Etiquette Hints for the 1929 Housewife

The meal should be announced in the following manner: “Dinner (or other meal) is served.” Handle all silver by the handles.

• A guest of honor, if a woman, is seated on the right of the host; if a man, seated on the right of the hostess.
• The hostess may be served first, then the ones on her right. Keep the same order around the table.
• Fill water glasses three-fourths full. 
• Pass all dishes at the left.
• Place and clear from the right when possible. 
• All plates for crackers, cakes, etc., should be covered with a doily.
• Hot breads should be folded in a napkin. 
• The table should be crumbed before the dessert is brought in.
• The meal should be announced in the following manner: “Dinner (or other meal) is served.” 
• Handle all silver by the handles.
• Handle goblets by the stem, and tumblers at the bottom.
• Never lift a glass from the table to refill it.
• If salad is served with the main course, it should be placed on the right, on a line with the plate.
• The food should not be brought into the dining room until all is in readiness to serve it.
• Food is removed from the table first, then the soiled dishes.
• Be sure that all dishes for hot food are hot, and those for cold food, cold.
• All silver should be placed on a line equally distant from the edge of the table, about one inch. — From “The Art of Table Setting,” by Lilian Gunn, 1929

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U.S. vs. British Seating Etiquette

For years it has been a debated question, the subject of endless discussion, as to whether on such occasions the President, as official head of the Nation, should not take precedence of the host and hostess. 
Public domain image of  Secretary of the Interior of the United States, 1889 - 1893, John Willock Noble

 A QUESTION OF ETIQUETTE.

MRS. NOBLE SEATS THE PRESIDENT AT THE HEAD OF HER TABLE

WASHINGTON, Feb. 11.– Secretary and Mrs. Noble gave a dinner to-night to the President and Mrs. Harrison, which witnessed a departure from the usual order of etiquette observed in seating the company at a table at which the President is the guest of honor. For years it has been a debated question, the subject of endless discussion, as to whether on such occasions the President, as official head of the Nation, should not take precedence of the host and hostess.

The usual order has been for the President to sit at the right of the hostess. In order to settle the matter, Mrs. Noble some time ago sent to London to get the English order of precedence, which supported her ideas on the subject, and decided that the President should occupy the seat of the host. The matter was then submitted to the State Department, which replied that the form was in this country purely optional. Mrs. Noble thereupon decided to have the seat for the President placed at the head of the table, while for herself was the one at the right. Secretary Noble sat at the opposite end of the table, with Mrs. Harrison at his right.

The guests were President and Mrs. Harrison, Vice President and Mrs. Morton, Secretary and Mrs. Elkins, Secretary Tracy, Mrs. Wilmerding, Secretary and Mrs. Rusk, Secretary and Mrs. Foster, the Postmaster General, Attorney General and Mrs. Miller, donator and Mrs. Sherman, and Mrs. Edith Foster of Chicago, niece of Mrs. Noble.– The New York Times, 1892

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Table for One: A Hostess Sat Alone

As one of the guests said, “it was too deliciously funny to resent, and the smile which I could not repress I saw reflected from most of the other faces of the company about me.”

At a pretty dinner given recently, the guests, numbering forty, were seated, eight each, at five round tables. Each table was decorated with one variety of flower, and on arriving each guest was presented with a small bouquet of the flowers corresponding to those on the table at which he was to find his place. The table where the host and hostess were seated was placed at such an angle as to command a view of the company by one or the other of them.

This keeping in touch with the guests is a difficulty encountered by all givers of large dinners. In this regard, a New-York woman not long ago quite overreached herself. So puzzled was she at which table to sit herself, that she finally cut the Gordian knot by dining alone at a small table placed in the centre of her guests. As one of the guests said, “it was too deliciously funny to resent, and the smile which I could not repress I saw reflected from most of the other faces of the company about me.”– The New York Times, 1892

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Seating Arrangement Etiquette

Separate husbands and wives. They should never be seated side by side at a dinner or luncheon table. 

“Ring Around a Rosy” ...  and they all had a seat!

 Have hostess and host at foot and head of table respectively. Alternate men and women about the table.

Nancy and Lois were eating in a down town tea room and began to comment on the way in which people grouped themselves at the tables. They finally drew diagrams of the way folks should seat themselves. They saw two gentlemen come in with two ladles. The waitress showed them to a round table. The two men sat side by side and the two women side by side. True, this gave each lady a gentleman on one side of her but the table could better have been arranged so that each lady had a gentleman on each side. 

The top arrangement shows the diagram which Nancy drew. Then they watched another group of six who were seated at an oblong table. Evidently it was a party and the lady and gentleman who were entertaining had two husbands and wives as their guests. By seating them as shown in the lower diagram it was possible to do all these things which are socially correct: Have hostess and host at foot and head of table respectively. Alternate men and women about the table.

