Gilded Age Efficiency in Table Manners

A gilded age, gilt and sterling “patty server” by Towle. It is often mistakenly identified as a “croquette server” – “As some newly rich Americans worked to appear at home in unfamiliar social circumstances by copying wealthy habits, sometimes exceeding old wealth in ostentation and display, a lively discussion played out about the relationship between upper-class consumption and identity. What was authentically fine and high? What was vulgar, ostentatious, and false? How could you tell the difference?”
– From the book, From “Food in the American Gilded Age”

Late nineteenth-century etiquette made an art form out of ignorance about and removal from the production of food. Good table manners meant demonstrating a tangible distance from the hard labor involved in all stages of getting food to the table: removal from the sweat and manure of the farmyard, from dusty miles of transportation, from the steam and splattering grease of the kitchen. In fact, middle-class Americans in all sorts of realms came to define themselves by this very distance from manual labor; one major class distinction that emerged during the nineteenth century was that middle class women and children did not work for wages.

Table etiquette replicated this distance in miniature in nearly every command, from orders about the way to spoon soup away from the body to the physical distance necessary between plates and laps to the necessity of seeming to be unconcerned about spills or accidents. Middle- and upper-class Americans at table worked hard to maintain attitudes of leisure and nonchalance.

In an era when many Americans enthusiastically associated progress with efficiency, table manners of the era were conspicuously antiefficient. While it would be more efficient to load up a fork while still chewing the previous mouthful, for instance, etiquette writers insisted that one should never put food on the fork until one had quietly swallowed. Likewise, writers warned it was rude to blow on or to stir soup or hot drinks. Instead, they advised, simply wait while the liquids slowly cooled.

Even the famous injunction against eating with the knife was antiefficient since it required American eaters to switch the fork and knife from right to left hand every time the eater wished to cut off a bite of food. Eating slowly and quietly not only de-emphasized the labor of eating, but it also visibly demonstrated physical self-restraint.

As some newly rich Americans worked to appear at home in unfamiliar social circumstances by copying wealthy habits, sometimes exceeding old wealth in ostentation and display, a lively discussion played out about the relationship between upper-class consumption and identity. What was authentically fine and high? What was vulgar, ostentatious, and false? How could you tell the difference? By the turn of the century, uncertainty on these points-and tensions surrounding them—would contribute to the decline of the most extravagant Gilded Age habits.— From “Food in the American Gilded Age,” Edited by Helen Zoe Veit

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1880’s “Watering- Place” Etiquette

There is probably more than a kernel of truth in this bit of etiquette humor —And regardless of whether the resort is ranked first, second or third-class, anyone with a lick of common sense tries to avoid speaking to this guy! 

The Candelaria True Fissure, says: A gentleman just returned from a round of the watering places, gives this summary of the schedule of etiquette at such places; A first-class summer resort is one at which the cottagers will not speak to the hotel guests. A second-class resort is one at which the hotel guests will not speak to the cottagers. A third-class resort is one at which everybody tries to have a good time.— The Truckee Republican, 1883

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Etiquette and Wealth

By the 1890s, the center of fashionable Newport, and its famous 400, was Ochre Point, Ocean Drive and out Bellevue Avenue, where the nouveaux riche were all building their “palaces.” –Good manners are not the exclusive property of the wealthy. Good manners do not discriminate between the “haves” and the “have nots.” This gent was actually lamenting the stilted snobbery, not the actual etiquette of the wealthy.

Wealth vs. Happiness

A Millionaire  Sighs for Freedom From Conventionalities

“I never realized more forcibly that wealth does not bring happiness than one day at Newport,” said Austin Corbin, the millionaire banker and President of the Reading Railroad. “I had been moving along the fashionable drives scanning the faces of the passers-by. All were evidently bored to death. The ladies, arrayed in richest carriage toilets, seemed afraid to move lest they should disarrange their apparel. Not a ripple of laughter did I hear. All seemed to have arrayed themselves in their best and gone out to drive because it was a duty they owed to their social position to be seen among the other fashionables. Everybody's spirits seemed completely bowed down beneath the weight of fashion, decorum and etiquette, so inseparable from wealth. 

