Etiquette of D.C.’s Court Society

Official, fashionable functions in Washington have of late years, assumed much of the nature of court life at Old World capitals, and, to that extent, Washington society is officially “The Society” of the country.  For that reason, largely, many wealthy people of the United States are building palatial homes at the national capital, with the hope of getting admission into the official Four Hundred.The fact that the diplomatic corps contains many titled Europeans, and that the general social and diplomatic standing of the corps has been gradually rising of late years, through the evolution of young Ministers to Embassadorial rank, and the enlargement of their embassies, together with the desire, born not so many years ago, of leading diplomats of the world to serve at Washington, has tended to increase the importance of the capital's official society.

Young newspaper woman becomes Social Secretary to the wife of Vice President Fairbanks

One of the most important women in Washington to-day is Miss Margaret Wade, who has recently been appointed social secretary to Mrs. Fairbanks, wife of the Vice President. To those unfamiliar with social life at the national capital— and every year Washington is growing more and more to be the social center and inspiration of the country— such an announcement may seem strange, says the Philadelphia North American. One, however, has only to bear in mind the fact that official, fashionable functions in Washington have of late years, assumed much of the nature of court life at Old World capitals, and, to that extent, Washington society is officially “The Society” of the country.  

For that reason, largely, many wealthy people of the United States are building palatial homes at the national capital, with the hope of getting admission into the official Four Hundred. The fact that the diplomatic corps contains many titled Europeans, and that the general social and diplomatic standing of the corps has been gradually rising of late years, through the evolution of young Ministers to Embassadorial rank, and the enlargement of their embassies, together with the desire, born not so many years ago, of leading diplomats of the world to serve at Washington, has tended to increase the importance of the capital's official society. In this, naturally, the wife of the Vice President, next to the wife of the President, is the leader. These two women are arbiters, in a large degree, of the social fate of aspiring Washingtonians, and of people from other-parts of the country, who seek entree into “court life.”

Mrs. Fairbanks is expected to entertain considerably during the term of her husband. It is of vast importance, therefore, that social aspirants have their names upon her list, not only for the privilege and pleasure of attending the functions given by her, but because the stamp of her approval is necessary as a qualification to the ranks of official fashion. But, once in a generation has the Vice Presidency afforded to its occupant's wife the full privileges and social powers that attend the exalted position. For that reason alone, Mrs. Fairbanks has an exceptional opportunity before her. Many Washingtonians still remember with pleasure the quiet elegance of Mrs. Levi P. Morton's entertainments and the charming atmosphere of the Morton home.

For the short time during which she was the second lady of the land, Mrs. Garret A. Hobart worthily met all the traditions and responsibilities that centered about her position, but Vice President Hobart's career, was cut short by death. Mrs. Roosevelt was wife of a Vice President only about six months, and during the season of the year when social festivities are usually relaxed. Vice President Stevenson was not an elaborate entertainer. Mr. Hendricks, like Mr. Hobart, died in office. Vice President Arthur was a widower, but had there been a Mrs. Arthur, her social reign as a wife of the second highest official would have been almost the counterpart of Mrs. Roosevelt's experience. 

Upon Miss Wade, therefore, as social secretary to Mrs. Fairbanks, will devolve important duties that are almost without precedent within the memory of the present generation. In the first place, she must pass upon the eligibility of every aspirant to position upon Mrs. Fairbanks’ visiting list, because the wife of the Vice President will leave almost everything to her judgment. Miss Wade must, and does, thoroughly understand all the intricate questions of procedure and precedent. She knows who should be invited to various functions, how guests should be seated at table, and all the other niceties of “court life.” For, after all, even in republican America, official life at Washington is largely a replica of that at European courts.

