Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson,
Speaker 1: and I'm Holly Frye. Something I think I've mentioned on
Speaker 1: the show before is that I think about etiquette a
Speaker 1: lot because in my lifetime there's been just a huge
Speaker 1: shift in how we interact with other people, Like social
Speaker 1: media did not exist when I was born, and now
Speaker 1: it is a major way that a lot of people
Speaker 1: communicate with one another. And I don't know if anyone
Speaker 1: has heard, feels like etiquette hasn't really kept up with
Speaker 1: that shift. A lot of the time, there is a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff on social media happening continually that I
Speaker 1: would say is inconsiderate, like at best, a lot of
Speaker 1: it actively incredibly rude. A lot of people use the
Speaker 1: word manners and etiquette interchangeably, but they have slightly different
Speaker 1: but interrelated meanings. Different sources, of course, give slightly different definitions,
Speaker 1: but essentially manners that's a person's conduct or behavior, and
Speaker 1: then etiquette is the code of manners or the rules
Speaker 1: that delineate what good manners are. Books on etiquette, which
Speaker 1: is what we are talking about today in this installment
Speaker 1: of six Impossible Episodes. They don't necessarily reflect the rules
Speaker 1: that everyone is actually following. So if you're reading a
Speaker 1: historical etiquette manual, it's not necessarily depicting what day to
Speaker 1: day life is like for people. It's more like what
Speaker 1: the author thinks the ideal standard of behavior should be.
Speaker 1: So today we're going to do a little six Impossible
Speaker 1: episodes on a selection of etiquette manuals from history. And
Speaker 1: to be very clear upfront, this is focused on manuals
Speaker 1: that we're either written in or translated into English, because
Speaker 1: that's the language I am fluent in. And it also
Speaker 1: felt way outside of my lane to be commenting on
Speaker 1: etiquette books from parts of the world that I have
Speaker 1: no cultural connections to or experience with, where you know,
Speaker 1: the rules of etiquette might seem strange to me. You
Speaker 1: must give your neighbor a duck. The first work that
Speaker 1: we are going to discuss came out in fifteen fifty
Speaker 1: eight and its author was Giovanni de la Casa of Florence,
Speaker 1: who was born on June twenty eighth, fifteen oh three
Speaker 1: to a well off and aristocratic family. He seems to
Speaker 1: have been a little bit of a troublemaker in his youth,
Speaker 1: including writing some satiric and suggestive verse, but eventually he
Speaker 1: moved into writing lyric poetry and translating other works, and
Speaker 1: in fifteen forty four he was named Archbishop of Benevento.
Speaker 1: Unlike most of the existing manuals of behavior and conduct
Speaker 1: that were written before this point, this one wasn't focused
Speaker 1: on courtly behavior and diplomatic protocols. It was about how
Speaker 1: to behave yourself out in the world. Giovanni finished it
Speaker 1: in fifteen fifty five, and he died on November fourteenth,
Speaker 1: fifteen fifty six. Although he had instructed his family to
Speaker 1: burn all of his documents, they published this book as
Speaker 1: il Galateo o vera dicostumi or Etiquette or rather Customs
Speaker 1: two years later. This treatise was quickly translated into multiple
Speaker 1: other languages. It became really influential in a lot of Europe.
Speaker 1: It made its way into English for the first time
Speaker 1: in fifteen seventy six after being translated by Robert Peterson,
Speaker 1: and then it was retranslated and republished in English at
Speaker 1: different points after that, including in London in seventeen seventy
Speaker 1: four as Galateo or a treatise on politeness and delicacy
Speaker 1: of manners addressed to a young nobleman. That is the
Speaker 1: one that we are focused on today. Books on etiquette
Speaker 1: have often been written in response to changing social norms
Speaker 1: or a perceived need to address some kind of big
Speaker 1: shift in people's behavior, whether such a shift was actually happening,
Speaker 1: or the kinds of people who write etiquette books just
Speaker 1: thought that was what was happening. This retranslation came out
Speaker 1: as the Industrial Revolution and other social and economic changes
Speaker 1: were making it more possible for people to climb the
Speaker 1: social and economic ladders. There's this idea that newly affluent
Speaker 1: people might not know how to act. The preface to
Speaker 1: this seventeen seventy four English edition made it clear that
Speaker 1: Italy was seen as the birthplace of good manners. It
Speaker 1: quote shows to what a degree of refinement, both in
Speaker 1: manners and in literature the Italians were arrived at a
Speaker 1: period when we were just emerging from Gothicism and barbarity.
Speaker 1: It also makes clear that, in the translator's opinion, English
Speaker 1: society has progressed since the work was first written, to
Speaker 1: the point that some of the examples might seem absurd.
Speaker 1: But at the same time he mentions some very gross
Speaker 1: behavior that he's seen from other people, including a man
Speaker 1: spitting so vociferously it startled other people, and a woman
Speaker 1: using her napkin to clean her teeth after dinner, and
Speaker 1: those were points of evidence that a book like Galateo
Speaker 1: was still needed. So we can really sum up this
Speaker 1: book's whole approach to etiquette with this quote quote. It
Speaker 1: is to be observed, then, that whatever is offensive or
Speaker 1: disagreeable to any one of our senses, or contrary to
Speaker 1: our natural instincts and desires, and further, whatever raises in
Speaker 1: our minds an idea of anything filthy or indecent, or
Speaker 1: what shocks our understanding, I say that everything and every
Speaker 1: action of this kind, being as greatly displeasing to others,
Speaker 1: is carefully to be avoided. Nothing therefore, either filthy or
Speaker 1: a modest nauseous or disgusting, ought not only to be done,
Speaker 1: but even mentioned in the presence of others. Some examples
Speaker 1: of things to be avoided finding something stinky and saying
Speaker 1: to the person next to you, smell this, it smells terrible.
