Gilded Age Table Etiquette

“A good rule is to use the fork almost constantly, and put only a little upon it at a time. In this way the food is conveyed to the mouth– never with the knife–although in some countries the knife is still used, even amongst royalty.”

A Few of the Things Every Self-Respecting Person Should Know

Table etiquette is almost a science nowadays, and it is necessary to conform to its laws. A good rule is to use the fork almost constantly, and put only a little upon it at a time. In this way the food is conveyed to the mouth– never with the knife–although in some countries the knife is still used, even amongst royalty. If you have strawberries and cream, soup, melons, stewed fruit, preserved fruit, preserves and jellies, eat them with a spoon. These things, because of their juiciness, can not be eaten with a fork. 

Fish should be eaten with a knife and fork, and every well-regulated house, when it serves oysters on the half shell, will place a small, silver fork beside each guest’s plate. When the hostess serves strawberries with the green stems, then they are invariably to be taken up in the fingers (by the stem) and eaten one at a time. Fruit like pears and apples is first peeled, then quartered, and then taken up in the fingers and eaten. 

With salads, the knife and fork are used, if the salad has not been cut up before being served. No hostess who understands table etiquette, nor a waiter who has been well trained, will ever think of offering you more than a ladleful of soup, and if you are at a private or fashionable dinner (anywhere except hotel), and the dinner is too hot, or you do not happen to like a certain dish after it has been served, pretend to eat it, and this consideration on your part will make you the everlasting friend of the host and hostess. 

Don’t stop short and sit back in your chair. That is the most embarrassing kind of embarrassment for both yourself, your host and your associates. These are a few of the things every body should know.- By Farm and Fireside, 1889

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

Gilded Age Etiquette of “Not at Home”

  “Not at home” is all-sufficient explanation, provided always that a servant is able to give a direct answer at once of “Not at home” when the query is put to him… – Mr. Hefty was not pleased to see unexpected guests, when Mrs. Astor literally was, “Not at home.”
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William Ryall as Mrs. Astor’s butler, “Mr. Hefty” with Nathan Lane’s “Ward Mc Allister,” in HBO’s The Gilded Age – Photo source HBO

A mistress of a house should inform her servant after or before luncheon, or before the hours for calling, whether she intends to be “at home” to visitors or not during the afternoon. 

“Not at home” is the understood formula expressive of not wishing to see visitors. “Not at home” is not intended to imply an untruth, but rather to signify that for some reason, or reasons, it is not desirable to see visitors; and as it would be impossible to explain to acquaintances, the why and the wherefore of its being inconvenient to receive visitors, the formula of “Not at home” is all-sufficient explanation, provided always that a servant is able to give a direct answer at once of “Not at home” when the query is put to him. 

If a servant is not sure as to whether his mistress wishes to see visitors or not, it is almost a direct offense to the lady calling if he hesitates as to his answer, and leaves her either sitting in her carriage or standing in the hall, while He will see if his mistress is “At home,” perhaps returning with the unsatisfactory answer that she is “Not at home;” in which case the intimation is almost received as a personal exclusion rather than as a general exclusion of visitors.

If a lady is dressing to go out when a visitor calls, the servant can mention that fact to a visitor calling, and offer to ascertain if his mistress will see the caller; and the caller should use her own discretion as to whether she will allow him to do so or not; but unless the visit is one of importance, it would be best in such a case only to leave. – From “Manners and Rules of Good Society,” 1873

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

Bad Manners Cause for Divorce

Wives beware… any husband, who is even half-way bright, is bound to know that his wife doesn’t consider him worth pleasing if she wears her old clothes and her bad manners for him and carefully hoards her becoming clothes and manners for others! 

WE the Women

A Minneapolis husband, in a cross bill of divorce, claimed his wife wore stockings with runs in them “from ankle to knee”while she had 140 pairs of new ones put away.

Evidently that wife, if the charge is true, just carried to an extreme a mistake that many wives make after a year or two of marriage- the fault of hoarding their most pleasing and personable selves to dazzle outsiders.

Such women don't pay any attention to what they are wearing if they don't count on seeing anyone but their husbands. Only if they expect guests to drop in do they pay attention to what they wear around the house.

