SOURCE: Halttunen, Karen. “Sentimental Culture and the Problem of Etiquette.” In Confidence Men and Painted Women: A Study of Middle-Class Culture in America, 1830-1870, pp. 92-123. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1982.

[In the following excerpt, Halttunen suggests that in the early nineteenth century, the ideology of manners had changed in America—largely due to the publication and influence of English Lord Chesterfield's Letters to His Son—from demonstrations of gracious consideration of others, to a rather self-centered cultivation of an appearance of good breeding. Halttunen stresses that the central difficulty of etiquette is that its stringent rules of behavior made sincerity difficult.]

In the decades after 1830, etiquette, like fashionable dress, was becoming a powerful force shaping the social life of the American middle-class parlor. The social stamp of success was that elusive quality of gentility which aspiring middle-class men and especially women sought to achieve by studying the art of politeness. Between 1830 and 1860, approximately seventy American etiquette manuals were published, many of which went through several editions; and European visitors such as Francis Grund and Harriet Martineau observed that the urban middle classes were inordinately conscious of polite social usage.¹ But the encroachments of formal etiquette in parlor society, like those of fashionable dress, did not proceed unresisted. During the years when Godey's Lady's Book was delivering its attack on the hypocrisy of fashionable dress, the many guides to polite conduct were setting forth a similar critique of fashion. For the bourgeois “civilizing process,” as Norbert Elias has pointed out, demanded of the would-be genteel a virtually flawless physical and emotional self-restraint, and that self-restraint was at odds with the sentimental ideal of transparently sincere self-expression.² To the sentimental mind, a gentleman's or a lady's perfect outward command of the laws of polite self-control could be the disguise behind which lurked an evil heart. Those archetypal parlor hypocrites, the confidence man and the painted woman, were masters of the false art of etiquette: their artificial manners were assumed merely to dazzle and deceive an ingenuous audience. Sentimental critics of middle-class culture feared that etiquette, like fashion, was poisoning American society with hypocrisy.

In response to this new threat, many arbiters of parlor conduct set forth the sentimental ideal of politeness. True courtesy, they insisted, was not a matter of outward rules and ceremonies; it was simply the outpouring of right feelings from a right heart. Sentimental courtesy, like sentimental dress, was to serve as the transparent revelation of the soul and thus was to help restore truth and social confidence to American society by putting an end to the parlor confidence game of false etiquette. But how was this ideal of transparent courtesy to be reconciled with the rigorous demands of the civilizing process? The conflict between sentimental sincerity and genteel self-restraint was resolved in what I have called the genteel performance, a system of polite conduct that demanded a flawless self-discipline practiced within an apparently easy, natural, sincere manner. At the center of the genteel performance was an important contradiction: the contents of polite social intercourse, as perceived by sentimentalists, were natural and sincere feelings; but the forms of polite conduct, as evidenced in the detailed complexity of the laws of etiquette, were deliberate and restrained. The sentimental proponents of true courtesy did not recognize this inconsistency within their system of polite conduct. In fact, they unconsciously structured the genteel performance to shore up the polite fiction that the courtesy of those ladies and gentlemen who adhered to the hundreds of rules governing parlor conduct sprang from right feelings and not out of the painstaking study of etiquette manuals. Ironically, the ultimate effect of the genteel performance was to formalize the sentimental ideal of sincerity in the accepted norms of polite conduct. Just as the sentimental ideal of dress had encouraged the eventual middle-class acceptance of fashion, the sentimental ideal of courtesy permitted the American middle classes to practice the self-conscious and theatrical forms of bourgeois etiquette—in the avowed interest of transparent sincerity.

Colonial Americans before 1775 read etiquette books from the two major traditions of seventeenth-century English courtesy literature. Southern planters, striving to model their conduct on the English landed gentry, read works from the courtly tradition such as Henry Peacham's The Compleat Gentleman and Richard Allestree's The Whole Duty of Man, which emphasized the traditional ideals of Christian chivalry: nobility, valor, probity, piety. Northern merchants, professionals, and tradesmen, on the other hand, imported English courtesy manuals in the moralistic tradition of Erasmus of Rotterdam and Sir Walter Raleigh, books such as The Friendly Instructor and Hester M. Chapone's Letters on the Improvement of the Mind.³ The more substantial classes in both the South and the North generally approved of a graded social class system, but prevailing standards of gentility dictated that invidious class distinctions be softened with polite kindliness: “The gentleman's function was not so much to insist upon social distinctions as to humanize them, alleviating the harshness of rank by a gracious deference on the one hand and a kindly condescension on the other.”⁴ Both the courtly tradition of the South and the moralistic tradition of the North tended to equate manners with morals, and morals with religion.

