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

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

The Favorite Bonbon for 1904

“Upon returning to the drawing-room the gentlemen should never cluster round the door, but join the ladies at once, striving to repay the hospitality of the hostess by making themselves as agreeable as possible to the guests. And none but a low-bred clown will ever carry fruit or bon-bons away from the table!” – Above, a Gilded Age, sterling bonbon scoop or bonbon server, for serving sweets — Bonbon- 1796, from the French “bon-bon“ (17th century), childish reduplication of bon “good,” hence “bonbonnière” (1818), “a box for sweets.”

One of the favorite bonbons for dinner this Winter, is an odd but delicious mixture of English walnuts and violets. The walnuts form the interior of the confection, and they are covered with a thick paste of violets. They are quite ornamental, very popular, and, of course, exceedingly expensive. — New York Times, 1904

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

Gilded Age Etiquette Humor

The Gilded Age was the golden age of dining at its finest, which brought about new table etiquette for newly designed utensils, for everything edible and expensive, from turtle soup to nuts.

Table Etiquette 

A correspondent, who is somewhat of a philanthropist in his way, sends up the following hints  on Table Etiquette, for the benefit of the members of the club. We believe they will be superfluous to most of our readers, but as our correspondent begs us not to lose the opportunity of improving the present occasion we append them: 

1. Do not commence eating before your host gets through with his grace. I have known some men to bite a biscuit as large as a blacking-box into a half-moon, and have to hold it between his teeth, under a suspension of the rules during a blessing. This is disgraceful.
2. Do not sup soup with a fork. Your soup will always have you at a disadvantage with such odds. Besides, it is “souperfluous.”
3. In passing your plate to be helped, retain your knife and fork in your vest pocket.
4. When asked for a dish, do not propel it across the surface of the table after the manner or game of shovel-board ; always pitch it gracefully, after the manner of quoits. This will be "quoit" sufficient.
5. Never try to eat fish with a salt-cellar.
6. While drinking, be careful not to empty hot coffee or anything of that sort into your neighbor's paper collar.
7. Do not eat too fast. You will not “get left,” if you make up in heroic doses for that time.
8. If you find anything auspicious in your hash, don't eat any more hash ; And if there is anything wrong in your butter, propose a toast or tell an anecdote.
9. When you burn your mouth with a cold potato, don't whistle or make faces at the company, but shed tears in silence.
10. Never leave the table without asking the lady of the house to be excused ; but if you happen to be at a barbecue or a free lunch, don't leave as long as there is a bone or a crumb in sight.
11. Should you put too much pepper in your soup, and the tears come to your eyes in consequence, do not wipe your eyes and blow your nose in your napkin.
12. As usual, when resting your elbows on the table that your neighbor's little preserve plate is not within reach, not that you need mind upsetting it, for that would only serve him right, but you may get your left sleeve jellied through his carelessness in not giving you room enough.
13. Do not pick your teeth with your fork, or wipe it on the table-cloth after you have just extracted a long piece of sinew from a hollow in one of your double grinders.
14. If you happen to partake of some dish with which you are unacquainted, don't spit it out on your plate with a splutter, as if you had been poisoned, because it might be supposed you had been accustomed to move in society. Simply rap on tbe table with your fork for the servant, and tell him, or her, to fetch a spittoon. By this time, all eyes will be upon you, and as the servant brings the spittoon you can eject the disagreeable mouthful with a proper air of disgust, remarking that you always hated French “kickshaws,” and preferred something the real origin of which you could guess at. By this proceeding you will let the people at the table see you know a thing or two, and are not to be easily taken in. –From the New York Dispatch, 1871

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

Gilded Age Etiquette Laughs

“Every Saturday” was an American literary magazine published in Boston, Massachusetts, in the mid-19th century. Mark Twain was one contributor. By the amount of humorous articles Etiquipedia has found on dining etiquette, written during the Gilded Age in America, it is clear that those who did not have the benefit of dining at the finest tables, sought refuge in laughter at the peculiar seeming manners of those who did.

Table Etiquette

• Bread should be broken, not cut; but if you don’t like bread, ‘cut’ it. In ‘breaking’ bread use a curb bit. 
• Don’t fill your mouth too full; rather allow some of the food to get into your moustache. 
• Split a biscuit with your fingers, instead of opening it with a knife like an oyster. lf the biscuit be hard, a beetle and wedge are admissible in the best society. 
• Salt should never be put on the table cloth, but on the side of your plate. If, however, you want to pickle the tablecloth in brine, you must put salt on it, of course. 
• Do not rattle your knife and fork. A knife and spoon will be found more musical. 
• Eat your soup from the side of your spoon, either inside or outside. 
• Do not take game in your fingers. This, however, does not apply to a game at cards. 
• Do not rest your arms on the tablecloth. Stack your arms in a corner of the room before beginning dinner. 
• When asked what part of the fowl you prefer, answer promptly. If you want the whole of it, don't hesitate to say so. 
• Do not drink with the spoon in your cup; put it in your pocket. Forgetting it, you will be so much ahead. A close regard to this rule has enabled Ben Butler to accumulate a competency. 
• Never leave the table until all are through, without sufficient excuse. The sudden entrance of a policeman with a warrant for your arrest, is generally considered sufficient excuse in polite circles. 
• Never help yourself to articles of food with your knife or fork. Use a harpoon or lassoo. 
• When you have finished your meal lay your knife and fork on your plate, side by side, with the handles toward the right, a little south by southwest, bearing northerly when the wind is off the side-board quarter. –Every Saturday, 1880

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

Gilded Age Etiquette Humor

Frontier humorist, Bill Nye, more formally known as Edgar Wilson Nye, was the first editor of the "Laramie Boomerang." He named the Wyoming paper for his mule, because of what he described as the “eccentricity of his orbit.”