“Leaving the four hundred element I drove to an unfashionable and remote part of the beach. There in an eligible-situation, at just the right distance from the water for enjoyment, I saw a neat cottage adorned with the legend, ‘Mrs. O'Donnelly's ladies’ and gents’ boarding-house. Terms, $6 per week.’ A number of athletic young men and a bevy of buxom, rosy cheeked young girls were congregated on the porch and lawn. What a contrast the charmingly, healthful and natural appearance of these young people to that of the blighted, artificial victims of fashion I had just left. They were all in negligee costume, and merriment, playfulness and health sparkled in every eye and rang out heartily from every lip. „ “‘Oh.’ I thought, “if I could only escape from the fashionable prison, called a hotel by courtesy, where I am confined, with what inexpressible joy I would board at Mrs. O'Donnelly's.’”—Pittsburg. Dispatch, 1891

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Etiquette and Ambitious Parvenus

A fancy wig does not a gentleman make.

The Hallmark of the Social Climber

Nothing so blatantly proclaims a woman climber as the repetition of prominent names, the owners of which she must have struggled to know. Otherwise, why so eagerly boast of the achievement? Nobody cares whom she knows--nobody that is, but a climber like herself. To those who were born and who live, no matter how quietly, in the security of a perfectly good ledge above and away from the social ladder's rungs, the evidence of one frantically climbing and trying to vaunt her exalted position is merely ludicrous.

All thoroughbred women, and men, are considerate of others less fortunately placed, especially of those in their employ. One of the tests by which to distinguish between the woman of breeding and the woman merely of wealth, is to notice the way she speaks to dependents. Queen Victoria's duchesses, those great ladies of grand manner, were the very ones who, on entering the house of a close friend, said "How do you do, Hawkins?" to a butler; and to a sister duchess's maid, "Good morning, Jenkins." 

A Maryland lady, still living on the estate granted to her family three generations before the Revolution, is quite as polite to her friends' servants as to her friends themselves. When you see a woman in silks and sables and diamonds speak to a little errand girl or a footman or a scullery maid as though they were the dirt under her feet, you may be sure of one thing; she hasn't come a very long way from the ground herself. — Emily Post, 1922

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New Etiquette for "Below Stairs"

The ladies' maids and valets of the guests will not dine with the help of the house, and the chambermaids, according to the etiquette of high life below stairs, will not sit down with the scrubwoman, and in some places will also decline to eat at the same table as the bellboys. 

Are All Dreadfully Particular 

In the furnishing and fitting of some of the new apartments, and apartment hotels, several interesting features have been under discussion, says the New York Sun. In other days, in the old class of such buildings in this city, a dining room for children and servants was considered sufficient for all requirements. 

To-day in building a hotel, there must be a succession of dining rooms. The ladies' maids and valets of the guests will not dine with the help of the house, and the chambermaids, according to the etiquette of high life below stairs, will not sit down with the scrubwoman, and in some places will also decline to eat at the same table as the bellboys. 

The clerks, telephone girls and numerous other members of the staff form another set. At some of the hotels the clerks are served in the cafe, but it has been found that it is better that the clerical force and the housekeeper and the different heads of departments have a dining room of their own. 

The chauffeur still remains an indefinite proposition. Until lately he has declined in private houses to be classed as a servant, and only last year there was a protest about his wearing livery.  It is quite à la mode this season to register at a resort hotel “Mr. and Mrs. and chauffeur,” just as it has been “maid” or “man servant” on the out going ships. — Sausalito News, 1908

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Gilded Age Etiquette Critic of America

Mrs. Desmond Humphreys, aka “Rita,” the self-appointed British judge and jury of American etiquette and excess in the Gilded Age –

“I was told I ought to go to Maine, or Illinois, or Chicago, or California before I criticised American life or manners, but I concluded that New York and Washington and Boston were very good specimens of the American States, and quite important enough for my attention!” 

A BRIEF two months' experience of American cities, life, manners, habits, and hospitality, is scarce equipment for criticism. One forms opinions which after-results modify. One salutes the Goddess Liberty with respect, and finds oneself laughing in one's sleeve a week later at the free translation of the word "Freedom." One is called upon to admire in one city what is scoffed at in another. But above all one speedily learns that the term "American" is too comprehensive for general use.