This important and busy young lady is a native of Pennsylvania, having been born at Elizabethtown, in the northern part of Lancaster County. Ten years ago, she went to Washington and experienced splendid training for her present position as social editor of a leading capital newspaper for several years. She has also traveled extensively abroad, and is well acquainted with social etiquette in foreign countries. It is understood that Miss Wade has literary aspirations, and hopes in time to be able to devote herself to writing fiction. She is also intensely interested In the study of social economy, which accounts for her having been one of the few women jurors in that division at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, where she served as secretary of the group dealing with the betterment of working women, of which the only other woman juror was the Countess of Aberdeen. — San Francisco Call, 1905

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

Etiquette and Washington’s Princess

A favorite of the press for flouting the expected etiquette and social norms of the era, Alice Roosevelt (daughter of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt), made society page headlines with antics that would make some of today’s vulgar reality show “stars” blush. Taking every advantage of her wealth and beauty as a debutante in the Gilded Age’s aristocratic society, the press soon dubbed her “Princess Alice.” Commenting on her every move,  even a shade of blue-gray, which was reportedly her preferred color, was popularized in the news as “Alice blue” and later immortalized by a song it inspired, “In My Sweet Little Alice Blue Gown.” After her 1906 marriage to an Ohio State Representative, Nicholas Longworth, she devoted more time to politics, and less to society, though her personality changed little. Her scathing imitation of her first cousin, Eleanor Roosevelt, was a popular social entertainment in Republican circles, and she purportedly kept a embroidered pillow in her home which read, “If you can’t say something good about someone, sit right here by me.”  Alice remained active in political circles long after her husband’s death, earning her the nickname, “Washington’s other monument.”  Her continued commentary, biting wit and gossip on the D.C. political scene, kept Alice in the news well into her later years. She passed away in 1980.

“Strenuous Princess” Alice Jarred Prohibition Women

There is something courageous in the bellicose attitude of the ladies of the Kentucky Prohibition party who have had the temerity to criticise the President’s daughter in a set of resolutions. Though everybody should have proper respect for the President and his family, there is often a tendency to toadyism and undue obeisance. The Kentucky delegation of women Prohibitionists were recently incensed to discover that some of the “mere men” of the party had invited Mrs. Alice Roosevelt Longworth to attend the Prohibitionist Convention at Columbus, Ohio, as Kentucky’s Guest of Honor. As soon as this matter was brought to the attention of the ladies they passed some resolutions to the effect that Mrs. Longworth would not be welcome because she had attended the Lexington horse-races with a well-known man of the world, because she smokes cigarettes, and because she lately forgot her years and dignity so far as to place a tack on a chair in the gallery of the House at Washington, causing much pain and annoyance to a diplomatic visitor.

There was a great buzzing of voices to prevent the adoption of the resolution, for fear it might be construed as an insult to the President, but the resolution was passed, and the friends of the Princess were mortified. It may be that the incident is to be regretted, but if a President will give the country his strenuous daughter, she can hardly expect any other than a strenuous handling. Kentucky women are accustomed to high ideals, having been reared in an atmosphere of chivalry where etiquette and the proprieties of life have found their most delicate bloom. They can not tolerate the hoiden, or any woman whose ideas of a good time, find materialization in school-boy pranks of a character likely to cause a distinguished diplomat to spring through the ceiling or to die of lockjaw from the presence of a tack which catches its victim in the manner that the Princess caught hers. 

Possibly Mrs. Longworth is to be excused for her strenuous joking, and it is probable that the desire to catch unsuspecting quarry may have been inherited from her father, who has been trapping and hooking and shooting game for many years. The ladies of Kentucky are to be congratulated at any rate for having the courage of their convictions and refusing to tremble in the presence of the daughter of a President, when it recognizes as Princely qualities nothing that falls short of the best breeding, in the most refined American homes.— Sacramento Union, 1908

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

Punctilious White House Etiquette

Washington D.C.’s social etiquette was changed greatly during the first Roosevelt administration. A social secretary for the President’s wife came just in time to help out. Isabella Hagner had worked as a social secretary for several women, and among them was Anna Roosevelt Cowles, President Theodore Roosevelt's sister. She was later employed by Mrs.Theodore Roosevelt as the first salaried White House social secretary. 

How the White House Changed Under Theodore Roosevelt 

Under the name of “An Old Resident,” a correspondent of the New York Herald writes extensively of what he declares to be the prevalence of “manners and customs of Courts in favor at the White House.” His statements are in part as follows: 

It is the talk of the clubs in Washington that there is a marked “inching up” toward the manners and customs of Royal Courts at the White House. It is the gossip of the kettledrums that they are at last learning how to do things properly in America. The women buzz over it with delight. They think the more formal a thing is and the more showy its accompaniments, the more desirable it is that it should mark the goings on in the home of the head of the government. And some of them unconsciously speak of him as the “Ruler.” As a matter of fact, the social doings at the White House now, and especially since the verdict of last November, differ in a widely marked degree from anything ever known. 

