Early 20th C. Cotillion Fads

“These are the latest cotillion favors sent over from Paris. As you will see, Royalty has been beheaded to please French and American pleasure loving people. The favors are made of paper cut in fanciful designs with papier-mâché heads, respectively of the Emperor of Germany and the Czar of Russia, surmounting the base. The wand-like handles are made of wood round with pretty colored ribbons finished with long streamers and loops.”

 ——————————————————

Just 18 years earlier, and 4 years prior to the start of WWI, the popular cotillion favors fad of 1910 made news, due to their unusual nature. They were ribboned  wands with the heads of Royals atop them. By 1928, both men were gone from their once powerful thrones, due to the war and the subsequent Russian Revolution, and nostalgia brought back the cotillion dances of a bygone era.

Back to Old Dances

Washington — Turning completely away from the jazz of recent years, Washington society this winter will revive the stately, old-fashioned cotillion as quite the latest and most correct thing in dancing. Debutantes who figure largely on the season’s calendar are eagerly planning lengthened frocks of frills and furbelows to match the dignified figures of the cotillion. 

They are consulting hair dressers concerning false knots of curls to attach to their bobbed locks. Invitations for the first of the affairs to be given at the Mayflower Hotel, December 10th, by the Washington Bachelors are already out. The list of the committee in charge is thickly sprinkled with honorables and generals and commanders.

All sorts of novel stunts and favors are being planned. There will be two orchestras, one imported from New York. Favors, by which the men will find their partners, will eclipse anything seen in Washington for many a day. The older members of the Bachelors’ club who are versed in the ceremonious etiquette of a former day, when society shone in stately splendor instead of scintillating jazz, will lead the younger generation through the figures of the cotillion. 

Not alone the cotillions, but the fact that many of the season’s debutantes will emerge into the social limelight with not only one coming-out party, but two, makes this season unique. Heretofore, one tea or one ball was deemed sufficient to give Miss Debbie her due, but now many of the younger set are demanding both. — Coronado Eagle and Journal, 1928

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

Manners, Character and Young Girls

That certain feeling you get when a relative asks if that hot mess of a girl can move in with you. – “First, send your girl to visit briefly some good mother, whose children are now matured and perhaps gone from the home place. I know of one instance of an older mother of this class, who welcomes afternoon calls from young girls and who enjoys with them a delightful, chummny mother-and-daughter relation.”

Uplifting the Girl – She Needs the Acquaintance of Some Good Woman of Character Whose Example Will Be Beneficial

Do not take it for granted that your growing girl will learn from casual observation all she ought to know about the character of good women. Frills and superficialities are not suited to give your daughter even a glimpse into the wealth of sterling qualities which lie beneath and which constitute the substantial part of the character of all the better class of womankind. So long as a girl keeps her eye fixed on the fads and frills of society she will be unhappy, since these light things give satisfaction only for the passing moment. 

It is the deep, rich qualities of an earnest, reverent human personality which are best suited to inspire the young truth seeker and make her strong and willing in the face of her own duties. However, do not assume that your growing girl will learn from casual acquaintance and observation all she needs to know about the character and manners of good women, but plan definitely to have her come into close relationship with a few of the best of these, as follows: 

First, send your girl to visit briefly some good mother, whose children are now matured and perhaps gone from the home place. I know of one instance of an older mother of this class, who welcomes afternoon calls from young girls and who enjoys with them a delightful, chummny mother-and-daughter relation. She always sends her girl caller away greatly cheered, but much sobered and reflective upon the deeper affairs of life. Here, motherliness, the greatest force in womankind, may be seen doing one of its best forms of service. Now ask your girl to try to discern what makes her matronly hostess so attractive and lovable. Is it the garments she wears—and these should of course be well suited to such a worthy personality—or isn’t her affectionate trustful and open-hearted manners? Ask your daughter to find out how this goodly soul thinks, how she behaves toward others in general,  and how she regards life at large. 

Second, have your girl come close to the best accessible type of domestic-minded woman, and here learn some of the further laws governing a helpful and successful personality. How does this woman manage so well to hold a supremacy over her multitudinous household affairs ? How does she economize time in cooking, sewing, mending and the like, so as to keep all those matters evenly balanced? Such work is slowly killing many other women. Why is it not injuring this one? What is the secret of her serenity in the midst of possible confusion? 

What I especially wish your bright young girl to realize is this; The vanities and foibles of women are of very little consequence indeed, as compared with that abundant record of unselfish and self-sacrificing performances which so much more fittingly characterize the quieter hours of the ordinary good women of today. Bring these better things sharply to the attention of your daughter, give them a large place in her mind and heart, and she in turn win pass them on in service of the light-minded young girls who may look to her for a pattern in the years to come. – Dr. Wm. A. McKeever, Los Angeles Herald, 1919

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