Gilded Age Travel Correspondence

“It is a convenience that first class hotels should abolish and a sort of cheap advertisement that does no credit to the proprietor or the hotel patrons.” Nevertheless, it is a convenience of which not a few people, usually regarded as well bred, avail themselves.

Items About Letters

“The practice of writing letters or notes at hotels on paper with a view of the house is beneath comment,” according to a feminine authority on etiquette. "No man or woman of culture would commit such an error. It is a convenience that first class hotels should abolish and a sort of cheap advertisement that does no credit to the proprietor or the hotel patrons." Nevertheless, it is a convenience of which not a few people, usually regarded as well bred, avail themselves. 

More generally practiced is the following from the same source, "When writing letters at a country house, stamp them before they are collected for the post; your host is not supposed to pay your postage. Out of town people usually have a heavy mail and can spare no time to attend to the minor details of their guests' correspondence." — The San Jose Herald, 1893

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

Gilded Age Letters of Introduction

In the gilded age, letters of all types, including letters of introductions, were commonplace. Men and women alike were praised for excellence in penmanship. This letter from the Meriden Britannia silver company above is from 1893. - Image source, Etiquipedia private library.

In the giving of letters of introduction, permission should first be granted even in the case of intimate friends, as the introduction of a person whom you do not know thoroughly and well is attended with danger in many cases, and more particularly when the presentation is made by letter, as the written words always appear to carry more weight with them than the spoken ones, and the recipient of such an epistle feels in duty bound to show the newly introduced every courtesy that lies either in his or her power.

Many unpleasant happenings have resulted from unthinking good heartedness that prompted the letter without inducing a careful study of the one to whom it was given. Many letters of introduction are presented in person, but the more elegant way is to send them by messenger or post, accompanied by the card of the person conferring the introduction and your own with your address on it. A visit should be made within a week after the arrival of the letter by the person receiving it if the acquaintance is desired. —Philadelphia Times, 1893

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