There is something in the formal etiquette, of the increased gold braid, which hints at a Court rather than the home of the American President. The most remarkable innovation in the White House ceremonies is that of having a constantly increasing number of army and navy officers in attendance. This has been a custom of slow growth. Former Presidents adopted it and then abandoned it, as the custom suited them, and then adopted it again. But it has now increased into proportions so great as to cause widespread comment.  

When Captain Cowles, a brother-in-law of the President, was the President’s aid at the White House he instituted the rule of having everybody arise when the President entered the room and remain standing until the President was seated. On one occasion, at a musicale or tea, he endeavored to put this into effect. Many of the women openly rebelled, and Captain Cowles had to desist in his efforts to have that deference shown to the President. They have adopted a punctiliousness without precedent at the White House under President Roosevelt. 

On state occasions army officers march ahead of the President and lead the way into the dining room. At the table all the guests remain standing until the President is seated. In leaving the table, all guests rise and remain in their places until the President has taken his departure. The President is invariably seated first. This is true not only of state dinners but of private dinners, informal luncheons and family dinners. Not even Mrs. Roosevelt is served first. The rules of the White House in connection with receptions will undoubtedly be more strictly enforced this year than ever. Those governing reporters are very strict. They are required to stand in a given place, and it must be confessed that they are at a disadvantage.

One of the reporters last winter, Miss Margaret Wade, of the Washington Post, declined to stand where she had been told to because her work was interfered with by other women spectators, who were not practicing the newspaper vocation. For this, she was excluded from the White House and has not been there since, nor would she be admitted if she applied. A singular complication now arises from the fact that Miss Made has been appointed social secretary to Mrs. Fairbanks, wife of the Vice-President. 

The custom is being recognized more and more of regarding an invitation or a summons of any kind to the White House as a command. This, of course, is borrowed from Royalty. President McKinley invited Senator Platt, of New York, to the White House near the end of his first term to meet a distinguished company at dinner. Senator Platt did not go. When he was asked why, he pleaded that he had a previous engagement. But so far as known, no person since Mr. Roosevelt has been President, has pleaded any reason other than illness for declining an invitation to dinner or luncheon, and, indeed, there is little doubt that if a plea of a previous engagement were made now the President would resent it. Even the French Ambassador had to call off a dinner on one day's notice because he had been bidden to the White House. – Press Democrat, 1905

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

Old Washington Etiquette

Julia Dent Grant was “Mrs. President” in 1873, when this article first appeared in the newspaper. – All officials and non-officials call on the President. He is not required to return calls or accept invitations, but may waive this exemption at discretion. All are admitted to his formal receptions without cards or invitation, as well as to Mrs. President's receptions on stated days, of which notice is usually given in the city papers. – In 1873, the First Lady of Washington D.C. society was not the wife of the President, but the wife of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, as the President’s is a temporary position and the Supreme Court Justice’s jobs are for life. Four years later, in 1877, writers of etiquette books, and those in Washington society, were horrified  when journalist Mary C. Ames referred to the newly inaugurated President’s wife, Lucy Webb Hayes, as “the First Lady of the Land.”

A writer, in view of the approaching season at the capital, gives a resume of certain points of etiquette, which he asserts will be found to accord with old time usages at Washington: “All officials and non-officials call on the President. He is not required to return calls or accept invitations, but may waive this exemption at discretion. All are admitted to his formal receptions without cards or invitation, as well as to Mrs. President's receptions on stated days, of which notice is usually given in the city papers. State dinners are attended by those only who are formally invited—which invitation cannot be declined on account of any prior engagement. 

“Senators who observe the old usages make no ‘first calls,’ on account of recognized superior rank, except on the President of the United States. Through courtesy to their own presiding officer, they make the ‘first call’ on the Vice President, but not by the virtue of any supposed higher official position. But Senators are expected to return calls like other mortals, and among themselves to observe the usual rules regulating the intercourse of private gentlemen. Those first at the capital make the advance, welcoming after arrivals.