They wouldn't think of bothering to have flowers on the dinner table just for their own and their husband's appreciation. They try to set a pretty table only when there are to be guests.

Seek to Impress Others

Their manners-even the simple matter of an unfailing “please” and “thank you” suffer a terrific let-down when there is no one around but their own husbands. But they are always courteous to the people they want to impress.

Such hoarding-even though it is never brought out in a divorce suit-is bound to do a lot to make a marriage lose its charm.

For any husband, who is even half-way bright, is bound to know that his wife doesn’t consider him worth pleasing if she wears her old clothes and her bad manners for him and carefully hoards her becoming clothes and manners for others. – By Ruth Millettt, for Imperial Valley Press, 1944

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

Gilded Age Dining is Fashionably Late

“Second Début” Post on Gilded Age Dining…

Gilded age servers for the dining room – “A marked change has taken place in the fashion. The late evening dinner has for years been steadily gaining in popularity, and promises to become even more common than it is now. Thoughtful men and women recognize the wisdom of eating lightly at midday, when they are in the full tide of business, and reserving the heartiest repast for an hour when it can be discussed leisurely and digested peacefully.” – 1890

More Fashionable is the Late Time to Dine

Twenty or thirty years ago the late dinner was not nearly so popular as it is now. The majority of people dined in the middle of the day, and not a few of them considered a six-o'clock dinner as an effort after fashion, that was unworthy the imitation of sensible men and women. Even in the large cities, servants rebelled against an alteration of the time-houored custom of serving the principal meal of the day at, or near noon, while in small towns the late dinner was so unusual that it was almost impossible to persuade domestics to consent to it.

A marked change has taken place in the fashion. The late evening dinner has for years been steadily gaining in popularity, and promises to become even more common than it is now. Thoughtful men and women recognize the wisdom of eating lightly at midday, when they are in the full tide of business, and reserving the heartiest repast for an hour when it can be discussed leisurely and digested peacefully. Mistresses have learned that there is a gain in keeping the morning free for housework, instead of devoting most of it to the preparation of the dinner.The light lunch eaten in most homes demands much less time in cooking and eating than does a dinner, and leaves those who have partaken of it more fit for work than they would be, were their stomachs burdened with the task of digesting soup, meat, vegetables and dessert.

The late dinner is a more dignified meal than can possibly be made of a similar repast eaten at noon. The festal appearance imparted by the gleam of candles, lamps, or gas upon silver, china and glass, cannot be acquired by daylight. The pleasant harmony around the board of the members of the family, whose positions and interests have been divergent since morning, the happy consciousness that the work of the day is done, the knowledge that there is no toil waiting at the door of the diningroom, all bear their share in rendering the meal cheerful and care-free. 

More ceremony can and should be preserved at the evening dinner than is feasible at noon. The orderly sequence of courses and the careful serving have a part in adding to the dignity of the meal. These suggestions should not frighten the house-keeper who contemplates introducing the late dinner into their household. Very little extra work is involved in bestowing the touch of state referred to, and, after all, it consists chiefly in a slight additional care in waiting and serving, and to these the mistress can readily accustom the maid.— Christine Terhune Herrick, in Harper's Bazaar, 1890

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

Gilded Age Fans and Their Use

 A “Second Debut” for a post addressing the faux an fiction so prevalent online…

“In the Victorian era and the gilded age there were secret codes for sending signals to those one was romantically interested in! You could hold your hold your half-opened fan to your mouth to let someone know it was okay to kiss them! Isn’t that fascinating?!” Alas, this tidbit related to me by an instructor trainee is what I call ‘Fan Fiction’ — Fans were helpful to have if one was feeling warm in a crowded ballroom, or on a hot day, prior to electrical fans and air conditioning. They were also accessories to a woman’s wardrobe, and signs of social status, depending on what materials they were made of and the beauty of their design.

