Page 17 - Copshaholm Curriculum Book_2015

Introduction to 19th Century Etiquette

The 19th Century was a time of tremendous social and economic flux. The
Industrial Revolution created a consumer economy and a huge middle class with the
means of purchasing consumer goods. This new middle class felt that they had arrived
at a higher social plane of existence. The social norms of the farm and the tenement
would not do for the family of a man who had made his way in the world.

The new middle class wanted to purchase appropriate manners, just as they
could purchase fashionable homes, stylish clothing or the latest domestic gadget. From
the 1850s on, the market was flooded with etiquette books which laid out to people who
had never been exposed to such things, the rules of Apolite society.@

Ironically, these rules were based upon the norms of the 18th Century aristocratic
society which the middle class had supplanted and rendered obsolete.

These changes were taking place throughout the European and American world,
but in America, an additional dynamic was present. 19th Century Americans were
keenly aware of the uniqueness of their democratic institutions and society, and many
saw the manners of Apolite society@ as contrary to the egalitarian nature of America.
Hifalutin manners were a thing of the decadent Old World.

This often manifested itself in loud, coarse and rough behavior and downright
rudenessBespecially on the part of the have-nots towards the haves. This was
particularly prevalent in behavior towards the English. An English accent could pretty
much ensure a rough reception from an American working man. Anyone, however, who
wore a top hat had to be ready to patiently endure the AI=m as good a man as you@
reception he would get from every white porter, cab driver, sailor and ditch digger he
might encounter.

There was a gradual shift here however. As the century wore on, the norms of
the middle class diffused throughout society, and Acoarse behavior@ became far less the
norm in 1900 than it was in 1800. By the 20th Century, a watered down version of
middle class manners had become the property of the entire society, which led in the
years following the First World War, to a general informalization of manners, with
Victorian notions of social ritual being tossed out in favor of a more Amodern@ and less
clearly delineated approach to behavior.

The manner of the 19th Century, as expressed in etiquette books, does contain
many elaborate social rituals which seem a bit quaint to us moderns, but the vast
majority of their space is devoted to what would seem to be common sense rules like
ADon=t chew with your mouth open@ or ADon=t interrupt people.@ Two things may be
drawn from this. First, there must have been a lot of people back then (just as there are
today) who lacked Acommon courtesy@ and needed to be told such things, and second,
if you wish to portray a refined 19th Century American, just do the things your mamma
taught you, and you are more than halfway there already.