“Heads of departments and foreign ministers make ‘first-calls’ on the President, Vice-President and Senators. Members of the House make ‘first calls’ on the foregoing officials, and Judges of the Supreme Court of the United States. None of the classes above mentioned are expected to make ‘first-calls’ on citizens, sojourners, and visitors, but are expected to return such calls in person, or ‘by card’ when personal calls are impracticable. These usages have not been established without much friction, discussion, and even rebellion on the part of certain ambitious ones. Of course, officials may voluntarily waive their privilege; and men of brains, culture, and acknowledged power are never tenacious about their observance, and act at Washington very much as they do at home among their old neighbors, calling socially whenever they find agreeable society.” – Marin Journal, 1873

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

Etiquette and Royal Fads

Barely 125 years after the United States discarded the yoke of the British monarchy, and barely a hundred years after President Thomas Jefferson experimented with his crazy “Pell-Mell” etiquette, a “sham aristocracy” had developed in Washington D.C. and everyone wanted to be treated like royalty. – “Precedence is killing Washington as a place of residence. It is destroying its chief charm. If one thinks of going there to live it is because he expects to have the opportunity to meet in the easy circumstances of social intercourse people who are interesting or amusing or curious.”

Social Precedence Fads and

a Growth of Monarchical Customs at the Nation's Capital

Other parts of the country may be amused by the wrangling and heartburnings incident to the Coronation of King Edward, but Washington follows them with serious and sympathetic interest. Only a few Americans have any idea of the rigid system of etiquette which has grown up at the national capital. The other day, a high officer of the government said: “My daughter went to lunch with the daughter of Secretary yesterday. She did not come home until long after she was expected, and her mother asked her what was the matter. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘Secretary’s daughter, was there, and none of us could go until she left, and we thought she never would go.’ And I find that precedent is carried out in the strictest possible way all through Washington society in all of its sets, down to the very children.” 

If there are any persons in official life in Washington who do not attach importance to precedence, do not resent being seated out of rank at table or in other ways given less than their exact official amount of deference, these persons keep extremely quiet. In Washington, one ceases to be surprised at hearing of persons of national reputations complaining fiercely because they have been subjected to some trivial slight in this matter of precedence. It irritates a cabinet officer to be put a shade out of his rank just as much as it irritates a congressman from nowhere or a government clerk. 

Precedence is killing Washington as a place of residence. It is destroying its chief charm. If one thinks of going there to live it is because he expects to have the opportunity to meet in the easy circumstances of social intercourse people who are interesting or amusing or curious. That social intercourse is becoming practically impossible. No one giving any sort of entertainment, however informal, dares to arrange his or her guests according to congeniality. The same people must always be put next to each other. The same man must take the same woman into dinner. The same youth must dance with the same girl. And as official life expands the blight of precedence spreads. 

It is difficult for an outsider to listen without laughing or showing irritation, as the Washingtonians discuss precedence and relate incidents of national and international catastrophes almost brought about by violations of it. But as some of the persons who most strenuously insist upon it, are otherwise high above the human average. It would be well, before utterly condemning the Washingtonians, to reflect whether the craze for precedence not a universal human weakness, latent —happily latent —in most of us because it has no chance to show itself. However, if Washington is to be saved as a residence city, some scheme must be devised whereunder precedence, and its complications and its depressing influences, shall be confined to formal international functions for the Diplomatists, who are primarily responsible for the present state of affairs.— New York Times, 1902

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Presidential Etiquette Privilege

Rank has its privilege, and for past Presidents, it offered even more –– “The President may walk where he pleases in the streets of Washington, meeting with no further notice than the tipping of the hat, unless of his own motion be stops to speak with someone.” 

The President In Public

It is a point of etiquette, universally observed at the national capital, never to obtrude attentions upon the President when he appears in public. On the street or in any place of amusement in Washington, the President has the undisputed privilege of appearing as any private citizen, he is never stared at unless it is by strangers, and his appearance in a theater is not greeted with any sort of demonstration. The President may walk where he pleases in the streets of Washington, meeting with no further notice than the tipping of the hat, unless of his own motion be stops to speak with someone. 