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“Unfortunately, the fan language — and other, similar codes like the language of the handkerchief and the language of the parasol— were largely the result of advertising campaigns meant to popularize and sell accessories. There is little evidence that the fan language was ever in widespread use, though the concept was satirized by several writers in the 18th and 19th centuries. Besides being rather impractical, fan codes were a bit dangerous; an unconscious fidget or desire to actually fan herself could embroil a lady in a totally unintentional feud— or marriage. Not to mention the consequences if the matron acting as chaperone to a courting couple had, a few years earlier, employed the fan language to win her own husband!” -Esti Brennan, Clements Library Chronicles–  Photo credit, Nicole Brydon Bloom, Blake Ritson Photo: Barbara Nitke/HBO

An Early ‘Advertorial,’ Disguised as Fashionable Etiquette

An amusing little book has been published in Berlin, entitled “The Fan Language of Queen Isabella.” In its introduction, which copies the Spanish work of Fenella, it is as easy to make oneself understood in the language of the fan as in that of flowers, and since the sentences are of necessity short, it is easy to learn them by heart.” It gives a manual for this voiceless speech, consisting of the usual sentences in love and friendship, with appropriate directions as to their expression by means of the fan, in part as follows: 

• You have won my love—the right hand points with the closed fan toward the heart. 
• When may I see you?—touch the right eye with the closed fan. 
• I would like to be ever near you —fan the person in question with the open fan. 
• Be quiet; we are watched—hold the closed fan over the mouth. Dare I hope to win your love? —unfold the fan with a quick movement. 
• Do not be so cold —move the fan backward and forward with the right hand. 
• Do not be so jealous— rest the closed fan against the eyebrow of the right eye. 
• You may kiss me— press the half-open fan on the mouth. 
• Yes —rest the open fan upon the right cheek. 
• No —rest the open fan against the left cheek. 
• You are the darling of my heart—press the open fan against the heart and mouth. 
• Explain yourself clearly — look earnestly at the closed fan. 
• I give my consent—slowly close the fan. 
• Why do you wish to leave me?—fan violently with the half-open fan.

                        — The Los Angeles Herald, 1874

Maura Graber has been teaching etiquette to children, teens and adults, and training new etiquette instructors, for 34 years, as founder and director of The RSVP Institute of Etiquette.  She is also a writer, has been featured in countless newspapers, magazines and television shows and was an on-air contributor to PBS in Southern California for 14 years. She has been consulting as an etiquette authority for the HBO/MAX, Julian Fellowes’ drama, “The Gilded Age.”  Her books, “Reaching for the Right Fork” and “What Have We Here?” are available on Amazon.

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

20th C. Prohibition in UK and Europe

The Latin countries, especially France, Spain and Portugal, present a problem to temperance societies because they consume and export large quantities of spirits and have constantly fought prohibition in other countries. They are partly responsible for the lessening of prohibition restrictions in Norway and Iceland.

ONE EUROPEAN NATION IS DRY

Only one nation of Europe, Finland, has a full prohibition law similar to that enacted In the United States. Six other nations have stringent regulations, four have local option and 11 have almost no restrictions, a survey of 22 European countries shows. The countries which have tried piohlbition are principally among the northern group and one reason advanced was that those countries had a higher level of drunkenness which provided a good field for temperance campaigns. The countries which have some form of stringent regulation of the sale of liquor are, in addition to Finland, Great Britain, Belgium, Sweden, Esthonia, and Italy. The six employ different means of regulating liquor consumption and any list of stringent methods must be arbitrary depending upon interpretation of the laws. 

Among the nations without or almost without regulations are France, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Czecho-Slovakia, Austria, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Holland, Greece and Switzerland. Those countries are either Latinic or Germanic, both races being chiefly wine and beer drinking peoples. Great quantities of wine and beer are consumed in those countries but temperance statisticians say their records tend towards sobriety. 

The Latin countries, especially France, Spain and Portugal, present a problem to temperance societies because they consume and export large quantities of spirits and have constantly fought prohibition in other countries. They are partly responsible for the lessening of prohibition restrictions in Norway and Iceland. Finland, on the Arctic sea, was the first country to adopt prohibition. The law was enacted 12 years before the United States went dry but was quashed as unfavorable to the European wine growers by the Grand Duke of Russia. In 1917 Finland, as an independent country, again passed a dry law which is still In effect. The enforcement has not been perfect and smuggling still exists. 