By the late eighteenth century, the moral emphasis of American etiquette was yielding to the striking popularity of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son, first published in 1774. At a time when the polite world was expanding to include those who could buy privileges once reserved for noblemen by birth, Chesterfield adapted the older humanistic ideal of courtly behavior to the demands of the ambitious middle classes. Chesterfield's concept of good breeding was based on consideration not for others, but for oneself. Morality, while it might facilitate the display of good breeding, was not his main concern; self-interest demanded only the pleasing polish of manner. Dissimulation, according to Chesterfield, was essential to self-advancement, and he instructed his son to cultivate merely the outward appearances of good breeding. Unexpurgated, Chesterfield's Letters aroused the indignation of many Americans: Abigail Adams, for one, criticized him severely for “inculcateing the most immoral, pernicious and Libertine principals into the mind of a youth” while teaching him “to wear the outward garb of virtue.”⁵ But American publishers were soon editing their own versions of Chesterfield's work, which left out his greatest improprieties, especially those concerning women. By 1806, thirty-one editions of Chesterfield had been published in America; within the next decade, six new editions came out; and in 1827, The American Chesterfield “fully naturalized” the work of this eighteenth-century British Machiavelli.⁶

The growing popularity of Chesterfield's work reflected a significant change in the class basis of the courtesy ideal. The American Revolution and the rise of Jacksonian Democracy had helped undermine the hierarchical structure of the colonial social system and had thus transformed the American meaning of gentility. As Arthur M. Schlesinger has observed, the Jacksonian passion for equality was expressed not in the view that gentlemen should cease to be, but in the idea that now any man could become a gentleman.⁷ As one manual proclaimed, “In this free land, there are no political distinctions, and the only social ones depend upon character and manners. We have no privileged classes, no titled nobility, and every man has the right, and should have the ambition to be a gentleman—certainly every woman should have the manners of a lady.”⁸ Proudly, Catharine Sedgwick, one of the most influential sentimental writers of her generation, contrasted republican society with aristocratic society: “It is not here, as in the old world, where one man is born with a silver spoon, and another with a pewter one, in his mouth. You may all handle silver spoons, if you will.” “You have it in your power,” she told her readers elsewhere, “to fit yourselves by the cultivation of your minds, and the refinement of your manners for intercourse, on equal terms, with the best society in the land.”⁹ The republican concept of etiquette that emerged after 1830 asserted that the “best society in the land” was middle-class: “It is, therefore, to the middle class, almost exclusively, that we must look for good society; to that class which has not its ideas contracted by laborious occupations, nor its mental powers annihilated by luxury.”¹⁰ After 1830, the American middle classes proudly proclaimed their usurpation of courtesy from the courts of the Old World. “I have never seen better models of manners,” wrote Catharine Sedgwick, “than in the home of a New England farmer.”¹¹ It was absurd according to one devoté of republican gentility, to suppose “that, because people are of high rank, they cannot be vulgar; or that, if people be in an obscure station, they cannot be well-bred.”¹² Gentility in republican America was seen as the product not of fortunate birth but of middle-class effort.

The republican view of etiquette did not, however, assert that all men would become gentlemen. As one etiquette manual honestly admitted,

In remodelling the form of the administration, society remained unrepublican. … None are excluded from the highest councils of the nation, but it does not follow that all can enter into the highest ranks of society. In point of fact, we think that there is more exclusiveness in the society of this country, than there is in that even of England—far more than there is in France.¹³

The rules of polite society, as a function of the fashion principle, acted both as a standard and a barrier in the middle-class struggle for social advancement: the “thorny hedge of etiquette” closed behind the successful aspirant to good society, to prevent others “from coming in and diminishing the distinctiveness and separateness of his position.”¹⁴ Polite society in urban middle-class America, as many European travelers noted, was organized into many distinct “sets” graded according to the relative stringency of their admission requirements. By admitting some applicants and excluding others at various levels, polite society offered a way of establishing a clear social identity for placeless men and women in a fluid, middle-class society. As Leonore Davidoff has observed, “Sociologically, Society can be seen as a system of quasi-kinship relationships which was used to ‘place’ mobile individuals during the period of structural differentiation fostered by industrialisation and urbanisation. As such it can be understood as a feature of a community based on common claims to status honour which were in turn based on a certain life-style.” The middle-class parlor was to provide “a haven of stability, of exact social classification in the threatening anonymity of the surrounding economic and political upheaval.”¹⁵ By offering to aspiring middle-class men and women a precise classification, polite society imposed some order on a society of placeless, liminal people, and by establishing a community of mutual social recognition, it offered a haven from the dangers of life in a world of strangers.

How did the aspiring middle-class man or woman lay claim to genteel social status? The most important influence on nineteenth-century etiquette in America as well as England was Chesterfield's Letters to His Son, which definitively marked the transformation of courtesy into a middle-class phenomenon. In Chesterfield's work, “the basic ethics of polite behavior” under the courtly ideal were “garnished over, almost beyond recognition, with the pretentious rules of etiquette.”¹⁶ Nineteenth-century American etiquette books were packed with hundreds of detailed rules covering not inner morals but outward conduct. Readers were taught the importance of proper dress, personal cleanliness, and good table manners; they learned how to behave at ceremonial visits, dinner parties, evening parties, and public balls; they were instructed in the arts of greetings and farewells, handshakes and bows; they learned the rules governing polite conversation and correspondence, courtship and marriage. Running throughout these rules was the primary law of middle-class politeness: gentility was the exercise of perfect physical and emotional self-restraint. “Propriety in the carriage of the body”¹⁷ was essential, and detailed instructions were offered on the proper form of the walk, the bow, the gesture, the entrance and the exit, the wave of the hand and the tip of the hat, the proper carriage of the arms. As one manual spelled out, “The general positions for the arms are about the level of the waist, never hanging down or being quite stiff, but being gently bent, the elbow a little raised, the fingers not stretched out stiffly, but also a little bent, and partially separated, or the hands half crossed one over the other, or placed in each other, &c.”¹⁸ Excessive bodily activity was forbidden. Etiquette manuals warned readers not to snap their fingers, rub their hands, or “beat the Devil's tattoo,” and even the expressive use of the hands was to be sparing: “if you use them at all, it should be very slightly and gracefully, never bringing down a fist upon the table, nor slapping one hand upon another, nor poking your fingers at your interlocutor.”¹⁹ Most important, certain bodily processes were to be repressed entirely: polite people were not to yawn, sigh, spit, scratch, cough and expectorate, or examine their handkerchiefs after blowing their noses. Finally, the demands of early Victorian gentility extended to the complete command of all facial expressions. “While every Christian should avoid habits of insensibility,” one manual read, “he should obtain the entire command of his countenance. He who has not gained some power over his features, is not the peaceable possessor of his own thoughts.”²⁰