Office seekers and petitioners never venture to approach him on the street. His surest riddance of the importunities of the throng is to go out among them. Sir Julian Pauncefote, speaking of the American customs that had impressed him, remarked that, while a foreigner's first impression might be that the seeming indifference of the public toward the President when he appeared on the street or at the theater was the result of an exaggerated idea of democracy, it must become apparent on closer observation that it was the highest possible tribute of respect and consideration. —San Francisco Argonaut, 1899

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

White House Etiquette and Tone

Hamilton Jordan, President Carter’s “right hand man.” – “The White House yesterday issued a 33-page white paper contradicting a published account of a Jan. 27 barroom occurrence in which presidential aide Hamilton Jordan was slapped by a young woman. The account in Sunday's Washington Post Magazine asserted that Jordan was struck after spitting his drink down the woman's blouse. "I did not say or do anything that night to any woman that was improper, and I categorically deny that I spat my drink on anyone. I did have an unpleasant encounter with a woman at the bar, but it was not precipitated by me of anything that I had done," Jordan said in a statement released by the White House...” – Portion of a Washington Post article, February 21,1978

A Timely Historical Etiquette Post:

“Didn’t You Know, My Dears?” 

WASHINGTON - “You won't find it listed in the U.S. Constitution or in the transition team’s notebook, but one of the highest duties of a new President apparently is to uphold, enhance and adorn the social life of Washington. I am quite sure Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter and all the President’s men scarcely gave that a thought before moving into the White House. Now they are having to give it more time and attention than they would like. Believe me, it is a no-win proposition. I say that because of the latest federal flap over the tavern tribulations of Hamilton Jordan, the President's prominent non-chief of staff and man about town. But Jordan is only a recurring cross the Carters have to bear. 

There have been others and there will be more. For reasons rooted in local tradition, members of the First Family and the White House staff are supposed to be models of decorum and Emily Post etiquette. They are expected to be versed in the social graces and protocol; to remember what to do with a fork and what not to do with a finger bowl; to know when it is all right to go tieless and shoeless; that it is never alright to get pickled in public. This city is as stuffy as any other in America. It has its own ‘standards’ of acceptable conduct, born of a peculiar mixture of politicians, bureaucrats, diplomats, lobbyists and the press, all of whom coexist in a useful but fragile social relationship that is subject to shattering every four years. It does not react warmly to those who buck the system or offend its practitioners. 

Politically speaking, the Carter crowd already has discovered that Washington does not adjust easily to those who come in as ‘outsiders’ and want to stay that way. As even Jordan admits, the Carter administration wasted a lot of valuable momentum its first year because it thought it was unnecessary to first learn how the rest of political Washington works. Socially speaking, the same is true. In its own way, Washington is as provincial as Plains, Ga., although I doubt any of its social lions or lionesses would admit it. Lusting in one’s heart or in private is fine, even for a ranking White House official, but heavens, not in a public place like Sarsfield’s singles’ bar or at a posh Barbara Walters dinner party. The trouble is that Washington expects, even wants, those who live and work in the White House to be like the preacher’s family in a small town: above reproach. The White House is the sun of the local solar system. Everything here revolves around it, socially as well as governmentally. It sets the climate in which Washington lives. But expecting local folk to be always happy with the social tone set by the White House, is as futile as expecting people to be happy about the weather. 

During the Eisenhower years, when I first came here, nobody accused administration officials of risqué behavior. But, my, how they grumbled about the stodginess of the White House social scene. Dullsville was replaced by Camelot when the Kennedys came in. Washington was entranced, intrigued and enlivened by the social style of the young President and his Jacqueline. The Johnsons set a more down-home and boisterous pace, but it was still judged to be within the Washington tradition. The Nixons tried hard but it came off as too much pretension, while the Fords’ social example was rated as sort of a Grand Rapids version of the LBJ era. The social tone being set by the Carters is more permissive, more do-your-own-thing, than Washington society would like. And that goes equally for Amy reading a book at a State Dinner or boozy bar-hopping by Jordan, Jody Powell and top presidential assistants. 