New York is not American ; assuredly Washington is not American ; and only a benighted foreigner would ever so misname Boston. Between all these cities there exists a frantic rivalry and a curiously ingenious diversity of claims. Yet if each looked into the heart of the other they could not but recognise brotherhood and amity. They would lose sight of foibles, and grow tolerant of mistakes. The factors of national strength are often the products of national weakness, and the true history of America is at once the most romantic and the most extraordinary yet — unwritten.


Here are cities so splendid and so rich that one would expect perfection of civilisation. Yet one finds palaces set beside tenements, and avenues that run into filthy slums. Slavery has been abolished by civil war ; but there is not a factory, or a foundry, or a dockyard, or an emporium that does not own thousands of white slaves, earning hardly a living wage, worked for long toilful hours, herded together like cattle, tricked by politicians, hounded down by legislature, and yet content to wave a bit of coloured rag on Independence Day and call themselves patriots!


The wealth of America is amazing. The poverty and vice and degradation of America are heart-rending. If the country were not so rich, if dollars were not a blatant fact for ever poured into your ear, for ever appraising every public or private building you admire, every statue, bridge, park, or street you notice, the bewildered tourist might excuse poverty and misrule ; might even class them as incidents too universal for drastic criticism. But the loudly uttered boasts, the useless and absurd extravagance and costly idiocies of society, these are things that draw down harsher censure on a new country than on one long founded on traditions, and in a measure bound to up-hold them.


In Europe we have feudalism, state, royalty, and aristocracy. America claims none of these. Its sole aristocracy is that of Wealth, and it is not one to be proud of, judged by its proclaimed methods. If one surveys the great Republic's life through the noble prescience of a Lincoln, or Washington, it is but to quote Hamlet and murmur : " What a falling-off is there!


The Republic of their dreams, political, ecclesiastical, and social, is now transformed into a huge iconoclastic machine ; a thing of tyranny and cruelty and unsparing greed. The word " millionaire " is no longer expressive enough to acclaim riches. Even a unit with eighteen ciphers scarcely advertises multi-millionairism to the satisfaction of the New York or Chicago standard. 


New York itself seems to abhor economy in any shape or form. It only believes in glitter, show, and ostentation. The wildest extravagance, and a perpetual advertisement of startling absurdities, mark the deeds of its social world.


If a stranger comes to New York unheralded by the ubiquitous reporter, inclined for comfort, not display, with a desire to study life from an outsider's and not an American's point of view, that stranger is unwelcome. Only the credentials of rank open the door of democracy ; and the cranks and tricks of the wildest madman would be received with acclamation if they meant novelty for a blase society. There is sort of social insanity in the United States that sets the rest of the world agape. But also it brings down the ridicule and condemnation of calm and sensible minds. 


Yet the individual American is so thin-skinned that the very fact of unfavourable criticism makes him your lifelong enemy. Give him praise, flattery, admiration, wonder, and he will perhaps lend you a — greenback. Tell him straight that his nation is vulgar, ostentatious, and blind to its own best interests, and he will advise you to "git."


Possibly this is a somewhat sweeping assertion from the point of view of a mere writer ; but the three great cities I have seen, and about which I have written the following articles, are sufficiently representative as subjects for such an assertion.


I was told I ought to go to Maine, or Illinois, or Chicago, or California before I criticised American life or manners, but I concluded that New York and Washington and Boston were very good specimens of the American States, and quite important enough for my attention !


So of these three cities I have written, calling down much wrath, and much criticism, and many vituperative letters from unknown American correspondents by so doing.


I am sorely tempted to publish some of these letters, but for sake of many kindnesses received, and many pleasant friendships made, I refrain from retaliation. Yet I would like to say that no English writer, however severe or however critical, has ever written harsher truths of the Americans than the Americans have written of themselves.  – “Rita” 1910

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Etiquette and Gilded Age Fads

The Nose-Veil Fad

Another of the latest fads adopted by America's most fashionable women, the nose veil. Resembling the oft-described veils of Turkey's harem beauties, a la the creation of Mrs. ... on streets of Newport with terrific force, burning everything not under cover.
–The Spokesman Review, July 1913 

The Harem Veil is Fad in Newport!