Belgium has prohibited drinking in public houses of any liquor more than 18 per cent alcohol since 1919. Belgians may purchase liquor in no less than two quart lots for home consumption. The measure applies to all bars, cafes, hotels, restaurants, stores, trains, boats and the streets. No bottle may be uncorked outside of the purchaser's home. There are severe penalties for violators, the law is carried out strictly and there are few violations, the most impartial observers agree. A certain latitude in interpretation of law makes it possible to sell liquor by the glass in private clubs and there are many of these clubs, although supporters of the law maintain that workmen drink less than before 1919 and crimes due to drunkenness have decreased one-third, police reported. 

Temperance leaders, however, are now working for total prohibition. Great Britain has reduced alcohol consumption by two methods; high government duties on the sale of spirits and beer and shortening of hours of sale In public houses. It is estimated that consumption has decreased one-half since 1913 in strong liquors, although beer consumption has been less reduced A royal commission has now been named to investigate the situation and report on whether there should be changes. 

The widely-known Bratt system is employed in Sweden, where only adults possessing Bratt cards to show they are temperate in habits may purchase liquor. Only home consumption is permitted. The government has had to contend with much smuggling but has abolished saloons and decreased the national drink bill. Norway had full prohibition on 1919 but repealed it in 1926 because of commercial pressure from wine-growing countries who retaliated by refusing to buy Norwegian products and also because of smuggling and difficulty of enforcement. 

The new law, permitting local option was said to be the most vigorous in Europe. It permitted only those cities where spirits were sold before the war to re-introduce liquor sale. Esthonia, on the Baltic Sea. first tried the Swedish card system but abandoned it in favor of strict local option which has proved satisfactory In the estimate of prohibitionists. Its neighbor, Latvia, lias only a few restrictive measures, including the closing of all bars from Saturday noon until Monday morning, materially decreasing alcoholic consumption. Denmark has restricted the consumption of liquors through high duties and local option, introduced in 1925. 

All Baltic Sea countries have an agreement to suppress smuggling. Iceland, an independent country under the King of Denmark, established full prohibition in 1915 but modified it later to permit sale of Spanish wines because Spain had threatened to restrict the sale of Iceland’s fish. The country still has full prohibition of sale of spirits. 

Russia has a state monopoly on production of vodka but no restrictions. The government permits local option, which has not been used to any great extent. Poland voted for local option in 1921 and the system has been fairly successful. The president of Czecho-Slovakia is a teetotaler but there are no restrictions on liquor in the country. Yugoslavia has no stringent liquor regulations and there has been little agitation for prohibition in Austria. 

Germany, Hungary or Holland, Italy’s only restriction is a fascist measure requiring early night closing of bars and cafes and limitation of the number of licensed houses. Spain and Portugal are wine-drinking countries where little headway has been made by prohibitionists and Greece is a temperate country with no restrictions on drink. 

France has no prohibition except on absinthe, which was prohibited in 1915 because it was blamed for a bad effect on health of drinkers. French police are required to arrest any drunken person but arrests have decreased by half since before the war. The consumption of hard liquor in France for 1929 surpassed all previous records. — By Stewart Brown, UPI Correspondent, 7th January, Paris, 1930

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

Advice for Young Women in 1930

“Maybe youth is flaming," says flapper Fannie, "because hose is only used for display purposes.” – From “Girligags”

Dorothy Dix’s Letter Box

What Is There to Make a Woman Glad in Marriage?

Dear Miss Dix—I don’t agree with you that it is impossible to hand out a patented formula for making a girl attractive to men. There is an old, attested recipe that my mother used when she was a girl, and she taught it to me and I have handed it down to my daughter, and it still works in this modern day just as it did in the old mid-Victorian period because all men of all ages are alike. For a conversational line tell 'em that they are great and wonderful and big boys. 