Mr. Carter came to town determined to govern more openly than any president before him. His Cabinet members and high appointees were to have no conflicts of interest, no hidden motives, no cozy deals out of public view. His style of governing was going to be like living in Macy’s window. But Washington, and perhaps a good part of the country, would prefer it if the Carter people would behave in public as though they were living in Macy’s window. Perhaps Mr. Carter is of a mind to insist on that, if only to protect himself from the political embarrassment of social misbehavior. It is not terribly uplifting for the country when the President’s White House legal counsel has to be sent out, on government time, to take a sworn statement from a bartender that the President’s highest assistant did ‘no spitting, no touching’ during an altercation with a young woman at the bar.” – Editorial in The Desert Sun, 1978

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

Washington DC Etiquette Advice

Advice from the wife of a U.S. President — "How would you like your wife to show dislike for some of the men you bring home?"

"ONCE OVERS”

Husbands, you may not like some of the women friends of your wife, but you are not giving her a square deal if you object to her entertaining them. Also, you are a cad if you do not give them courteous treatment while under your roof. How would you like your wife to show dislike for some of the men you bring home? Raise a rumpus if she should make it evident that she disapproves of those men whom you choose at times to be your guests—tell the truth, would you not? 

Your wife’s friends may be estimable women, companionable to her, but not agreeable to you; however, this does not give you the right to be rude to them nor to put your wife in the position of not daring to invite them for fear you may insult them and her. Your men friends appeal to you, and the same is doubtless true of the friends of your better half. The true gentleman is always courteous to each and every person who enters his home. You want to be a credit to your forbears, don’t you? - Mrs. Woodrow Wilson, 1918

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

Etiquette Above the Salt

A royal salt holder — In medieval times, due to its scarcity, salt was extremely expensive and only affordable by those in the higher ranks of society. At that time, royalty and nobility sat at the 'high table' while the commoner servants sat at lower, trestle tables. Salt was placed in the center of the high table. Only those of rank had access to the salt. Those less favored, and of lesser rank on the lower tables, were below, or beneath, the salt.

The proposed visit of the Infanta Eulalia of Spain to this country has given rise to a pretty exhibition of Court etiquette. She and her husband, Prince Antony, were to be the guests of the United States government, but in proffering hospitality, the mistake was made of intimating that the Duke of Veragua would be included in the company. This was quite too much for Spanish notions of propriety. 

A person of royal blood to sit with a mere nobleman, and have the salt between them on equal terms — never! A Monarchical guest must take separate treatment to sustain her dignity; to hobnob with an inferior is tantamount to insult. So the Infanta gets out of this disparaging predicament by undertaking to pay her own expenses, an independent course which may grieve this country the less inasmuch as Congress has not appropriated a dime for her august entertainment. — New York Herald, 1883

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

19th C. Washington Etiquette

State dinners are attended by those only who are formally invited—which invitation cannot be declined on account of any prior engagement. 

A writer, in view of the approaching season at the capital, gives a resume of certain points of etiquette, which he asserts will be found to accord with old time usages at Washington: "All officials and non-officials call on the President. He is not required to return calls or accept invitations, but may waive this exemption at discretion.

All are admitted to his public or formal receptions without cards or invitation, as well as to Mrs. President's receptions on stated days, of which notice is usually given to the city papers. State dinners are attended by those only who are formally invited—which invitation cannot be declined on account of any prior engagement. Senators who observe the old usages make no 'first calls,' on account of recognized superior rank, except on the President of the United States. 

Through courtesy to their own presiding officer, they make the 'first call' on the Vice President, but not by the virtue of any supposed higher official position. But Senators are expected to return calls like other mortals, and among themselves to observe the usual rules regulating the intercourse of private gentlemen. Those first at the capital make the advance, welcoming after arrivals.

Heads of departments and foreign ministers make 'first-calls' on the President, Vice-President and Senators. Members of the House make 'first calls' on the foregoing officials, and Judges of the Supreme Court of the United States. None of the classes above mentioned are expected to make 'first calls' on citizens, sojourners, and visitors, but are expected to return such calls in person, or 'by card' when personal calls are impracticable.