Speaker 1: Similarly grinding your teeth, just breathing too loud. I feel
Speaker 1: like I do that one making horrible noises when coughing
Speaker 1: or sneezing, howling like a wolf while yawning, which I
Speaker 1: think we should all adopt, actually expactorating in company, smelling
Speaker 1: glasses of wine or plates of food belonging to other people,
Speaker 1: speaking about vulgar subjects, being profane about God, whether you
Speaker 1: are serious or joking, going on at length about what
Speaker 1: you dreamed about last night, lying arrogance, buffoonery, and giving
Speaker 1: unsolicited advice, especially to people who are not your true
Speaker 1: and intimate friends. Uh. I like how many of these
Speaker 1: are still things that people point out. Uh. Also, Giovanni
Speaker 1: de la Casa sure did not like jingling puns, as
Speaker 1: well as what we might describe today as dad jokes. Quote.
Speaker 1: You will meet also with some people who, for every
Speaker 1: word that is spoken, have some other word without any
Speaker 1: meaning ready at hand by way of jingle. Others who
Speaker 1: will change the syllables in a word in a trifling,
Speaker 1: foolish manner. Others will speak and answer in a different
Speaker 1: manner from what we expected, and that without any wit
Speaker 1: or beauty of thought. As where is thy Lord in
Speaker 1: his clothes unless he is bathing or in bed? How
Speaker 1: does this wine taste a little moist, I think, how
Speaker 1: is this dish to be eaten with your mouth? And
Speaker 1: the like? All which kinds of wit, as you will
Speaker 1: easily apprehend, are low and vulgar. Givanni, I'm with you.
Speaker 1: We talk about that on behind the scenes. An fan
Speaker 1: next up Letters to his son on the Art of
Speaker 1: Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman, by
Speaker 1: Philip Stanhope, fourth Earl of Chesterfield, purported namesake of the
Speaker 1: Chesterfield Sofa. Philip had no children with his wife, but
Speaker 1: he did have two sons, and he wrote a series
Speaker 1: of letters to one of them, also named Philip, starting
Speaker 1: in seventeen thirty seven. The younger Philip died in seventeen
Speaker 1: sixty eight, and a few years later his widow started
Speaker 1: publishing the letters because she really didn't have any other
Speaker 1: source of income. There was also a book that collected
Speaker 1: the parts that were focused on etiquette and combined it
Speaker 1: with other works, which was published as Principles of Politeness
Speaker 1: and of Knowing the World, and that came out in
Speaker 1: seventeen eighty six. I chose this as one of the
Speaker 1: things to talk about in today's episode because it is
Speaker 1: frequently cited as the first use of the word etiquette
Speaker 1: to mean something like rules for polite behavior in English.
Speaker 1: Turns out that doesn't really hold up. Though the word
Speaker 1: etiquette comes from a French word meaning label or ticket,
Speaker 1: and then later this word etiquette was used to describe
Speaker 1: cards or signs that outlined rules for proper conduct at court,
Speaker 1: so that label was sort of a label on the
Speaker 1: wall telling you how to act, and then the word
Speaker 1: etiquette came to describe those rules themselves. The Earl of
Speaker 1: Chesterfield did use the word etiquette in these letters, starting
Speaker 1: with one that he wrote in seventeen fifty, but he
Speaker 1: was talking about those formal protocols, not a more general
Speaker 1: standard of good behavior. Specifically, in that letter he was
Speaker 1: telling the younger Philip to follow the current protocols when
Speaker 1: he met the Pope Nowadays. The Oxford English Dictionary also
Speaker 1: cites an even earlier use of this sense of the
Speaker 1: word etiquette from London Magazine in seventeen thirty seven. Although
Speaker 1: the Earl did not write these letters with the intent
Speaker 1: of their ever being published, it makes a lot of
Speaker 1: sense that they came to be used as an etiquette
Speaker 1: manual once they were. Here's an example from October sixteenth,
Speaker 1: seventeen forty seven quote, Dear boy, the art of pleasing
Speaker 1: is a very necessary one to possess, but a very
Speaker 1: difficult one to acquire. It can hardly be reduced to rules,
Speaker 1: and your own good sense and observation will teach you
Speaker 1: more of it than I can do. As you would
Speaker 1: be done by. Is the surest method that I know
Speaker 1: of pleasing. Observe carefully what pleases you in others, and
Speaker 1: probably the same thing in you will please others. If
Speaker 1: you are pleased with the complaisance and attention of others
Speaker 1: to your humors, your tastes, or your weaknesses depend upon it,
Speaker 1: the same complaisance and attention on your part to theirs
Speaker 1: will equally please them. Take the tone of the company
Speaker 1: that you are in, and do not pretend to give it.
Speaker 1: Be serious, gay, or even trifling as you find the
Speaker 1: present humor of the company. This is an attention due
Speaker 1: from every individual to the majority. There are and hundreds
Speaker 1: of pages of these letters. I mean, this is this
Speaker 1: man's correspondence to his son, going on for many years,
Speaker 1: and as was the case with the Galateo, this was
Speaker 1: written to a man. It's focused on how a man
Speaker 1: should act We are going to get through some other
Speaker 1: works and some works by women that were on etiquette
Speaker 1: after we have a quick sponsor break. A ton of
Speaker 1: etiquette manuals came out in the United States and Europe
Speaker 1: in the nineteenth century, thanks in part to developments in
Speaker 1: printing for a mass market, and of course there were
Speaker 1: huge ongoing social changes related to things like race, gender,
Speaker 1: and class. All this happened before, during, and after the
Speaker 1: US Civil War. Our next book was written in eighteen
Speaker 1: sixty eight and it was published under the pseudonym Daisy Ibright.
Speaker 1: That was really Sophia orn Edwards Johnson. She was born
Speaker 1: in Springfield, Massachusetts, and then later moved to Bath, New Hampshire.