Why was such rigorous self-control demanded of the man or woman of gentility? The insistence of popular conduct codes on self-restraint has been analyzed by Norbert Elias in his brilliant history of Western manners, The Civilizing Process. In the civilizing process, Elias shows, a medieval disregard for self-control has gradually given way to modern demands for physical and emotional self-restraint, demands first met by a courtly ideal of conduct and then gradually, since the Renaissance, adopted by larger segments of society. The key to this broad expansion of the courtly code, Elias argues, is the bourgeois idea that outward conduct reflects inner virtue. The claim to bourgeois social status rests on virtue, and personal conduct has been shaped to demonstrate virtue in the form of the complete self-restraint of bodily processes. Over the last few centuries, the demands for self-control have grown greater. Early in the civilizing process, for example, conduct codes included injunctions against urinating in public and passing wind, but as the “shame threshold” for such activities gradually rose, these social failings were no longer mentioned. By the nineteenth century, it was considered hopelessly uncivilized or vulgar to refer at all to such lapses in bodily repression.²¹

Etiquette manuals instructed middle-class Americans anxious to rise on the social scale in how to demonstrate their gentility to others by practicing perfect physical and emotional self-restraint. But even as they articulated a large body of rules governing “propriety in the carriage of the body” and the regulation of facial expressions, many etiquette guides criticized all formal etiquette for its superficiality. The advice manuals for young men were most emphatic in their condemnation of that “hollow-hearted courtesy which has its place and its purpose in the fashionable world.”²² But more significant were the attacks on etiquette made within the etiquette books themselves. “In politeness, as in every thing else connected with the formation of character,” lamented one anonymous writer, “we are too apt to begin on the outside, instead of the inside; instead of beginning with the heart, and trusting to that to form the manners, and leave the heart to chance and influences.”²³ Such a superficial manipulation of what the advice manuals called the “mere surface of character” was condemned as “but a clumsy imitation” of true courtesy, an imitation “selfish in its object and superficial in its character”²⁴ This critique of the “mere ceremonies, forms of etiquette, and customs of society” was sentimental: it condemned as useless and selfish all acts of politeness performed with “no heart in the work.”²⁵ At bottom, antebellum etiquette manuals were deploring what they considered to be the hypocrisy of “heartless” politeness: “The least tincture of [dissimulation] in the mind, tarnishes the simplicity of the manners, and diffuses a dark and mysterious hue over all the character.”²⁶

What was that true courtesy of which false etiquette was only a clumsy imitation? “All that is involved in the term manners,” wrote H. T. Tuckerman in 1852, “is demonstrative, symbolic—the sign of exponent of what lies behind, and is taken for granted; and only when this outward manifestation springs from an inward source—only when it is a natural product, and not a graft—does it sustain any real significance.”²⁷ Readers were urged to direct their efforts at the state of their hearts: “Let the young polish their manners, not by attending to mere artificial rules, but by the cultivation of right feeling.”²⁸ Politeness, like evangelical Christian piety, was simply the social manifestation of “a right heart.”²⁹ In fact, antebellum etiquette manuals often invoked the term “Christian courtesy” to distinguish true politeness from false etiquette: “Christian courtesy is the becoming expression of love to God and man in every sphere of social intercourse.”³⁰ The forms of true courtesy were compared by one writer to the sacraments, those “visible means of invisible grace”: “True politeness is the outward visible sign of those inward spiritual graces called modesty, unselfishness, generosity.”³¹ But the view of Christianity that pervaded the etiquette manuals of this period was ultimately less sacramental than evangelical. Their repeated condemnations of the hollow ceremonial observances of false etiquette strongly resembled revivalistic attacks on the empty rituals of religious formalism. In the sentimental view of true courtesy, an Edwardsean theological concern for a religion of the affections was cast in a social framework. The smallest act of ceremonial politeness was to be not a mere form, but a “natural flowing forth of right feeling.”³² Implicit in this sentimental view of true courtesy was the importance of the perfect sincerity of every polite act: “Sincerity requires our words and acts not to misrepresent our thoughts and designs.”³³ In etiquette, as in dress, sincerity meant transparency, “the unstudied manifestation in deportment of a soul at once luminous and pure.”³⁴ “The manners of a gentleman are the index of his soul.”³⁵ …