These usages have not been established without much friction, discussion, and even rebellion on the part of certain ambitious ones. Of course, officials may voluntarily waive their privilege; and men of brains, culture, and acknowledged power are never tenacious about their observance, and act at Washington very much as they do at home among their old neighbors, calling socially whenever they find agreeable society." — Marin Journal, 1873

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

White House Mistress Etiquette

Woodrow Wilson had two wives while in the White House, one of whom died in 1914. Up until the later 1800s, the wife of  U.S. President was not the “First Lady.” The wife of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court ruled over Washington society, as her husband had his job for life, as opposed to the job of U.S. President, which is a temporary position.

Before They Were Called First Ladies, They Were the

Mistresses of the White House

Not only has Woodrow Wilson been elected President of the United States, but, what is fully as important in the estimation of multitudes of Americans, Mrs. Woodrow Wilson, and Miss Margaret Wilson, Miss Jessie Wilson and Miss Eleanor Wilson will move into the White House next March. The place of the ladies of the White House has been kept before the country almost as prominently through all these years as has that of the President himself. 

Eternally questions of precedence and etiquette have come forward. The public has wanted to know all about the daily life and the domestic doings of the Presidential family, the housekeeping woes of the mistress of the mansion and her behavior at the official receptions; the tastes and habits of all the feminine members of the family, and withal there have been at times little tales of boudoir plots and parlor intrigues, although the history of the United States has very little of the backstairs kind of gossip that has played a large part in the histories of the nations of Europe. 

Abigail Adams, First Mistress

The wife of the first President did not live in the White House, of course. Abigail Adams of Quincy, Mass., was the first mistress of the mansion, although in her time it was a mansion in the making, and the finishing seemed to her very far away indeed. It was she who used the "great, unfinished audience room" as a place in which to dry the family wash. 

Dolly Madison was almost as much mistress of the mansion in Jefferson's time as in that of his successor, her husband, and it was she who saved the one piece of the original furnishings which is this day in the Presidential residence. When the British burned the house in 1814 the redoubtable Dolly managed to carry away the portrait of Washington which hangs now over the mantel in the Red Room. 

It has taken a long time for the mansion to approach completion, and no sooner was it finished than it was destroyed by the ruthless hands of the English soldiery. The building which succeeded the first residence was a faithful reproduction in forms and dimensions of the plans drawn by the original architect, Maj. Hoban. The very foundations and part of the outside walls are relics of the building which went in fire in 1814. 

Mansion Is Now Complete 

Then in 1902 there was begun the White House improvements which have resulted in the mansion of today becoming almost precisely what the President's house was intended to be by those who made the original plans for it. It was necessary to relieve the residence of the necessity of being headquarters for the business of the executive. An office annex was built and thus the disfiguring additions to the mansion could be taken away. 

The original plans were studied for the restoration of the residence itself, and the buildings of the University of Virginia, planned by Jefferson, were investigated. A dining room was provided in which 100 guests might be entertained. Space for the comfortable housing of such a family as that of Woodrow Wilson was secured. And finally, In 1912, the office building has been enlarged and reconstructed, so that the new president will have such family accommodations as many of his predecessors sighed for in vain. 

The story of the successive White House families has much of picturesque variety. Not always has the mistress been the wife of the President. Buchanan was a bachelor; he had been disappointed in love as a young man. Jefferson, Jackson, Van Buren and Arthur were widowers. Grover Cleveland alone of the line was married in the mansion. 

Tyler lost his wife while in office, and married again, but the ceremony took place in New York. Benjamin Harrison's wife died while he was in the Presidential chair. Mrs. McKinley was an invalid, as was the first Mrs. Tyler. Andrew Jackson had a battle that cost him more sleep probably than did the battle of New Orleans, a battle over the social recognition of a certain lady while he was living in the Presidential home. 

The Pierces lost a son by a sad accident, and the calamity threw a shadow over most of their four years in the residence. And each of the two last Presidents has had a daughter to take her place as the First Young Lady of the Land, and now the new President has not only one, but three.  — The Sausalito News, 1913

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

Etiquette Coach to White House

Etiquette arbiter— The young woman who is practically the ruler of Washington Society

She Coaches the President's Wife in Social Affairs 

Unique Position Occupied by Miss Isabel Hagner in Mrs. Roosevelt's Household, Where It Will Be Her Duty to Supervise Details of State Functions and Name Guests 

WASHINGTON— Miss Isabel Hagner, daughter of Dr. Charles E. Hagner of this city, is the first appointee to the unique office of social secretary of Mrs. Roosevelt. Miss Hagner is eminently fitted for this position. She has for the past three or four years been the recognized authority on all social forms and conventions.

