Gilded Age “New York Girls”

She is rarely a liar, a cheat or a fraud. She has the honesty of her thought and the courage of her convictions. If that makes a girl unwomanly, then she is unwomanly. Fashionable girls in New York are always with their mothers; they have had a conventional European education in this respect.

The New York Girl Portrayed by One Who Dislikes European Fault Finding

Our Girl Learns to Look Out a Little for Herself– She Trusts to the Chivalry of American Gentlemen– We Are Proud of Her

So the English think that the New York girl has more solvency in her fortune than in her complexion, do they? We beg to differ. The New York girl's complexion is as fine as any milkmaid's. She is piquant, pretty, original and new. That is why the Englishmen like her, and wish to marry her. She amuses, stimulates and fills their somewhat jaded fancy.

New York girls are well educated. They speak both English and French fluently, which is what very few English girls do. They have been brought up under the repressive system, the English girls. They are lovely, but sometimes a little depressing. They are hidden from the eye. The New York girl perhaps lacks the “violet by a mossy stone” charm. She has not the cloistered graces of that home education of the English. She has been admired frankly since she was 10 years old.

SHE HAS A WOMANLY COURAGE

She is rarely a liar, a cheat or a fraud. She has the honesty of her thought and the courage of her convictions. If that makes a girl unwomanly, then she is unwomanly. Fashionable girls in New York are always with their mothers; they have had a conventional European education in this respect. The mother is the chaperon, and the girl is stamped with “l'usage du monde et du plus grand, et du meilleurs.” She is well bred in the forms and ceremonies of a court of London and Parisian society, where she succeeds marvelously. Sometimes she offends a Roman mamma by walking across the Piazza di Spagna alone. She cannot always respect the severe Italian “etiquette” and take her maid.

She is a knowing person; she believes in herself, she is independent and breezy. She has been much consulted in her family, where she is the important personage. Latitude in reading and thinking has been allowed her, which to an English or French girl would have been impossible.

She can stand more amusement (some would call it dissipation) than any living creature. A prize fighter would go down under the fatigue which a New York girl imposes on herself– all the subscription balls at Delmonico’s, all the private balls, Tuxedo, Newport, lawn tennis, Lenox in the fall, private theatricals, French and singing classes, sewing societies, charities (for she is a dear creature, and as kind as she is beautiful). She haunts the happy hunting grounds of Long Island; she is seen on top of a four-in-hand.

THE GIRLS SHOULD TAKE HEED

She is described in all the newspapers when she comes out. Her fortune, her toilet and her prospects are all matters of every day comment. She has the American idea of being useful; she works as well as plays. She neglects nothing. An early morning walk, or a horseback ride, a plain gown for her hospital work, the toilet of the Queen of Sheba for Delmonico's– she at tends to it all; and when she marries she is apt to make the best of wives, if she chooses. If she does not choose to be the best, she can be the worst.

Neglects nothing, did you say! Yes, so far as foreign ideas are concerned, she sometimes neglects appearances. She sometimes
goes about with too young a chaperon. Accustomed to the chivalry of American men, she does not know how other men are regarding her. Novelists sketch the exceptions, not the rule, as to the New York girl; but it would do the best of them no harm to read the foreign criticisms in novels, plays and newspapers. 

Some New York girls are not averse to achieving a reputation for fastness. These few exceptions should not, however, be taken for the conglomerate photograph. They are not the rule. She is not a humble, expectant Juliet, the New York girl. She will marry a lord, if she likes. Some people call her heartless. She needs luxury; she lives in an age of gold. A clever creature, a precious and beautiful combination, of fine mind and splendid physical perfection, she can be criticised as a rose, which opens its glorious petals for all men to admire; but it is hard to equal her.–Mrs. John Sherwood in “Once a Week,” 1889

🍽Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, 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