The central function of the laws of polite social geography was to establish the parlor as the stage upon which the genteel performance was enacted. Rules governed every aspect of conduct from the visitor's entrance upon that stage until his or her exit. Upon arriving at the house, the polite visitor handed a calling card to the servant who answered the door, and waited to be announced; or, if no servant were present, knocked gently and waited momentarily before entering. If an appointment had been made, the visitor was to stand at the door as the clock chimed the hour: “If you make an appointment to meet anywhere, your body must be in a right line with the frame of the door at the instant the first stroke of the great clock sounds. If you are a moment later, your character is gone.”³⁶ These conventions served as preliminaries to the moment when the visitor made his or her formal entrance and the performance began. The moment when a caller first entered the parlor was a critical point of the genteel performance: “Coming into a room and presenting yourself to a company should be also attended to, as this always gives the first impression, which is often indelible.”³⁷ Upon entering the parlor, the visitor was to proceed immediately to the mistress of the house and greet her first. The polite visitor's physical carriage and facial expression conformed perfectly to bourgeois demands for self-restraint:

Her face should wear a smile; she should not rush in headforemost; a graceful bearing, a light step, an elegant bend to common acquaintance, a cordial pressure, not shaking, of the hand extended to her, are all requisite to a lady. Let her sink gently into a chair, and, on formal occasions, retain her upright position; neither lounge nor sit timorously on the edge of her seat. Her feet should scarcely be shown, and not crossed.

Such careful self-control was never to betray, however, any stiltedness: “She must avoid sitting stiffly, as if a ramrod were introduced within the dress behind, or stooping.”³⁸ After successfully accomplishing her entrance, the polite visitor remained in the parlor for the proper interval—ten to twenty minutes for ceremonial calls. A well-bred lady signaled her intention to leave soon by leaving her parasol in the hall, and wearing her bonnet and shawl throughout the visit; a gentleman carried his hat and cane into the parlor for the same purpose. At the end of the call, the visitor made some final comments, bowed gracefully, and maneuvered out of the parlor without turning his or her back on the hostess. The hostess rang the bell for the servant, who concluded the ceremony by escorting the visitor through the hall and letting him or her out the front door.

Although the demands of gentility on personal conduct were high, they were clearly circumscribed by the walls of the parlor. The polite hostess did not meet her guests at the front door or even gaze at them through the window as they approached the house. The laws of polite social geography offered visitors every opportunity to prepare for the moment of their entrance into the parlor. At formal evening parties dressing rooms were provided for ladies and gentlemen to tidy up and compose themselves after their arrival. In these second-floor areas, visitors removed their outer garments and washed their faces and hands; ladies even washed their feet as they changed from their boots into their evening slippers, while gentlemen simply brushed their own boots; and ladies and gentlemen both arranged and combed their hair. Before leaving the room, etiquette manuals advised, they should consult a mirror and finally ask a friend or a servant to double-check their appearance. “Through defect of this,” one manual impressed upon its readers, “a gentleman once entered a ball-room, attired with scrupulous elegance, but with one of his suspenders curling in graceful festoons about his feet.”³⁹ Without the dressing room, visitors would doubtless have found it difficult to enter the parlor in a state of genteel self-discipline. Without first stopping in the dressing room, for example, a lady might commit the blunder of “breathing hard, or coming in very hot, or even looking very blue and shivery.”⁴⁰ On the assumption that even a well-bred lady or gentleman might enter the house breathing hard or shivering, or simply looking a bit dusty and unkempt, it was considered rude to address anyone before the formal entrance into the parlor: “When you arrive at your friend's house, do not speak to any one in the hall, or upon the stairs, but go immediately to the dressing room.”⁴¹

Once a visitor entered the parlor, the genteel performance was begun, and any further adjustment of personal appearance was considered a dreadful faux pas. Nothing was regarded with greater contempt than the intrusion of dressing-room activities into the parlor: “Remember that every part of your person and dress should be in perfect order before you leave the dressing-room, and avoid all such tricks as smoothing your hair with your hand, arranging your curls, pulling the waist of your dress down, or setting your collar or sleeves.”⁴² Even to draw on gloves outside the dressing room, or to remove them, except at supper, was considered highly ill-bred; if a man's gloves became soiled during the evening, he was to leave the room to change them. The evils of public nail paring, teeth picking, and hair combing were strenuously condemned. “Some people have a habit of running their fingers through their hair when at table [and] this is truly indecent; they might as well bring in their whole paraphanalia [sic] of the toilet and exhibit before their friends the interesting performance.”⁴³ Once the entrance had been made, even an apparent preoccupation with personal appearance was forbidden: “In large parties do not exhibit any remarkable anxiety for the care of your dress, nor, if any accident should happen thereto, exhibit peculiar or violent emotion.”⁴⁴