Speaker 1: We don't have a ton of detail about her life,
Speaker 1: but she was married to James H. Johnson, who was
Speaker 1: a colonel in the New Hampshire Militia and also served
Speaker 1: two terms in the House of Representatives. He was more
Speaker 1: than twenty years older than she was and she was
Speaker 1: his second wife and they had three children together. Like
Speaker 1: the younger Philip Stanhope's widow, Johnson turned to etiquette to
Speaker 1: try to earn some money, especially after her husband's lumber
Speaker 1: mill was destroyed in a flood in eighteen sixty nine.
Speaker 1: In addition to her book A Manual of Etiquette with
Speaker 1: Hints on Politeness and Good Breeding, she also wrote books
Speaker 1: on homemaking and gardening, including every Woman Her Own Flower
Speaker 1: Gardener in eighteen seventy one and Household Hints and Recipes
Speaker 1: in eighteen seventy seven, and she published columns on etiquette
Speaker 1: and household tips in newspapers. Here is how she kicked off.
Speaker 1: The preface to this book, quote often speak of good
Speaker 1: manners as an accomplishment. I speak of them as a duty. What, then,
Speaker 1: are good manners? Such manners as the usages of society
Speaker 1: have recognized as being agreeable to men, Such manners as
Speaker 1: may take away rudeness and remit to the brute creation
Speaker 1: of all coarseness. There are a great many who feel
Speaker 1: that good manners are effeminate. They have a feeling that rude,
Speaker 1: bluntness is a great deal more manly than good manners.
Speaker 1: It is a great deal more beastly. But when men
Speaker 1: are crowded in communities, the art of living together is
Speaker 1: no small art. How to diminish friction, how to promote
Speaker 1: ease of intercourse, How to make every part of a
Speaker 1: man's life contribute to the welfare and satisfaction of those
Speaker 1: around him. How to keep down offensive pride, how to
Speaker 1: banish the rasping of selfishness from the intercourse of men,
Speaker 1: How to move among men inspired by various and conflictive motives,
Speaker 1: and yet not how collisions. This is the function of
Speaker 1: good manners. Ebright's opinions on etiquette and manners continued quote
Speaker 1: Etiquette has been defined as a code of laws which
Speaker 1: bind society together, viewless as the wind, and yet exercising
Speaker 1: a vast influence upon the well being of mankind. But
Speaker 1: she writes at the same time, quote good manners are
Speaker 1: not merely conventional rules, but are founded upon reason and
Speaker 1: good sense, and are therefore most worthy of the consideration
Speaker 1: of all. And there are many points of good breeding
Speaker 1: which neither time nor place will ever change, because they
Speaker 1: are founded upon a just regard of man for man.
Speaker 1: Like a lot of nineteenth century writers in the US,
Speaker 1: Daisy Ibright framed etiquette and religion, specifically Christianity, as intrinsically connected,
Speaker 1: and her view bad manners were not just rude, they
Speaker 1: were sinful. She describes the first code of good manners
Speaker 1: as the Epistle of Saint James, and she all so
Speaker 1: describes Philip Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield, as the pattern of
Speaker 1: good breeding, and she includes a couple of quotes from
Speaker 1: his letters in her book. Some of her rules for
Speaker 1: etiquette are more like marriage advice quote nothing can be
Speaker 1: more injurious or inconsistent with true politeness and good breeding
Speaker 1: than the constant habit of fault finding concerning little petty trifles,
Speaker 1: when indulged in by either husband or wife in the
Speaker 1: presence of others, or by themselves. This book also has
Speaker 1: a special section of advice to children, including quote, be polite, respectful,
Speaker 1: and modest to all, and especially to your elders and superiors.
Speaker 1: There is nothing more disgusting than a youth who assumes
Speaker 1: an air of disrespect and self importance toward his superiors, equals,
Speaker 1: or inferiors. This section aimed at children also included quote
Speaker 1: never go up and downstairs or about the house with
Speaker 1: the speed of a trotting horse and the tread of
Speaker 1: an elephant. Step lightly quickly and orderly. There is a
Speaker 1: whole chapter in this book on visits of ceremony, visits
Speaker 1: of condolence, congratulation, and friendship each of which has its
Speaker 1: own code of etiquette. A visit of friendship wouldn't be
Speaker 1: going over to a friends for a dinner party. It's
Speaker 1: the formal visit, to be made afterward as a gesture
Speaker 1: of thanks for having been invited. She talks about rules
Speaker 1: for what should be on your calling card, and that
Speaker 1: if you can't go for a formal visit, you should
Speaker 1: leave a card yourself or send it with a servant
Speaker 1: because quote, it is not well bred to send it
Speaker 1: through the post. She describes these calling cards not just
Speaker 1: as a way of presenting yourself to the person being visited,
Speaker 1: but also as part of letting people know that you're
Speaker 1: going to be out of town. Quote. If previous to
Speaker 1: a long voyage or absence, or on the occasion of
Speaker 1: your marriage, you omit to call or send a card
Speaker 1: to your friends. It is understood that the acquaintance ceases
Speaker 1: when you return home. Those to whom you have sent
Speaker 1: cards or paid visits will pay the visit first to you.