Separate husbands and wives. They should never be seated side by side at a dinner or luncheon table. The lady who was hostess has a gentleman at either side of her and the host has a lady on either side of him. The lady who sits on his right is the wife of the man who sits on the hostess’ right, and the lady on his left is the wife of the man who sits on the hostess’ left. – Florence LaGanke as “Nancy Page” for the San Pedro Pilot, 1929

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Etiquette of Luncheon Parties

Formal lunches, just like formal breakfasts, could be several hours long and with several courses. Place settings were very complicated for a novice hostess. Books like the Wallace Silver Hostess Book were very especially helpful to new brides.

Rules for Simple Luncheons

Luncheon parties are rather formal: three of a family are invited—father, mother and daughter; two families, perhaps, and three or four from different households, making a party of twelve, including host and hostess. There is a tendency at these gatherings to follow dinner etiquette and to go in arm in arm, more particularly on the part of elderly people. At all luncheon parties, large or small, the ladies should go in first together, followed by the men. The hostess should either walk by the side of the lady of highest rank, or, if she is acquainted with the house, she leads the way. The hostess follows last and all the ladies precede her. 

The size of the party naturally regulates the extent of the menu as regards quantity. The style of luncheon given is very much the same in most houses, save where men cooks are kept and plain dishes are out of the question. At ordinary luncheons, a cold entree of salmon or chicken precedes a roast, or two hot roasts, or a hot entree and a roast. Two sweets, one hot and one cold, seldom a savory cheese, taking its place. Fruit is now invariably given; sometimes it is eaten before the cold entree, but this only as regards melon. 

Name cards are not used at luncheon, except at very large parties, when to tell them where to sit would occupy too much time. The places of honor are, of course, at the right and left hand of the host, and the left and right of the hostess, and these are given to the guests according to the precedency due to them. Ladies are, as a rule in the majority to a great extent, and when a host is not present the place of honor is by the side of the hostess, unless her son or brother acts as host. – Los Angeles Herald, 1904

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Table Seating Etiquette

The reason seating arrangements is worth thinking about in advance, is that you'll be asked the question, “Is there any place in particular you'd like us to sit?” and your mind will have a hard time switching gears. 

Diplomatic careers have foundered on bad decisions about who should sit where, but with six people you've got nothing to worry about. Because couples often go through life welded together at the hip, it might make for a more interesting dynamic not to have the same two people who breakfast together every morning of their mortal lives seated together at a dinner, as well. 

Convention likes to have a man seated next to a woman seated next to a man seated next to a woman. But since couples no longer come exclusively in those pairings and since your table might not conform to three of one, three of the other, best to seat people for conversational possibility rather than atavistic allegiance.

The reason it's worth thinking about in advance, is that you'll be asked the question, “Is there any place in particular you'd like us to sit?” just as you're draining the pasta or taking the muffins out of there tin, and your mind will have a hard time switching gears.

You want the talkers and the listeners fairly evenly distributed around the table. You probably don't want the three men who were college roommates absorbed in a tête to tête to tête, at one end of the table. Nor do you want the shy cousin who invited you to dinner when you first moved to town, to have only you to talk to throughout the meal, the cocktail hour having pretty much exhausted your news of the family. So say firmly, “Yes, I'd like Marjorie on my right, Fritz on my left, and if Betty would go to the other end of the table, the rest of you can sit where you like.” — From 1993's “Rising to the Occasion”

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

Dinner Seating Etiquette, 1895

Dinner tables of society hostesses, in the latter part of the Victorian Era, featured unique and ornate silver patterns. The more silver laid on a dining table, the better. Silver reflected candlelight, illuminating dining rooms that were not yet fitted with electric lights.

A New Dinner Table Fashion!

The new heraldry, or rather etiquette, for large public dinners, annual​ dinners and the like—to which more and more​ frequently ladies are invited—places the wife at the table by her husband's side. She has for some years sat side by side with bim on the box seat when he drives his four-in-hand, and now it is the recognized thing, even in London,where innovations come slowly, to have this arrangement at dinner. 

"It seems very odd," writes an English woman, describing the annual dinner of the Newsvendors Benevolent and Provident Institution at the Grand Hotel, "very odd to go down with Richard, this being one of the particulars in which the public banquet differs from the private dinner. Opposite us were a husband and wife, to the left of us another couple, and a little further off another married pair. None of us quarreled with each other. 

Richard talked to his friend, who occasionally threw me a crumb of the conversation, and I made friends with my other neighbor, admired the lovely tulips on the table and made energetic efforts to see what Lady E_____ looked like. She sat beside the chairman, her husband, her father, the Earl of Arran, supporting her on the right. So you see it was intensely British​, a family arrangement of the most pronounced kind." 

The first time that such an arrangement was tried in Philadelphia was at the dinner given to Dr. James Mac Allister by Mr. Edward T. Steel and a number of other friends. There, husbands sat by their wives, and the novelty and ease of this arrangement was very much enjoyed. Since then the arrangement has become quite a general one for public functions, when other placing of the body of guests would be awkward or impossible. — Philadelphia Public Ledger, 1895

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Diplomatic Table Seating Etiquette

Original seating chart for State Dinner Honoring HRH The Duke of Gloucester, in 1934 — At diplomatic dinners, titles are abbreviated, “H. E. [for His Excellency] the Norwegian Ambassador,” “The Secretary of Defense.” Dinner partners refer to these gentlemen as “Mr. Ambassador” and “Mr. Secretary” in direct conversation, by the way. Note that there are absolutely no women at this dinner in 1934!

