1930’s Hotel Etiquette Q & A

A 1930’s scrapbook page of ephemera collected while a young lady was traveling.

Q & A on Hotels 

Question: How are hotel reservations made?

Answer: Either by letter or telegraph, but either letter or telegram should state clearly the hour of arrival, number of persons, whether room is to be with or without bath, and the approximate length of the stay. Reservations by letter may be made more explicit in regard to the type of room desired and for that reason are preferable. If a telegram is sent by a married woman to a hotel, this is one of the few occasions when “Mrs.” is included in the signature.

 

Question: What is the correct procedure upon arriving at the hotel?

Answer: Hand luggage is handed to the bell boy meeting the bus or taxi. The guests then goes directly to the hotel desk to claim the reservation and to register, after which the necessary instructions in regard to visitors and telephone calls expected are left with the clerk. – Imperial Valley Press, 1930

 

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

“Antiquated Etiquette?” No Such Thing

Above: An 1889 Western Union Telegram

Many times when I talk about etiquette, people will tell me that too many rules are antiquated in the older books. This is an opportunity to explain to people how good manners never change, only the circumstances in which they are used change. The 1892 article below speaks of unasked for telegrams, which arrived to unwitting recipients with charges due. They cost the recipient money when the recipient never requested the telegram be sent in the first place. This breach of good manners is very reminiscent of junk mail sent and arriving with postage due, or worse yet, unsolicited faxes. In the late 1980’s, fax machines were a necessary expense for running a successful business. By the mid-1990’s, fax machines were extremely affordable and the misuse and poor manners began by just about every opportunist who had access to a fax machine. These unsolicited faxes cost the recipients in toner or ink, paper, electricity and the expense of possibly missing an important fax that you were actually expecting. “Junk” faxes became just as ubiquitous poor manners as “spam” and “junk” emails soon became.

Pay Your Telegrams

No business practice is more uncommercial than the sending of telegrams at the expense of receivers, when they are solely in the interest of the senders. Too many persons engaged in merchandising are so hopelessly ignorant of mercantile etiquette as not to know that the sending of telegrams as described is an inexcusable fault. The sending of unpaid telegrams has grown to be a nuisance of such a magnitude that radical measures are suggested for putting an end to it.

A. B. & Co. receive a telegram that reads as follows: "Send one bale cheese cloth, 2½c. per yard; date bill June 1, thirty extra 2 off ten days." Commission on that sale may reach $1.25; the cost of telegram was 63c., the interest for the extra time 25c., total 85c. – leaving the seller 37c. gross commission. Those who are so utterly regardless of commercial courtesy might be made to respect the rights of others if sellers would advise the telegraph offices to accept no unpaid telegrams for their accounts. This would quickly bring the hopelessly ignorant class to a realizing sense of the courteous obligations due from one merchant to another. – Dry Goods Economist, April 1892

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

Telegram Etiquette

The telegram is regarded as a perfectly proper means of conveying condolence following the death in the family of a friend or acquaintance. And, of course, such a message of sympathy should never be conveyed by telephone message. When sending such, telegrams it is best to indicate that you wish to have them delivered by messenger rather than by telephone.

“Let no act be done at haphazard.” —Marcus Aurelius

A telegraphed message is always more formal and more courteous than a telephoned one. For instance, on the occasion of any joyous occasion– a birth in a friend’s family, the announcement of an engagement, a wedding, or a birthday anniversary— it is always courteous to telegraph your congratulations, whereas you would telephone your message only where you were extremely well acquainted. 

The telegram is regarded as a perfectly proper means of conveying condolence following the death in the family of a friend or acquaintance. And, of course, such a message of sympathy should never be conveyed by telephone message. When sending such, telegrams it is best to indicate that you wish to have them delivered by messenger rather than by telephone.

So usual is it for us in sending business telegrams to bear we have a ten-word limit for the minimum fee that we are prone to attempt to force social telegrams into this ten word limit, or else we pad them out so that we will make use of all the words to which we are entitled. Often your message is best expressed in only two or three words. Sometimes the single word, “Congratulations” is all that is required. Then it would be decidedly in bad judgment to use more

Needless to say, we dispense with formal introductions and conclusions even in the social telegram. This we do not begin with “My dear.” or “Dear.” nor do we use such expressions as “sincerely” or “truly yours.” even when sending a formal message. 

Always remember that there is nothing private about a telegram and that no message should be sent over the wire are not that you are not willing to have received by others than the one for whom it is intended. Usually a telegram is urgent in its nature and members of a family would open one when addressed to an absent member. Similarly a telegram sent to a person’s business address and received during his absence would be opened by the one who received it. — Mary Marshall Duffee, 1917

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