Speaker 1: This book has chapters on etiquette at home, receiving visitors,
Speaker 1: visiting others, table etiquette, dinner parties, evening entertainments, forms of address,
Speaker 1: social intercourse, dress, and marriage Toward the end, there's a
Speaker 1: chapter with advice specific to husbands, wives, old bachelors, and
Speaker 1: old maids, and a final brief poem called good Advice
Speaker 1: to Everybody, which reads quote, if Wisdom's ways you wisely
Speaker 1: seek five things observed, with care of whom you speak,
Speaker 1: to whom you speak, and how and when and where
Speaker 1: quaint this very Although it was written after the end
Speaker 1: of the US Civil War during the period of reconstruction,
Speaker 1: Daisy Eyebright's a manual of etiquette with hints on politeness
Speaker 1: and good breeding, makes almost no mention of race. Although
Speaker 1: it's presented as though it's rules of etiquette apply to everyone,
Speaker 1: there's kind of an implicit assumption that the person reading
Speaker 1: it is white. The only specific mentions of anybody else
Speaker 1: are references to people doing things differently from what she
Speaker 1: considers typical of Americans, with Americans here meaning white, middle
Speaker 1: and upper class Christian Americans. It's clear that she just
Speaker 1: sort of sees this as the default. This is one
Speaker 1: of the ways that etiquette can be really fraught. There
Speaker 1: is often this underlying assumption that there's one right way
Speaker 1: of doing things that applies to everybody, without really acknowledging
Speaker 1: all the nuances that exist among people of different cultures
Speaker 1: and races and genders and classes and et cetera. This
Speaker 1: means that rules for etiquette can really easily be used
Speaker 1: to marginalize people outside of a society's dominant cultural group,
Speaker 1: and have been used and are still used actively to
Speaker 1: marginalize people. The next book that we're talking about is
Speaker 1: The National Capital Code of Etiquette, which was published in
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty, and it's almost the opposite. It's aware of
Speaker 1: race from the beginning. Its author, Edward S. Green, was
Speaker 1: a government employee living in Washington, D C. In nineteen twenty,
Speaker 1: about twenty five percent of the capital city's residence were black.
Speaker 1: Green's publisher, Austin Jenkins Company, produced quote Bibles and special
Speaker 1: books for the Colored race by Negro authors. The publisher's
Speaker 1: note at the beginning ends with quote, we consider it
Speaker 1: a great pleasure and are especial privilege to respectfully dedicate
Speaker 1: this volume to the Colored race. The author's preface also
Speaker 1: starts with an anecdote about George Washington. In this anecdote,
Speaker 1: he bows and raises his hat to two black laborers
Speaker 1: after they had done the same to him, and then
Speaker 1: when a friend that he was with, said that it
Speaker 1: was undignified for him to have returned these laborers salute.
Speaker 1: George Washington answered, quote, do you suppose I ever want
Speaker 1: to think that he had better manners than I did?
Speaker 1: Various elements of the story are very cringey to me.
Speaker 1: And then the preface went on to say, quote, thus
Speaker 1: spoke the perfect gentleman, kindly consideration of our inferiors, as
Speaker 1: well as deference to our superiors as one of the
Speaker 1: first rudiments of good manners. But this book is not
Speaker 1: about how black people should interact with white society. Its
Speaker 1: audience is Washington, DC's black middle class and the rules
Speaker 1: for behavior within that society. And a lot of the
Speaker 1: actual rules parallel the ones in the books that we've
Speaker 1: already discussed, like quote, first, you know what displeases or
Speaker 1: angers you personally avoid all such words or actions in
Speaker 1: your contact with others. After a little bit about not
Speaker 1: monopolizing conversations, this part of the book continues quote, Third,
Speaker 1: strive to please study your friends and acquaintances. If they
Speaker 1: have hobbies, encourage them to talk about their specialty. This
Speaker 1: all sounds very familiar. Yeah, a lot like the things
Speaker 1: that we've just talked about, even though the rules them
Speaker 1: them selves are often similar, though the racial context of
Speaker 1: this book adds some additional nuances. Public schools and recreation
Speaker 1: facilities in Washington, d C. Were segregated, and after being
Speaker 1: inaugurated as president in nineteen thirteen, Woodrow Wilson had empowered
Speaker 1: his administration to segregate the federal workforce. Black workers in Washington,
Speaker 1: d C. Were increasingly forced into lower wage jobs and
Speaker 1: barred from opportunities that were open to their white coworkers.
Speaker 1: So while this book doesn't explicitly mention race after the preface,
Speaker 1: it's really threaded through with layers of things like respectability, politics,
Speaker 1: and a sense of racial uplift. Here's what Edward S.
Speaker 1: Green says about dressing for the types of formal visits
Speaker 1: that Daisy Ebright also covered in her book. Quote. In
Speaker 1: making formal calls, the lady does not remove her gloves, hat,
Speaker 1: or veil. A gentleman may carry his hat into the room.
Speaker 1: If wearing gloves, the right should be removed and held
Speaker 1: in the lane left gloved hand during the call. And
Speaker 1: here are his thoughts on dancing. Quote. The author has
Speaker 1: seen these spasmodic revolutions of the dancing public come and
Speaker 1: go for many years, but the custom invariably returns to
Speaker 1: the dreamy waltz, the more conservative dances, and the sane
Speaker 1: orchestra sooner or later. Unless at least seven musicians are employed,
Speaker 1: a drum is not only superfluous, it is an abomination.
Speaker 1: Since this book was published in nineteen twenty, it was
Speaker 1: able to include photographs. Unlike the earlier books that we've
Speaker 1: talked about. There are pictures of the social settings that
Speaker 1: were being described, examples of well dressed people in the like.