The many ceremonial rules governing parlor entrances and exits were designed to reinforce the crucial social distinction between that region of the house—the parlor and its environs—where the laws of gentility were in force, and those regions—the hall, the stairway, and the dressing rooms—where those laws were relaxed. Why did the many rules of polite social geography dictate such a clear distinction? In The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, a study in the theatricality of daily social intercourse, sociologist Erving Goffman has suggested an answer. In societies built on the promise of social mobility, high demands for control over bodily and facial expressiveness made necessary a division of living space into front regions and back regions. In the front regions, firm social discipline holds in place a mask of manner and expressive control is maintained. In the back regions, the mask can be lowered and expressive control relaxed. In theatrical terms, the front regions are where the performance is given, where the social actor is onstage or “in character.” The back regions are where the performance is prepared, repaired, and relaxed, where the social actor is offstage or “out of character.” Without recourse to the back regions, Goffman believes, no one could maintain the perfect expressive control demanded in the front regions.⁴⁵ This analysis is particularly applicable to the polite social conduct of middle-class Americans in the decades before the Civil War. For them, gentility meant the ability to exercise complete command over physical carriage and facial expressions in a manner of perfect ease and grace. Any lapse in self-discipline, or even any betrayal of the effect required to maintain that self-discipline, undermined the genteel performance of the aspiring lady or gentleman. All such interruptions in the demonstration of “natural” self-restraint were thus banished to the back regions of the house, where the genteel performance could be prepared, repaired, or momentarily relaxed. Without those back regions, many middle-class social climbers could never have met the high demands of bourgeois gentility.

The genteel role of the polite guest was simply to maintain proper self-control without betraying any stage effect—without revealing, that is, the preparation and effort required to sustain the genteel performance. The role of polite hostess was far more difficult. She was responsible not only for her own person, but for the setting of the collective genteel performance: “Perfect order, exquisite neatness and elegance, which easily dispense with being sumptuous, ought to mark the entrance of the house, the furniture, and the dress of the lady.”⁴⁶ The polite hostess had to select and arrange her furniture for the maximum social advantage of all assembled in her parlor: “how greatly the style and arrangement of furniture contribute to make a party go off well, and those engaged in it look well.”⁴⁷ The right furniture was thought to ease social intercourse by helping visitors look their best, and, when correctly arranged, by encouraging circulation. Similarly, the hostess who tastefully arranged potted shrubs, plants, and flowers throughout the room helped “brighten” and “enliven” the company by placing them in “almost a fairy-like scene.”⁴⁸ In addition, she selected and displayed the “curiosities, handsome books, photographs, engravings, stereoscopes, medallions, any works of art you may own,” which were the stage properties of polite social intercourse. Such conversation pieces, according to one etiquette manual, were the good hostess's “armor against stupidity.”⁴⁹ The polite Victorian hostess was not simply an actress in the genteel performance; she was also the stage manager, who exercised great responsibility for the performances of everyone who entered her parlor.

The good hostess, like her guests, was to exclude all forms of back-region behavior from polite social intercourse. But again, her responsibilities were far greater than those of her guests, for while they were responsible only for concealing the activities of the dressing room, she had to work to keep all private domestic arrangements from intruding upon the genteel performance. In an unusually explicit statement of the theatrical nature of her task, one manual stated that “the internal machinery of a household, like that portion of the theatre ‘behind the scenes,’ should … be studiously kept out of view.”⁵⁰ Implicit in this concern was the conviction that domestic activities were not genteel. When a visitor entered the parlor, the good hostess quietly laid aside her sewing or needlework. When giving a dinner party, she closed the shutters and lit the lamps before her guests arrived rather than fumbling through these duties in the middle of dinner; when having someone for tea, she never covered her furniture or shut up the house for the night before her guest's departure. Above all, the polite hostess never introduced domestic matters into the parlor by telling guests of her household affairs or discussing with them her own experiences with “the servant problem.” “In a well-ordered household the machinery is always in order, and always works out of sight.”⁵¹

While a hostess entertained her visitors, the machinery of her household was being run by her servants, and thus her own gentility rested in part on their ability to remain inconspicuous. A good servant was to be “well trained, silent, observant, scrupulously dressed, and free from gaucherie. A good servant is never awkward. His boots never creak; he never breathes hard, has a cold, is obliged to cough, treads on a lady's dress, or breaks a dish.”⁵² During afternoon visits, the major role of the servant was to assist the commencement and the termination of the genteel performance by answering the door, carrying in visitors' cards, ushering and sometimes announcing guests into the parlor, and taking care of refreshments. But the crucial test of a well-ordered household was the dinner party. The polite hostess gave her orders before dinner and never had to speak to the servants during the meal, for “with well-trained waiters, you need give yourself no uneasiness about the arrangements outside of the parlors.”⁵³ The servants were responsible for all details of preparing and serving the meal, since these activities were deemed too vulgar for the attention of the genteel. In the 1840s, in fact, all food platters were banished from the table to the sideboard in the new vogue called dinner à la Russe. At the sideboard servants alone faced “that unwieldy barbarism—the joint” and freed the host from “the misery of carving.”⁵⁴ Good servants contributed to their employers' claims to gentility by leaving the host and hostess free to devote themselves entirely to their guests: “Dish after dish comes round, as if by magic; and nothing remains but to eat and be happy.”⁵⁵

Within the reigning conventions of bourgeois politeness, everything happened as if by magic: guests entered the parlor composed, combed, and free from the dust of the street; their hostess received them without a care in the world for the complex domestic arrangements of her household; refreshments were prepared and served by invisible hands. In reality, of course, guests were entering the parlor only after tidying themselves in the second-floor dressing rooms; their hostess might well be calculating whether the leftover mutton was fresh enough for another dinner and when the baby would awaken; and servants were busy in the rear of the house anticipating, it was devoutly to be hoped, the needs of their mistress in the parlor. But the most important law of polite social geography was that no one shatter the magic of the genteel performance by acknowledging the existence of the back regions that alone made the performance possible. The hostess knew, of course, about the dressing rooms and her visitors' use of them; the guests knew something about the complex domestic arrangements of a middle-class household; and even the best-trained servants could not make themselves literally invisible to genteel observers. But within the bounds of the parlor, guests and hostess were to remain unconscious of all behind-the-scenes preparations and repairs that made possible their genteel performance.