And before long, we had the newest fad in clothing styles... “harem pants”

Mrs. C. A. Mason, a Chicago society woman, is given the credit for having introduced the harem veil fad in Newport. The veil is much like the covering which many high caste Turkish women still wear over the lower part of their faces when they appear in the streets in public. It allows only their eyes to be seen. –Chicago, July 21, 1912

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Etiquette and Gilded Age Servants

The “hired girl” is a phrase which has been banished from good society, and we say instead “the maids.” – Servants are very imitative, and if those who employ them are gentle, soft voiced and uniformly polite they become so too. 

It is of great importance that girls who wish to show perfect breeding at every turn should know how to properly treat servants. These dependents, either in one's own household or in the homes of one's friends, are entitled to courtesy and consideration, and there is a well defined etiquette in regard to them.

Some girls act as if their inferiors were not to be recognized except when service is required of them and then adopt a manner of haughty disdain, demanding everything and taking the attitude that the servant is a mere machine. There is, of course, the other extreme that of intimacy with a servant, and the latter attitude is as much to be as the former.

Every girl of wealth in these luxurious days has her own maid and this domestic naturally comes into close contact with her. It is the maid's business to be at the beck and call of her young mistress at all hours, but the mistress should remember that the maid is human and not make unreasonable demands on her. 

It is unreasonable to expect perfection, for none of us possess it in any capacity, and it is unreasonable to expect an intelligence equal to your own, for if the maid had it she would be something of a higher order than a menial. Politeness is an important part of good manners with servants, and you are not only served better when you are courteous but you present to them a model of manners.

Servants are very imitative, and if those who employ them are gentle, soft voiced and uniformly polite they become so too. One should always preface or end an order with “Please,” and one should say “Thank you” in acknowledgment of service. Do not say “Thanks,” even to a servant as the word is no longer considered good form. Always say “Good morning” to the servants of your household and, also to other people's servants when they are known to you, as in the homes of your intimate friends.

As a rule, young girls rarely give orders to servants with the exception of their own maids, but often give orders for their mothers. There is only one correct form in which to do this. You must not say, “Mary, mother wishes you to go up to her room.” But supposing your mother's name to be Mrs. Brown, you should say, “Mary, Mrs. Brown wishes you.” etc... The formal prefix applies not only to your mother, but to all the other members of your family. Never say “father,” “sister” or “brother” to a maid, but always “Mr. Brown,” “Mr. Harold,” if that is your brother's name, and “Miss Beatrice,” supposing that to be your sister's. 

Do not call or refer to the domestics in your mother's establishment as “girls.” The “hired girl” is a phrase which has been banished from good society, and we say instead “the maids” or “the women” when speaking of the servants if they are all of one sex. 

When you are staying in other people’s houses never give orders of any sort to the maids unless it be that one has been assigned to you for your own personal use, in which case, of course, you treat her as you would your own. Otherwise, when you wish things done, ask permission of the hostess to use a servant for this or that. And when at the table you must not request things directly of the maid, as etiquette requires, that you make your request to the hostess. –1909

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

Etiquette in Gilded Age Boston

“So tell us about your new social club, girls.” The tact and graciousness which please the cultured and unlearned of society manners, never count for more than among those who have not studied the rules of etiquette!

“New! Social Clubs for Working Girls in 1888!”

The successful beginning of a social club for working girls in Boston shows that experience has taught the way of interesting and amusing a most critical class of young women. Efforts made by girls of leisure to meet socially those who work, are apt to fail from want of tact on the part of the former and suspicion from the latter. Sometimes the benevolent young lady makes the mistake of establishing too intimate and cordial relations with the working girl whom she kindly hopes to elevate and encourage.