Speaker 1: One thing that stands out is that most of the
Speaker 1: people in these pictures have relatively light skin. While the
Speaker 1: idea of racial uplift was theoretically focused on lifting up
Speaker 1: black people as a whole, in reality there was a
Speaker 1: lot of colorism, with people with lighter skin being seen
Speaker 1: as the best examples of the race. Yes. This book
Speaker 1: also includes a lengthy section on writing letters, and it
Speaker 1: includes examples of letters for all kinds of different purposes,
Speaker 1: like there is a sample letter for a man who
Speaker 1: wants to propose to a woman in writing because he's
Speaker 1: either too timid to do it in spoken words, or
Speaker 1: just feels better able to express himself in writing, than
Speaker 1: there are examples of how she could write back to him,
Speaker 1: either accepting his proposal or turning it down. Then there's
Speaker 1: another example of his letter to her father asking for
Speaker 1: his permission to get married, followed by examples of letters
Speaker 1: from the father answering yes or no. There are some
Speaker 1: sample letters in some of the other books that we
Speaker 1: were talking about today, but there are quite a lot
Speaker 1: of them in this one, and that makes a lot
Speaker 1: of sense considering that this book was written a couple
Speaker 1: of generations after the abolition of slavery in the United States,
Speaker 1: Literacy rates in black communities were still recovering from laws
Speaker 1: had prohibited enslaved people and sometimes free black people from
Speaker 1: learning to read and write. Yeah, literacy rates had improved
Speaker 1: a lot within black communities, but there were still big
Speaker 1: disparities between black communities and white communities, and then within
Speaker 1: the black community there were disparities by age groups, with
Speaker 1: much younger people generally more often able to read, and
Speaker 1: older people. Maybe not. After we take a quick sponsor break,
Speaker 1: we are going to talk about one of the more
Speaker 1: famous American etiquette books. When I started thinking about this episode,
Speaker 1: which I usually say at the beginning, we usually pick
Speaker 1: six things, or I usually pick six things that for
Speaker 1: whatever reason can't stand on their own. This one really
Speaker 1: probably could the thing that we're going to talk about next,
Speaker 1: but I'm including it for reasons that I'm about to say.
Speaker 1: My original intent was that we would talk about some
Speaker 1: etiquette books that were fairly evenly distributed from the sixteenth century,
Speaker 1: when the focus of these books started to shift from
Speaker 1: like courtly protocols to more general rules of good behavior,
Speaker 1: up to sometime in the early twentieth century, when we
Speaker 1: get to the end of things being in the public
Speaker 1: domain so we can quote from them however much we want.
Speaker 1: I wound up, though, with more stuff from the early
Speaker 1: twentieth century than I really had originally intended to, and
Speaker 1: one reason was that it seemed like it would just
Speaker 1: be weird to not touch on any of the more
Speaker 1: famous names in etiquette, like Emily Post. Emily Post was
Speaker 1: a real person born Emily Price in Baltimore, Maryland, in
Speaker 1: October of eighteen seventy two. She was from a very
Speaker 1: well off family. She went to private school. She had
Speaker 1: a formal society debut, and she started writing after she
Speaker 1: and her husband divorced. Once her children were in school.
Speaker 1: In addition to her works on etiquette, she wrote about
Speaker 1: things like architecture and interior design. Her father was a
Speaker 1: well known architect. She also wrote novels and stories, many
Speaker 1: of which were published serially in magazines. Her nineteen twenty
Speaker 1: two book Etiquette in Society, in Business, in Politics, and
Speaker 1: at Home is what she became most famous for. There
Speaker 1: have been lots and lots of subsequent editions of this book,
Speaker 1: revised and updated according to the changing social norms, including
Speaker 1: a centennial edition that came out in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 1: She eventually founded the Emily Post Institute, which is still
Speaker 1: a family business that is still run by her descendants
Speaker 1: and their spouses, to kind of carry on her work
Speaker 1: in the field of etiquette. That original nineteen twenty two
Speaker 1: work is in the public domain now, and a lot
Speaker 1: of the basic standards of etiquette it contains are again
Speaker 1: right in line with the earlier works we've been talking about.
Speaker 1: There are chapters on greetings, public gatherings, conversation, cards and visits, dinners, dances, weddings,
Speaker 1: and manners at home and abroad. There are also examples
Speaker 1: of letters and which styles of envelope are in good
Speaker 1: and bad taste. The diagrams of envelope shapes that are
Speaker 1: in poor taste kind of cracked me up. This book
Speaker 1: became an enormous bestseller. It went through almost ninety printings
Speaker 1: and ten revisions before she died in nineteen sixty. It's
Speaker 1: also seemingly exhaustive, clocking in at thirty eight chapters and
Speaker 1: six hundred and twenty seven pages, including an index that
Speaker 1: is about three times long or even longer than all
Speaker 1: the other books that we've talked about so far, with
Speaker 1: the exception of the Earl of Chesterfield's letters, which like
Speaker 1: that was years and years of personal correspondence that he
Speaker 1: had never intended to have published as a book. As
Speaker 1: a side note, Lord Chesterfield is again name dropped several
Speaker 1: times in this book. This book is also very specific,
Speaker 1: like here's what to say when introduced quote best Society
Speaker 1: has only one phrase and acknowledgment of an introduction, how
Speaker 1: do you do it? Literally accepts no other. When mister
Speaker 1: Bachelor says missus Worldley, may I present mister Struthers, Missus
Speaker 1: Worldley says, how do you do? Struthers bows and says
Speaker 1: nothing to sweetly echo mister Struthers with a rising inflection
Speaker 1: on theirs is not good form. Saccerin chirpings should be
Speaker 1: classed with crooked little fingers, high handshaking, and other affectations.
Speaker 1: All affectations are bad form. Persons of position do not
Speaker 1: say charmed or please to meet you, et cetera. But
Speaker 1: often the first remark is the beginning of a conversation.
Speaker 1: For instance, young Struthers is presented to Missus Worldley. She
Speaker 1: smiles and perhaps says, I hear that you are going
Speaker 1: to be in New York all winter. Struthers answers, yes,
Speaker 1: I am at the Columbia Law School, et cetera. Or
Speaker 1: since he is much younger than she, he might answer yes,
Speaker 1: Missus Worldly, especially if his answer would otherwise be a
Speaker 1: kurt yes or no. Otherwise he does not continue repeating
Speaker 1: her name. The idea of best society which Polly said
Speaker 1: at the very beginning of that quote that was at
Speaker 1: the heart of this whole book quote, society is an
Speaker 1: ambiguous term. It may mean much or nothing. Every human being,
Speaker 1: unless dwelling alone in a cave, is a member of
Speaker 1: society of one sort or another. And therefore it is
Speaker 1: well to define what it is to be understood by
Speaker 1: the term best society and why its authority is recognized.