The genteel refusal to acknowledge the uses of polite social geography was legislated by a second body of etiquette: the laws of tact. These laws governed not the genteel performance itself, but its reception by those who witnessed it. For polite ladies and gentlemen were not simply performers on the social stage of the parlor; they were members of an audience watching the genteel performances of one another. The function of the laws of tact was to ensure that members of the polite audience would assist, encourage, and honor a genteel performer's claims to gentility. By tactfully honoring the genteel performance of another lady or gentleman, the social aspirant was demonstrating his or her own gentility. More to the point, the tactful lady or gentleman was ensuring that her or his own claims to gentility would be reciprocally honored, within a kind of golden rule of politeness: “You may set it down as a rule, that as you treat the world, so the world will treat you.”⁵⁶

One of the most important laws of tact was to honor the sanctity of the back regions. The polite visitor never intruded into the back regions of the house unless specifically invited, lest he or she surprise those who were relaxing or repairing their own gentility. The caller who entered the house, went straight to her friend's chamber, and entered without knocking, etiquette manuals warned, was in danger of finding her hostess in a state of personal or domestic disarray: “You may find her washing, or dressing, or in bed, or even engaged in repairing clothes,—or the room may be in great disorder, or the chambermaid in the act of cleaning it.”⁵⁷ Unless invited upstairs, the polite caller sent up her card and waited in the parlor. Even upon invitation, the well-bred lady gave due ceremonial warning by knocking at the door and waiting for an invitation to enter. Once admitted to a private chamber, she exercised tact by not appearing curious about its contents. Eliza Leslie's portrait of an inquisitive intruder was expressed as a stern warning to her readers: “Nay, we have known one who prided herself upon the gentility of her forefathers and foremothers, rise from her seat when her hostess opened a bureau-drawer, or a closet-door, and cross the room, to stand by and inspect the contents of said bureau or closet, while open.”⁵⁸ Even the intimate friend who had been granted the entrée of the house—the privilege of entering areas usually forbidden to visitors and of calling at all hours—was warned to use her privilege sparingly. The laws of tact condemned those who ran in and out at all hours, seeking out the lady of the house in all her domestic employments, entering by basement or back entrance if the front door were locked, and following the lady of the house upstairs and down, into attic and cellar, kitchen and storeroom. The indiscriminate use of an entrée increased the possibility that a tactless visitor would stumble upon a friend who was momentarily “out of character” or “offstage” and thus undermine her claims to gentility.

The problem posed by the back regions was particularly important to house guests, who could not be expected to confine their presence to the parlor. Thus, the laws regulating the conduct of house guests were devoted almost entirely to enforcing a tactful avoidance of back regions. To begin with, no well-bred person invited herself to stay in a friend's house or accepted a general invitation (“You are always welcome to come and stay with us”), or extended her own invitation to include someone else. As a house guest she did not “make herself at home” even though urged to do so by her hostess. She confined herself mainly to her chamber and to the parlor and avoided the nursery and the kitchen unless specifically invited. She received her own guests only in the parlor, and she avoided the parlor while her hostess received guests unless invited to join the company. In turn, the polite hostess avoided those back regions used by her guest: she granted her completely private use of the spare room, knocked always before entering, and kept her children away. The most tactless blunder a house guest could commit was to carry tales of her hostess's household:

Another class of tattlers are those who visit their friends and take note of all the habits and customs of the family, the conversations at table, the government of children, treatment of servants, family expenditures, employments and dress of the mistress, and even the late hours of the male members, should there be any who stay out late. These are told in detail at the next visiting place.⁵⁹

Not only was she never to tattle; she was to avoid acquiring any knowledge of domestic problems by tactfully taking her leave if sickness or trouble broke out during her visit. This rule of tact applied to the morning caller as well as the house guest: “Your friend may not appear to notice the screams of a child, a noise in the kitchen, or the cry from the nursery that the fire board has caught fire, but you may be sure she does hear it, and though too well-bred to speak of it, will heartily rejoice to say good-bye.”⁶⁰