Bill Nye’s Delicate Hints Upon Table Manners in Fashionable Society

There are a great many people who behave well otherwise, but at table they do things that if not absolutely outré and ensemble, are at least pianissimo and sine die. It is with a view to elevate the popular taste and etherealize, so to speak, the manners and customs of our readers, that we give below a few hints upon table etiquette. 

If, by writing an article of this kind, we can induce one man who wipes his hands on the table-cloth to come up and take higher ground and wipe on his pants, we shall feel amply repaid. If you cannot accept an invitation to dinner, do not write your regrets on the back of a pool check with a blue pencil. This is not regarded as ricochet. A simple note to your host, informing him that your washwoman refuses to relent, is sufficient. 

On seating yourself at the table, draw off your gloves and put them in your lap, under your napkin. Do not put them into the gravy, as it would ruin the gloves and cast a gloom over the gravy. If yon have just cleaned your gloves with benzine, you will leave them out in the front yard. If you happen to drop gravy on your knife-blade, back near the handle, do not run the blade down your throat to remove the gravy as it might injure your epiglottis, and it is not embonpoint, any way. 

Oranges are held on a fork while being pulled, and the facetious style of squirting the juice into the eyes of the hostess is now au revoir. Stones in cherries or other fruit should not be placed upon the table-cloth, but slid quietly and unostentatiously into the pocket of your neighbor or noiselessly tossed under the table. If you strke a worm in your fruit do not call attention to it by mashing it with the nut cracker. This is not only uncouth, but it is regarded in the best society as blasé and exceedingly vice vena. 

After eating a considerable amount, do not rise and unbutton your vest strap in order to get more room, as it is not exactly aufait and deshabille– The Boomerang, 1881

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

Gilded Age Dining Conversation Etiquette

One tip – Make sure you take the cue at the serving of each course, to “turn” from the hostess; to either the guest sitting to your left or the guest sitting to your right. That way, everyone seated at the table can take equal part and enjoyment in conversing.

Gilded Age Advice for Dinner-Table Talk

The conversation at the dinner-table should be general, unless the company is large, and the table too long to admit of it. But in any case, each one is responsible first of all for keeping up a pleasant chat with his or her partner, and not allowing that one to be neglected while attention is riveted on some aggressively brilliant talker at the other end of the table. No matter how uninteresting one's partner may be, one must be thoughtful and entertaining; and such kind attention may win the life-long gratitude of a timid debutante, or the equally unsophisticated country cousin.

Dinner-table talk should be affable. The host and hostess must be alert to turn the conversation from channels that threaten to lead to antagonisms of opinion; and each guest should feel that it is more important just now to make other people happy than to gratify his impulse to “floor” them on the tariff question. In short, at dinner, as under most social conditions, the watchword ever in mind should be, “Not to myself alone.” – From “Etiquette: An Answer to the Riddle When? Where? How??” By Agnes H. Morton, 1899

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

Gilded Age Table Etiquette

This post is in honor, and memory, of one of our closest friends and finest contributors, Demita Usher. Her death was sudden and unexpected. Demita had always dreamt of a more polite world, but sadly passed away yesterday. The last post on her blog was the following quote ~ “Life is short, but there is always time enough for courtesy.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson
   

• Gloves are not to be worn at the table under any circumstances. 
• No argumentative, or in any way unpleasant topic, should be broached at the table. 
• There should be no difference between " company manners " and those in daily use. 
• The napkin is not folded, but is simply crushed and laid beside the plate on rising. 
• Coffee may be served at any time during breakfast, but should come at the end of dinner. 
• Do not overload the plate of a guest, or press upon any one that which he has once declined. 
• Remember the maxim of Confucius: "Eat at your own table as you would at the table of the King." 
• Never say or do, or countenance in others the saying or doing, of anything rude or impolite at the table. 
• Never notice or comment upon any accident, but render unobtrusively any assistance which may be necessary and possible. 
• The side of the spoon is to be placed in the mouth, except in the case of a man wearing a moustache, when the point of the spoon leads the way. 
• Where wine is served at dinner it may be declined without breach of courtesy, and should no more than any other article be pressed upon the guest. 
• Teach the children to eat at table with their elders, and do it in a dignified manner. 
• It is impossible to foretell what moment may require them to exemplify their home training. 
• Letters, newspapers or books should never be brought to the table, though a very important message may be received and attended to, permission being asked of the hostess.

—From Good Housekeeping Magazine, 1893

  Rest in peace, Demita. Your smile, enthusiasm and grace will be missed by all who knew you!  

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

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