The seating at formal dinners is the same as that at informal ones at which guests are present. Host and hostess are seated more or less opposite each other, with the hostess preferably near the entrance through which the formal place card. Monogram, in this case, in gold with matching border. 

Name of guest is handwritten. To the right of the host is placed the honored woman guest. If a young engaged girl is to be feted, for example, she is given this place despite the fact that older women are present. If among the guests there is one woman who has come some distance and is rarely a visitor to the household, it is she who would be given this place of honor. 

Ordinarily, among people who see each other frequently, the hostess places to the host's right any woman who has obvious seniority over the rest or, if none has, any woman guest who will bring out her husband conversationally if he needs special incentive. 

To her own right the hostess places the husband of the guest of honor, if there is one, the man who has come the greatest distance and is an infrequent visitor to the household or a man who may be a little shy or difficult conversationally. To the host's left is placed the next most important woman guest and to the hostess' left, the next most important man guest.

At a long banquet table host and hostess need not sit at opposite ends but may sit across from each other at the center. The same seating of guests of honor maintains, however.

At each place will be a guest's name. The cards are usually plain white with beveled edges gilded, although in a household using a heraldic device the host's full coat of arms may be embossed in gold or the crest alone without the motto may be used. 

A widow or an unmarried woman may properly use only a lozenge for menu and place cards. Place card names are written “Mrs. Roberts,” “Miss Sweeney,” “Mr. Prudhomme” at formal dinners. 

At diplomatic dinners titles are abbreviated,  “H.E. [for His Excellency] the Norwegian Ambassador,” “The Secretary of Defense.” Dinner partners refer to these gentlemen as “Mr. Ambassador” and “Mr. Secretary” in direct conversation, by the way. — Amy Vanderbilt, 1952

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Savvy Business Seating Etiquette

One tip: If there will be an odd number of guests, request a round table, so that no one sits next to an empty seat. 

In the world of business, much energy goes into getting it right at the boardroom negotiating table. But even the smartest of business execs sometimes forget to play it smart and savvy at another equally important table: The dining table. And this is not just about knowing which fork to use, or silencing your mobile phone and leaving it off of the table.

Where you place your guests, especially those visiting international guests, conveys an instant, unspoken message about the level of esteem you hold them in. It also is a way for them to gauge your own understanding of seating protocol.

Always consider the seating chart as of the most important aspects of any form of business dining and entertaining. “Getting it right” means that everyone feels respected and you look like a pro. It is a clear win-win. Get it wrong, and it is an epic fail.

If multiple languages are to be spoken, include appropriately placed interpreters at the table. 

Below are a few of the finer points of business seating strategies:

■ Always choose a restaurant or venue that you are familiar with, and hopefully one that knows you as a customer. Book the table, or room, well in advance to secure the best.  Make certain your tables don't face a mirror, are nowhere near the kitchen, or the restrooms, for that matter. The fewer distractions, the better.

■ If you have an odd number of guests in your party, request a large, round table. That way, no one is left sitting next to an empty seat. 

■ When creating a seating chart, the position of honor is always to the right of the Host. If you have more than one honored guest then the second highest-ranking guest sits to your left. When there is a third honored guest they sit to the right of your first honored guest. Gender never plays a role in determining a seat of honor. Rank determines someone's level of importance. 

■ If multiple languages are to be spoken, include appropriately placed interpreters at the table. 

■ For larger groups you will find it helpful to use place cards.  Share your seating plan with the maitre'd, and let the waiter know early on of any particular requests, so that there will be no surprises. Let them know that you will be directing seating when your group arrives. 

■ As the host, or hostess, you should always arrive early to make certain that nothing has been overlooked. 

Share your seating plan with the maître d’ and let the waiter know early on of any particular requests.

 ■ Greet your guests at the entrance. If you and a guest arrive at the same time, walk in together, pause and allow the maître d’ to lead you to your table. The guest follows the maitre d' while you follow the guest. 

■ Once you are at your table/s, indicate to your guests where they should sit. 

■ If you must go to the table to await your guests, do not open your napkin, and do not order a drink. You don't want your guests to feel as if they are late, but do want to look as if you have just arrived. 

■ When your guests arrive, stand to greet them. Remain standing until they are all seated. 

■ Placing your napkin in your lap will signal to the wait staff that you are ready to order, or be served, so leave your napkin on the table until all your guests have been seated. If there are any business issues you'd need to address prior to the meal, leave your napkin on the table until those matters have been discussed and the discussions are concluded. 

Remember, that not every point mentioned will apply to every entertaining setting or event. However, using this as a basic guideline, and controlling the atmosphere around you, as much as the situation will allow, demonstrates respect and an understanding of business etiquette and seating etiquette strategies on your part. - Source Sydney Morning Herald, 2014 

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