Norbert Elias has suggested that the bourgeois family was an institutional outgrowth of the civilizing process. As demands for civilized self-restraint increased, Elias shows, bourgeois privacy became necessary as a shield for those least civilized members of the family, the children, while they underwent an increasingly lengthy period of socialization. Within the polite social geography of nineteenth-century American etiquette, the laws of tact that ensured bourgeois privacy also shielded essentially “civilized” adults relaxing their genteel performance in the back regions of the house. “The right of privacy,” etiquette manuals intoned repeatedly, “is sacred, and should always be respected.”⁶¹ The manuals condemned specifically the social crimes of opening boxes, packets, and papers; reading papers that lay open to view; eavesdropping through open windows and keyholes and cracks in doors; and even watching the neighbors from the attic window. One imaginative manual enjoined readers not to hide in the parlor before the lamps were lighted in order to listen to a private conversation. Another rule forbade polite visitors to examine the books in a closed book case or the calling cards in the basket on the parlor table. The polite visitor did not even walk about the parlor while awaiting the hostess or examine the ornaments and pictures placed there for display. These laws of privacy represented an extreme example of the tactful unwillingness to uncover any failings in the genteel performance of another: “Avoid, if you can, seeing the skeleton in your friend's closet, but if it is paraded for your special benefit, regard it as a sacred confidence, and never betray your knowledge to a third party.”⁶²

Within the polite social geography of the genteel performance, all intrusions into the back regions, where demands for genteel self-restraint were not in effect, had to be forbidden by the laws of tact. But tact was demanded as well in response to any momentary failures of gentility that took place in the front regions of polite society. Within nineteenth-century etiquette, it was assumed that even well-bred ladies and gentlemen would experience certain lapses in gentility, and the laws of tact demanded that no one else take notice of them. When any domestic trouble intruded into a hostess's parlor, for example, the polite caller appeared not to notice. When a guest spilled his wine or broke a dish at dinner, the other guests ignored his error, unless the hostess responded with the most tactful move of legendary Victorian politeness by duplicating her guest's faux pas—by dumping her own wine, for example, so he might feel easy again. The polite guest never refused the last portion on the platter, lest he imply his host had no more in the kitchen; nor did he apologize profusely for breaking a plate, lest he suggest the importance of the financial loss to his host. Excessive apologies only made everyone uneasy and interrupted the genteel performance of the party as a whole; the polite guest showed his regret in his face and quietly resumed his own self-control. When dinner was late, all guests, of course, appeared unaware of the delay. By ignoring disruptions in the genteel performance of another, the well-bred lady or gentleman attempted to assist him or her in regaining the appearance of natural and easy self-restraint demanded of true gentility.

The laws of tact also governed polite conversation. The polite social aspirant did not dominate conversation or even talk too well himself: the aim of his conversation was to draw out others, by leading them to their favorite topics and encouraging them with appropriate responses. He always listened carefully and, more important, always seemed to listen: “Be, therefore, not only really, but seemingly and manifestly, attentive to whoever speaks to you.” Only vulgar people, warned this manual, “fix their eyes upon the ceiling or some other part of the room, look out of the window, play with a dog, or twirl their snuff-box,” while being addressed by another.⁶³ True gentility demanded laughter at others' jokes but not at one's own. Ladies and gentlemen avoided asking questions, lest they stumble upon any personal embarrassment: “A lady inquired of what branch of medical practice a certain gentleman was a professor. He held the chair of midwifery!”⁶⁴ Furthermore, the well-bred gentleman never insisted on hearing someone who had suddenly checked his conversation: “If a person in conversation has begun to say something, and has checked himself, you should avoid the tactless error so often committed, of insisting on hearing him.”⁶⁵ The rules of polite conversation forbade scandal, whispering, speaking in hints or innuendos, and speaking of anything that might cause embarrassment or remind another of his troubles. Above all, the well-bred conversationalist never gave the slightest indication that he did not believe what he heard: “To show by word or sign any token of incredulity, is to give the lie to the narrator, and that is an unpardonable insult.”⁶⁶ The well-bred lady or gentleman honored the conversational performances of others in polite society by responding with deep attention, interest, sympathy, and credulity. In so doing, they evinced acceptance of the conversationalist's claim to gentility.

The detailed complexity of the rules enjoining polite middle-class men and women to practice tact suggests above all the difficulty of sustaining flawlessly the genteel performance. Antebellum American etiquette manuals assumed that well-bred men and women would occasionally drop plates, serve dinner late, bore their companions in conversation, and suffer their hair to go uncombed and their beds unmade. When such lapses in gentility occurred, however, the performance was sustained by the tact of the genteel audience, who looked interested when they were bored, who looked away when a plate was smashed, who never looked into rooms where the beds were not made. Middle-class claims to gentility could thus be sustained only in the company of those sufficiently well-bred to recognize the successful aspects of a genteel performance and to overlook its failures. The laws of tact thus rested on the third major category of etiquette—the laws of acquaintanceship. Only the great demands of the genteel performance for tact can fully explain the intense middle-class concern over social acquaintanceship. Since any ill-bred person who entered rooms without knocking or turned to stare when someone spilled his wine threatened to undermine everyone else's claims to gentility, such rudeness had to be banned from polite social intercourse. As one manual bluntly stated,

Etiquette is the barrier which society draws around itself as a protection against offences the “law” cannot touch; it is a shield against the intrusion of the impertinent, the improper, and the vulgar,—a guard against those obtuse persons who, having neither talent nor delicacy, would be continually thrusting themselves into the society of men to whom their presence might (from the difference of feeling and habit) be offensive, and even insupportable.⁶⁷

This barrier against the vulgar consisted of the laws of social acquaintanceship.