Speaker 1: Best society abroad is always the oldest aristocracy, composed not
Speaker 1: so much of persons of title, which may be new,
Speaker 1: as of those families and communities which have, for the
Speaker 1: longest period of time known the highest cultivation. Our own
Speaker 1: best society is represented by social groups which have had,
Speaker 1: since this is America widest rather than the longest, association
Speaker 1: with old world cultivation. Cultivation is always the basic attribute
Speaker 1: of best society, much as we hear in this country
Speaker 1: of an aristocracy of wealth. In addition to spelling out
Speaker 1: that in her mind, the best society in the US
Speaker 1: is the people who have the widest association with old
Speaker 1: world cultivation. This book is underpinned by the idea that
Speaker 1: its readers have money. On the one hand, it frames
Speaker 1: good manners is something that everyone can aspire to. On
Speaker 1: the other, there are so many references to maids and
Speaker 1: servants and secretaries and housekeepers and butlers. One theory on
Speaker 1: why this book became so popular is that it gave
Speaker 1: everyone else a glimpse into the inner workings and manners
Speaker 1: of high society, full of fictionalized depictions of good breeding
Speaker 1: with names like missus kindheart and mister worldly. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: kind of cracked up at how often it was like,
Speaker 1: and you can just send your secretary to do this.
Speaker 1: It's like, my, what so easy? Uh? Personally, I found
Speaker 1: Emily Posts nineteen twenty two Etiquette to be way more
Speaker 1: overwhelming than any of the earlier books we have talked about.
Speaker 1: The basic idea of etiquette is pretty similar across all
Speaker 1: the books, like it's a way to try to make
Speaker 1: society better, try to make other people comfortable, and don't
Speaker 1: act like a jerk. It was not until I got
Speaker 1: to Emily Post's work that I started to feel worried
Speaker 1: about messing up all kinds of very particular little rules.
Speaker 1: Like that whole passage that Holly read about greeting people
Speaker 1: really stressed me out. This book also felt judgier to
Speaker 1: me than a lot of the other works we have
Speaker 1: talked about today. As one example, there is a section
Speaker 1: on pronunciation, inherently a stressful subject to me, and it
Speaker 1: starts quote, a gentleman of Irish blood may have a
Speaker 1: brogue as rich as plumcake, or another's accent be soft
Speaker 1: Southern or flat newingand or rolling Western, And to each
Speaker 1: of these the utterance of the others may sound too flat,
Speaker 1: too soft, too harsh, to refined or drawled or clipped, short,
Speaker 1: but not uncultivated. The sounds almost like it's acknowledging that
Speaker 1: all these different accents can have a place in her
Speaker 1: best society. But then the next paragraph names the quote
Speaker 1: cultivated Englishmen as nearest to perfection in English, before describing
Speaker 1: the accents of New York, Boston, the South, and Pennsylvania
Speaker 1: in a way that came off to me as very insulting.
Speaker 1: I can't wait to talk about Emily Post on Friday.
Speaker 1: Oh our last Etiquette book for today is Emily Post's
Speaker 1: biggest competitor in the nineteen twenties, Lillian Eichler later Lillian
Speaker 1: Eichler Watson. We've been going chronologically up to now, but
Speaker 1: the copyright on her two volume Etiquette is from nineteen
Speaker 1: twenty one, so that's a year before Emily Posts book.
Speaker 1: I really wanted to do a full episode on Lillian
Speaker 1: Eichler a while back, but I just could not find
Speaker 1: enough information to make it work, which is one of
Speaker 1: the reasons why sometimes I do six impossible episodes. Lillian
Speaker 1: Eichler was the daughter of Jewish immigrants from Hungary and
Speaker 1: she liked to write. At the age of eighteen, she
Speaker 1: got a job at an advertising agency on the strength
Speaker 1: of that writing. She really did not have much formal
Speaker 1: education or any experience beyond that. She basically showed them
Speaker 1: a sample and then they hired her. The advertising agency
Speaker 1: was Ruth, Ralph and Ryan and one of its clients
Speaker 1: was Doubleday Publishing. Lillian was tasked with writing an ad
Speaker 1: to help double Day sell through a backlog of an
Speaker 1: etiquette manual by Emily Holt. She wrote an ad about
Speaker 1: spilling coffee on a tablecloth and not knowing what to do,
Speaker 1: sort of like, has this ever happened to you? You
Speaker 1: could protect yourself from this kind of mortification with this
Speaker 1: book on etiquette. And this ad worked really, really well,
Speaker 1: and people bought the book, but a lot of them
Speaker 1: returned it because it was a reprint of an older
Speaker 1: book and at this point its advice was really out
Speaker 1: of date. So then Eichler wrote a new two volume
Speaker 1: book of etiquette. Volume one of this book included Etiquette
Speaker 1: for engagements, weddings, funerals and Christenings, Letters, correspondents and calling cards,
Speaker 1: and Etiquette for parents and Children. And then volume two
Speaker 1: included servants, dinners, luncheons, teas, dancing, games, and etiquette for
Speaker 1: things like business, theater, hotels, and travel and also like
Speaker 1: pretty much everyone in this episode, it references the work
Speaker 1: of Lord Chesterfield. Eichler wrote the advertising campaign for these
Speaker 1: books as well. The most famous ad in this campaign
Speaker 1: ran under the headline again she Orders a Chicken Salad Please,
Speaker 1: which told a story of a young woman who wanted
Speaker 1: to impress a man on a date, but didn't know
Speaker 1: how to pronounce the French words on the restaurant menu
Speaker 1: or how to con verse with them, so she just
Speaker 1: kept ordering chicken salad and all that folded in on
Speaker 1: itself to make her feel graceless and awkward. Another full
Speaker 1: page ad that Eichler wrote for this book had the
Speaker 1: headline are you haunted by the ghosts of your social mistakes?
