquette”

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

Early 20th C. Smoking Etiquette

Was this advice from 1864 the impetus for smoking jackets? “A host who asks you to smoke, will generally offer you an old coat for the purpose.” —The Addams Family character “Gomez Addams’” in his smoking jacket. -Photo source, Pinterest

A gentleman may smoke in the presence of ladies—especially in the presence of those who smoke themselves—but a gentleman should not smoke under the following circumstances:

When walking on the street with a lady.

When lifting his hat or bowing.

In a room, an office, or an elevator, when a lady enters.

In any short conversation where he is standing near, or talking with a lady.

If he is seated himself for a conversation with a lady on a veranda, in an hotel, in a private house, anywhere where “smoking is permitted,” he first asks, “Do you mind if I smoke?” And if she replies, “Not at all” or “Do, by all means,” it is then proper for him to do so. He should, however, take his cigar, pipe, or cigarette, out of his mouth while he is speaking. One who is very adroit can say a word or two without an unpleasant grimace, but one should not talk with one's mouth either full of food or barricaded with tobacco.

In the country, a gentleman may walk with a lady and smoke at the same time— especially a pipe or cigarette. Why a cigar is less admissible is hard to determine, unless a pipe somehow belongs to the country. A gentleman in golf or country clothes with a pipe in his mouth and a dog at his heels suggests a picture fitting to the scene; while a cigar seems as out of place as a cutaway coat. A pipe on the street in a city, on the other hand, is less appropriate than a cigar in the country. In any event he will, of course, ask his companion's permission to smoke.– From Emily Post's 1922, “Etiquette”

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