She visits the girl at her home, invites her to dinner or tea, and places their relations on the basis of intimate friendship. Although some instances of this method have been excellent in results, many; have been painful in termination. On the other hand, a social club with educational aims may be made beneficial to all its members. A young woman who was active in the formation of a successful club said to me, "Both the girls at leisure and the girls that work gain from our pleasant relations. We learn much from the others. Girls who earn their own living; gain a keenness from meeting the world which we cannot attain in our quiet home lives. They are so bright, too. We feel that they can take our measure, as it were, at once, and we are sometimes positively afraid of their penetrating looks."


It has been found that the young woman who has achieved social success in her own circle is most apt to be appreciated by the girls who know nothing of the ways of society. The tact and graciousness which please the cultured and unlearned of society manners, never count for more than among those who have not studied the rules of etiquette.—From the Boston Journal, 1888

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Gilded Age Newport Etiquette 1899

Pay no attention to what you read or hear! "There is much gossip and some scandal afloat at Newport at present, and some of this will undoubtedly reach the ears of the flock of special correspondents now there, to be sent out by them in garbled and exaggerated form. The reading public may therefore be cautioned against sensational stories affecting the members of Newport society, for the next few weeks, or until the season closes there."

Newport, Rhode Island in Summer:

 The class distinctions, dining habits, drinking habits, fads and customs from the news of the day...

Source~ From a thesis by Kay Davis for the University of Virginia, in 2001

By the mid 1850s, the wealthiest and most elite class of Americans wealthy families chose Newport, Rhoode Island as their summer playground. The area was considered an ideal spot for their summer vacation “cottages.” 

A perfect vacation setting was established for a group known as, “The 400.” It was a group of very wealthy individuals, as evidenced by their enormous mansions, which quickly sprung up, each larger, more expensive and more elaborate than the previous.

Their summer presence, their grand balls, lavish parties, yachting and hunting activities that surrounded their very being there, epitomized what is now known as “The Gilded Age.”

The grandest of Newport’s “Summer cottages” and the symbol of the Vanderbilt family's financial and social preeminence, in turn of the century Newport, Rhode Island

The Newport Cottagers; A Brilliant Social Season in Prospect

The list of cottage arrivals unusually large - crowded hotels— 

Newport, R.I., June 29, 1889

The season of 1889 starts out with flying colors, and everybody here is feeling in excellent spirits over the present condition of affairs and prospects. The season has taken a spurt this week, and at least 275 cottagers are now established here for the Summer. An astonishing number of people have arrived considering the earliness of the season, and the cottages have filled up so rapidly...

What is Doing in Society?

Newport, R.I., August 13, 1899

The most eccentric fads seem to be the most popular. Harry Lehr is responsible for appearing all the time without his hat and arranging his hair on the top of his head so that he will not be sunstruck, and Mr. James Stokes does likewise, and some of the gossips insist that it is he who has introduced this fashion this Summer at Newport. Last Summer two or three men, however, were conspicuous in the same manner. On the other hand, those who do wear hats have taken to the enormous affairs of straw or of the sombrero variety.

A form of indoor tennis called squash has also become the vogue, and everybody must play it, even if the automobile drive is sacrificed. All these whims and caprices here at the other watering places, which take up the latest thing from Newport with avidity.

Mrs. McK. Twombly introduced last season at Newport the French fashion of having a very dainty, but not a long dinner, in Summer. Four courses were considered to be quite enough. This year everywhere, the long menu has come into fashion. It is an English idea taken from the banquets given by various fashionable people to the Prince of Wales. At the cold dinner given by Mrs. Oppenheim to the prince, and mentioned last week, there were twenty courses, and there are stories of some recent stag dinners given at one of the watering places, the menu of which would've put the chef of Lucullus— if he had a chef— to shame.

There is a revival of the use of various wines with different courses and the rarer and more expensive the vintage the greater the glory. This champagne and scotch whiskey, which is held the favor of fashion for some years are being relegated to the background of the wine closet.

There is much gossip and some scandal afloat at Newport at present, and some of this will undoubtedly reach the ears of the flock of special correspondents now there, to be sent out by them in garbled and exaggerated form. The reading public may therefore be cautioned against sensational stories affecting the members of Newport society, for the next few weeks, or until the season closes there.— The New York Times,1899

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