Learn how to do things—how to swim, play tennis, golf and so on. And especially how to dance. Find out what a boy’s favorite sport is and get him to teach it to you. Learn how to do it well enough to keep him interested, but never get proficient enough to beat him. Don’t ever try to be brilliant or show off before a man. Keep the spotlight on him. And always surround an unattractive girl with plenty of other girls who have it. They will draw the man and the homely sister gels the left-overs. Try this rule, it never fails. – The Flapper Mother of a Flapper Daughter 

Answer: These are words of gold framed in silver which every girl who wishes to make a hit with men should hang over her dressing table, for, as my correspondent says, men are pretty much of a muchness as far as their taste is concerned and the poor fish are still caught with the same bail that the lady fishermen have used from generation to generation. Doubtless the first thing that Eve said to Adam as she rolled her eyes, at him and gave him the once over was to exclaim about how big and strong and wonderful be was and tell him that she fell for him the first time that she saw him. And Adam, lent an attentive ear, as every man has ever done ever since when a woman talked to him about himself and decided in his own mind that she was a young person of superior taste and judgment and so entertaining that he could go on listening to her forever. 

Nor do men want to discuss high-browed subjects with women. When they talk about the Einstein theory and the modern movements in literature and art and politics, they want to talk with other men. And no woman makes a greater mistake than in trying to be humorous with men. Men don’t like funny women. Nor women who laugh too much. They always have an uneasy suspicion that she is laughing at them. Therefore, the woman who is a good talker with men talks to them about themselves to the exclusion of any other topic. She is the human questionnaire. She asks them minutely about their childhood, about how they succeeded in business, about their golf or their car, and she listens with bated breath while they tell the stories of their lives and how they pulled off a deal or sold a bit of goods or w hat Mr. Hoover should do about prohibition. 

Then, in this day, girls have to be up and doing. Gone are the halcyon times when men sought out the shrinking violet. Now a maiden has to be not only a sunflower but one who takes the precaution of planting herself right in a man’s way so that he stumbles over her if she gets noticed. In other words, she has to be Sally on the spot. That is why so many girls who do not need to support themselves are going into business. They don't sit at home and suck their thumbs and wait for some fairy prince to come riding by and save them. They go down inlo the offices where the good chances are and where they have the opportunity of plying their arts and wiles on men at close range. Many girls who are homely avoid being seen out with pretty girls because they fear comparisons. This is a mistake. 

Every plain girl should hunt up the best-looking girl she can find for a running mate, because the pretty girl will attract the boys and that will give her a chance to do her stuff. For beauties do not always wear well on closer acquaintance. Nearly always they are egotistic and selfish and like to show their power by ordering men about, and this does not make a hit with the sex that likes to have the kowtowing done to it. So here is where Little Plain Face gets in her deadly work. She is so much sweeter, so much less self-centered, so willing and anxious to be pleased and so appreciative of every attention that oftener than not she wins out instead of the beauty. So perhaps the formula for a girl making herself popular with men can be summed up into me phrase: keep a man pleased with himself and he will be pleased with you. – Dorothy Dix, 1930

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

Manners Among the Classes

Our present code of etiquette is constructed upon the refinement, polish, and culture of years, of centuries… — Gentlewomen of the 1890’s

There is an idea amongst some few people who have mixed little in the world, and moved but in one fixed groove, that the more exalted the sphere, the more perfect the manners. It is needless to attempt to refute such a fallacy as this, but merely to assert that examples of the most perfect manner are to be met with not only amongst those who can boast of long lineage and high birth, but also amongst those who lay claim to neither.

Our present code of etiquette is constructed upon the refinement, polish, and culture of years, of centuries. Wealth and luxury, and contact with all that is beautiful in art and nature, have in all ages exercised a powerful influence on the manners of men; we do not say on the times, as unfortunately these advantages did not reach down to the many but were confined to the strictly few; but in these modern days the many have come, and still come, within the charmed circle; the ring broadens, ever widens; it is not now as in olden days that "Their lot forbade." 

On the contrary, the possession of wealth or of talent is the open sesame to the most refined and cultured circles. The word etiquette is too narrow for all it embraces; it must be viewed in a double light, and be taken from a moral point as well as from a conventional one. A kindly nature, and an unselfish spirit are never wanting in true politeness, but the conventionalities of society give the finish and completeness to the whole, the colour, as it were, to the picture. — From Manners and Rules of Good Society or Solecisms to be Avoided, 1898

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