Speaker 1: Both ads noted that etiquette is the armor to protect
Speaker 1: yourself from such embarrassments. I'd find are you Haunted by
Speaker 1: the ghosts of your social mistakes? Just profoundly effective, Because yes, Lillian,
Speaker 1: I am. I am haunted by them all the time. Uh.
Speaker 1: As we said earlier, Lillian Eichler was Emily Post's biggest
Speaker 1: competitor in the nineteen twenties. Eichler's Book of Etiquette sold
Speaker 1: two million copies, and it was revised and reprinted. Her
Speaker 1: tone was generally a lot more casual and conversational than
Speaker 1: than Emily Posts. Eichler started it off quote, success without
Speaker 1: culture is like old fashioned strawberry shortcake without the whipped cream.
Speaker 1: It has no flavor. There are certain little courteous of deservances,
Speaker 1: certain social formalities that bespeak the true lady, the true gentleman.
Speaker 1: Some of us call it good form some of us
Speaker 1: call it culture, some of us call it etiquette. But
Speaker 1: we all admit that it makes the world a better
Speaker 1: place to live in. A bit later in the introduction,
Speaker 1: she wrote, quote, too rigid an observance of the laws
Speaker 1: of good society makes them nothing short of an absurdity.
Speaker 1: The purpose of correct manners is not to enable us
Speaker 1: to strut about in society and command the admiring glances
Speaker 1: of the people around us, as the peacock in its
Speaker 1: vanity parades before onlookers in a proud dignity that is
Speaker 1: quite obviously assumed. The true service of etiquette is so
Speaker 1: to strengthen and simplify this social life that we are
Speaker 1: able to do what is absolutely correct and write without
Speaker 1: even stopping to think about it. I like any book
Speaker 1: from one hundred years ago and all the other books
Speaker 1: we've been talking about today, parts of this are pretty
Speaker 1: backward by today's standards. Like she acknowledges that a lot
Speaker 1: more women were making their way into the world of business,
Speaker 1: and that was something that she praised. But here is
Speaker 1: some of what she had to say about women in
Speaker 1: the workplace quote, it took many centuries of hammering before
Speaker 1: the portals of business and industry and art were thrown
Speaker 1: wide open to women. Now that it has happened, it
Speaker 1: is her duty and pride to conduct herself in such
Speaker 1: a way that there can be no regrets and vain
Speaker 1: longings for the return of the woman of yesterday. By
Speaker 1: her manner and her dress, a woman determines her place,
Speaker 1: and the women who are careless of their appearance and
Speaker 1: careless of their standard are the ones who are hindering
Speaker 1: the progress of women toward the goal of perfect womanhood.
Speaker 1: When she enters business, she must realize that she is
Speaker 1: on an equal footing with men, and she should not
Speaker 1: demand or expect privileges simply because she is a woman.
Speaker 1: What she does and says and whares during the hours
Speaker 1: of her social life is entirely distinct from her business life,
Speaker 1: though of course she is always courteous, however hard it
Speaker 1: may be sometimes to control herself under the grinding of
Speaker 1: the routine work at the office. Her advice on tipping
Speaker 1: could have been written today, although her assertion is that
Speaker 1: it was a European custom and not an American one,
Speaker 1: and that's missing some big nuance. While tipping was introduced
Speaker 1: to the US from Europe, it became widespread in the
Speaker 1: United States after the Civil War when employers hired free
Speaker 1: black people for low wages and then encouraged patrons to
Speaker 1: tip them for good service. In her advice, Eichler wrote, quote,
Speaker 1: while the custom is observed as widely in this country
Speaker 1: as it is today, it is both inconsiderate and bad
Speaker 1: form to ignore it. The wages of waiters and waitresses, porters,
Speaker 1: and hotel servants are outrageously small for the reason that
Speaker 1: they receive tips for each service they performed for individual
Speaker 1: guests and travelers. If the tipping custom were abolished, the
Speaker 1: wages of these people would be correspondingly increased, but as
Speaker 1: things are now, it is inconsiderate to deprive them of
Speaker 1: the tips that both they and their employers expect that
Speaker 1: they will receive. On the other hand, though she describes
Speaker 1: lavish tipping as vulgar, I don't agree with her there.
Speaker 1: I don't either. Mind your own business, Lilian, Yeah. Lillian
Speaker 1: Eichler Watson continued to write about etiquette and other topics
Speaker 1: almost up until her death on June twenty fifth, nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy nine. She hit married Tobias F. Watson in nineteen
Speaker 1: twenty eight. They'd had two children together, but she had
Speaker 1: not turned her work into something of an etiquette empire
Speaker 1: that kept her name going and her recognition going after
Speaker 1: her death the way Emily post did. I have lots
Speaker 1: of feelings about him etiquette, and I think Holly has
Speaker 1: responded to a number of things in this episode too,
Speaker 1: so we'll be talking about all that more on Friday.
Speaker 1: Do you have listener mail for us? I also have
Speaker 1: some listener mail for us. This is from Lisa. This
Speaker 1: is another another message following our episode on Rebecca Lee
Speaker 1: Crumpler and Lisa wrote, Hi, Tracy and Holly from a
Speaker 1: very wet and windy Dublin, Ireland. I was thrilled to
Speaker 1: hear your recent episode on doctress Rebecca Lee Crumpler, as
Speaker 1: I used to work as an archivist at the Drexel
Speaker 1: University Med School Archives in Philadelphia, and immediately knew exactly
Speaker 1: what you're going to say about the medal with the
Speaker 1: mystery date, since that was my first introduction to her
Speaker 1: when a researcher asked for a copy of the photo
Speaker 1: of the medal many years ago. I even more thoroughly
Speaker 1: enjoyed the behind the scenes mini episode and was practically
Speaker 1: shouting my answers to your questions about the Black Women
Speaker 1: Physicians project begun by Margaret Jaredo back in the nineteen eighties.