She has made a profound study of the laws of etiquette and she brings to her work the experience gained by acting in a similar capacity for Mrs. Hay, wife of the Secretary of State; Mrs. Root, wife of the Secretary of War; Mrs. Charles Emory Smith, wife of the Postmaster General; Mrs. Hanna and Miss Paulding, niece of Senator Depew.

As the social secretary of Mrs. Roosevelt, Miss Hagner's duties will be arduous and various. Besides keeping up the large private correspondence she will supervise all the details of the state functions. She will know the little private enmities and animosities which often embarrass hospitable occasions, and it will be her task to arrange the functions with a view to personal harmony.

A revision of the guest list will be confided to her, and this alone is no light duty. The unofficial functions at the White House probably outnumber the official events. Miss Alice Roosevelt's debut and the entertainment given especially for her will be under Miss Hagner's direction and it will be her duty to name the young women figuring in official, and resident society, who are entitled to invitations from the President's daughter. — San Francisco Call, 1901

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

White House Etiquette, 1897

Mrs. Grover Cleveland experimented with the White House protocol.

Precedence and Protocol 

of Being the U.S. President's Wife

in the 1890s

When the President and his wife drive out, the President sits on the right hand and his wife on the left, says the Illustrated American. If there are others in the carriage, whether ladies or gentlemen, they must sit with their backs to the horses. 

When Mrs. Cleveland was first married she tried the experiment of placing her mother opposite the President and herself in the Presidential landau, but the people laughed at it so immoderately and professed to think Mrs. Folsom (as she was then) to be the maid, that it was speedily dropped. When the President's wife drives alone, she sits in the right-hand corner — the place of honor. 

The lady of the White House cannot set foot within those splendid houses in Washington whose flagstaffs mark the foreign embassy or legation. She could not go without the President, and as an embassy or legation is technically a part of the country it represents, the President could not go — so that she never sees the inside of a diplomatic house as long as she presides at the executive mansion. 

The President dines only at Cabinet houses and his wife cannot dine anywhere without him. President Arthur dined with Judges of the Supreme Court and with Senators, but as he had no wife, the whole system was very much simplified for him. 

The President's wife may, if she chooses, go to luncheons where there are no gentlemen, or to teas, both being regarded as strictly informal, but the danger of giving offense by accepting one invitation and declining another is so great, that it is seldom or never risked. — The San Francisco Call, 1897

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

Gilded Age Etiquette in Washington DC

Ida Saxton McKinley was the wife of the 25th President, William McKinley

"Notwithstanding the mid-Lenten season capital society is extremely busy exchanging courtesies with the newcomers in high places. The latter are beginning to realize the bitter-sweets of their position, for the polite tactics that govern the social side of all things official involve much downright hard work.

An immutable law of local etiquette requires the ladies of official families to see to it that their husband's or father's visiting cards, together with their own, are properly distributed within a given number of days, to everyone of the hundreds who have left addresses in the traditional peck measure of bits of Bristol board which every weekly reception brings. The value of a former residence in Washington, and the experience in its social requirements, which differ from those of any other city, is plainly to be seen in the present administration.

Mrs. McKinley is a charming example of this. She knows the natural interest in the nation's house and the president's wife, and she makes everybody welcome at all times and in the most informal fashion. It is already apparent that the White House will be much more accessible to the general public during this administration than the last.

There will be a great many more receptions outside the official clique, and the whole mansion beyond the east room will not be so closed and guarded as formerly, as if each visiting stranger were a vandal bent on destruction or theft.

Mrs. Sherman, too. besides her many years as a senator's wife, has filled a position similar to that she now occupies when her husband was secretary of the treasury. The Longs, also the Algers, the Grays, and others in the present topmost circle have spent precious seasons in Washington, and are familiar with its peculiar social usages." —Special Correspondence to The Herald. WASHINGTON, D.C, March 30, 1897

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