Speaker 1: I managed to keep the dialogue internal, though, as I
Speaker 1: didn't think the good people of Sheffield, where I was
Speaker 1: for the weekend, would appreciate a mud covered American. I
Speaker 1: had just finished an especially mucky parkrun, enthusing loudly about
Speaker 1: the collection on their buses. So finally I can share
Speaker 1: my thoughts here. First, a bit of background on the
Speaker 1: archives as a whole. They held the papers of the
Speaker 1: former Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania and Hannaman University. It's
Speaker 1: a bit ironic that the two came together as Drexel
Speaker 1: University College of Medicine, as the former was one of
Speaker 1: the first in the United States to admit women, and
Speaker 1: Hannaman was one of the very last to do so,
Speaker 1: although Women's med started admitting men and became simply the
Speaker 1: Medical College of Pennsylvania in nineteen seventy. Without getting too
Speaker 1: far off topic, the Hanneman side of the collection is
Speaker 1: also a fascinating look at the history of homeopathy, although
Speaker 1: that focus had been largely dropped by the school by
Speaker 1: the nineteen twenties, partially because of the earlier Flexner report
Speaker 1: which you mentioned, but because of its earlier grounding. In
Speaker 1: that approach, there is a Paracelsus collection of rare books
Speaker 1: more people should know about, but that's a story for
Speaker 1: another time. Back to the Black Women's Physician Project. Margaret
Speaker 1: Jaredo began the work relatively early in her career. She
Speaker 1: later went on to work at to University as an
Speaker 1: archivist and still consults with the Mother Bethel Ame Church Archives.
Speaker 1: Jaredo created what archivists call an artificial collection, pulling together
Speaker 1: items from across the Drexel med Archives and I've spent
Speaker 1: a goodly amount of time with those boxes. It's often
Speaker 1: the first place to look when a researcher needs anything
Speaker 1: relating to Black women in medicine, whether they attended Women's
Speaker 1: Med or any of its descendant institutions or not. It's
Speaker 1: essentially an analog starting to point to other parts of
Speaker 1: the collection, or indeed to others elsewhere. It was an
Speaker 1: initiative very much ahead of its time and is hugely valuable.
Speaker 1: Of course, the rest of the collection is also amazing.
Speaker 1: Other early black women doctors who did graduate from Women's
Speaker 1: Med include Rebecca Cole and Eliza Grier. Lisa points to
Speaker 1: some blog posts and says that they're a little too
Speaker 1: old now to count as self promotion. Eliza Greer had
Speaker 1: a heartbreakingly difficult journey to becoming a doctor and a
Speaker 1: tragically early death, all to commonist story for many early
Speaker 1: women doc There's a letter in her file from Susan B. Anthony,
Speaker 1: essentially asking for someone else to offer her some assistance.
Speaker 1: There's also a great online collection on the question of
Speaker 1: whether doctor or doctress was the most appropriate title. There
Speaker 1: were certainly opinions among these early physicians supporting both views.
Speaker 1: But in short, it's an amazing collection to visit, and
Speaker 1: still the friendliest place I've ever worked. Everyone goes above
Speaker 1: and beyond to support researchers of all sorts and to
Speaker 1: make sure that these women's stories are told. If you
Speaker 1: ever do visit, you can see Harriet the preserved nervous
Speaker 1: system of probably Harriet Cole, although with all the caveats
Speaker 1: we would now have today about informed consent or its
Speaker 1: historical absence. Apologies for this being so long, but it's
Speaker 1: a place and team I remember with such fondness, and
Speaker 1: the care for the collections and drive for accessibility is
Speaker 1: second to none. I am, of course also attaching a
Speaker 1: picture of our two cats, Ruby the Devin Rex who
Speaker 1: has made a previous listener mail appearance on a letter
Speaker 1: from my husband about of all things turnips, and Ginger
Speaker 1: the Tory. Both are tearing around the house right now.
Speaker 1: They are the best colleagues anyone could have for working
Speaker 1: at home. As always a great listen Lisa, ps. I
Speaker 1: must always make more people aware of Doctor Euthanasia Med
Speaker 1: WMCP class of eighteen sixty nine, later the personal physician
Speaker 1: of Sarah Winchester of so called Mystery House fame, and
Speaker 1: her graduate thesis. It is a triumph of nominative determinism.
Speaker 1: Please enjoy, Lisa. So thank you so much, Lisa for
Speaker 1: all of this. I received this, I think mere minutes
Speaker 1: before we read or before we went into the studio
Speaker 1: to record last Tuesday. I wanted to note a couple
Speaker 1: of things besides just saying thank you so much for this.
Speaker 1: One is that there was also there's also a lot
Speaker 1: in the Boston University School of Medicine history that is
Speaker 1: about homeopathy. I did not get into any of that
Speaker 1: in that episode at all because it felt sort of
Speaker 1: tangential to what we were talking about. But there are
Speaker 1: a lot of medical schools in the US that, like
Speaker 1: late nineteenth early twentieth century, we're very focused on homeopathy.
Speaker 1: And I also loved hearing sort of another perspective on
Speaker 1: this collection, sort of the perspective of someone who has
Speaker 1: worked there versus the perspective of some students accessing the collection.
Speaker 1: And of course to incredibly cute cats sitting on some stairs,
Speaker 1: magical deaf and Rex Baby looking a little startled cutie pies.
Speaker 1: So thank you so much for this, Lisa. If you
Speaker 1: would like to send us a note about this, or
Speaker 1: any other podcast. We're at history Podcasts at iHeartRadio dot com,
Speaker 1: and we're all over social media at Misson History. I
Speaker 1: say all over. It's kind of all. It's like there's
Speaker 1: the ex that used to be Twitter. There's Facebook, there
Speaker 1: is Instagram. We put up our new show announcements there.
Speaker 1: And you can subscribe to our show on the iHeartRadio
Speaker 1: app or wherever else you'd like to get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: Stuff you missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.