Because the genteel performance demanded that all tactless, ill-bred people be barred from the parlor, the mechanisms for excluding social undesirables were many and elaborate. Prominent among them was the calling card, which was used in the ceremonial morning visits through which ambitious ladies and gentlemen laid claim to genteel society. When a lady reached a certain social position, she set an “at-home” day when she settled into her parlor at ten or eleven in the morning and received callers. When acceptable visitors sent in their cards, the hostess instructed her servant to usher them into the parlor. When unacceptable visitors dared come to her door, on the other hand, the hostess sent her servant back to say that she was not at home. Visitors turned away with this significant message were expected not to call again without first receiving a visit or a card from the lady who had spurned them. Ironically, etiquette demanded that the rejected social applicant exercise genteel tact in honoring the hostess's preferences—which were based on her poor opinion of the applicant's gentility. …

The central irony of sentimental courtesy was simply this: the sentimental demand for a true courtesy that would betray no stage effect ultimately contributed to the theatricality of social life in the parlor. Even as sentimentalists condemned all superficial forms of etiquette as hollow-hearted and hypocritical, they advocated a system of polite conduct that was loaded with “etiquettish” social forms. In fact, sentimental efforts to establish sincerity as the guiding norm of polite conduct actually assisted the ritualization of parlor society by the mid-nineteenth century. The increasingly theatrical conduct of middle-class men and women in the parlor testified once again to the futility of sentimental efforts to embody sincerity in cultural forms. Just as the sentimental critique of fashion inadvertently enhanced the power of fashion over American dress, the sentimental critique of etiquette ultimately expanded the power of etiquette over polite social conduct. By the 1850s, in their discussions of courtesy as well as dress, the sentimental arbiters of middle-class culture were beginning to recognize the vicious circle in which they were caught and to admit the futility of establishing sincere forms of daily conduct.

Notes

1. For statistics on antebellum American etiquette manuals see Arthur M. Schlesinger, Learning How to Behave: A Historical Study of American Etiquette Books; Esther B. Aresty, The Best Behavior: The Course of Good Manners—from Antiquity to the Present—As Seen through Courtesy and Etiquette Books. For my purposes, Aresty's estimate that 67 manuals were published in America during this period is more useful; Schlesinger's count of 102 includes many books that I have classified as advice manuals.

2. See Norbert Elias, The Civilizing Process: The History of Manners, trans. Edmund Jephcott, esp. pp. 53-84.

3. See Schlesinger, Learning How to Behave, chaps. 1, 2.

4. Persons, Decline of American Gentility, p. 35.

5. John Adams, Samuel Adams, James Warren et al., Warren-Adams Letters, 2: 129, quoted in Schlesinger, Learning How to Behave, p. 12.

6. See Schlesinger, Learning How to Behave, chap. 2; Wildeblood and Brinson, Polite World, chap. 2; John E. Mason, Gentlefolk in the Making: Studies in the History of English Courtesy Literature and Related Topics from 1531 to 1774, chap. 4; Letters to His Son, by the Earl of Chesterfield: On the Fine Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman, 2 vols. (London: Navarre Society, 1926).

7. Schlesinger, Learning How to Behave, p. 17.

8. The Art of Good Behaviour; and Letter Writer on Love, Courtship, and Marriage: A Complete Guide for Ladies and Gentlemen, particularly those who have not Enjoyed the Advantages of Fashionable Life, pp. viii-ix.

9. Catharine M. Sedgwick, Morals of Manners, p. 61, quoted in Schlesinger, Learning How to Behave, p. 16; Sedgwick, Means and Ends, p. 150, quoted, ibid., p. 21.

10. Ladies' Vase; or, Polite Manual for Young Ladies; Original and Selected, p. 22.

11. Catharine M. Sedgwick, Means and Ends, pp. 149-50, quoted in Persons, Decline of American Gentility, p. 40.

12. The Perfect Gentleman; or, Etiquette and Eloquence, p. 212.

13. The Laws of Etiquette, or, Short Rules and Reflections for Conduct in Society, p. 10.

14. The Handbook of the Man of Fashion, p. 34.

15. Davidoff, Best Circles, pp. 15, 16.

16. Aresty, Best Behavior, p. 129.

17. Chesterfield's Art of Letter-Writing Simplified … to which is appended the Complete Rules of Etiquette, and the Usages of Society …, p. 43.

18. A Manual of Politeness, Comprising the Principles of Etiquette, and Rules of Behavior in Genteel Society, for Persons of Both Sexes, p. 55.

19. The Habits of Good Society: A Handbook for Ladies and Gentlemen, p. 285.

20. George Winfred Hervey, The Principles of Courtesy: With Hints and Observations on Manners and Habits, p. 39.

21. Elias, Civilizing Process, esp. pp. 53-84.

22. Magie, Spring-Time, p. 196.

23. C. P. Bronson, quoted in How to Behave: A Pocket Manual of Republican Etiquette, A Guide to Correct Personal Habits …, p. xi.

24. Ladies' Vase, p. 12.

25. Florence Hartley, The Ladies' Book of Etiquette, and Manual of Politeness: A Complete Hand Book for the Use of the Lady in Polite Society, p. 4.

26. Hervey, Principles of Courtesy, p. 93.

27. Henry T. Tuckerman, “Lord Chesterfield,” GLB [Godey's Lady's Book] 44 (January 1852): 7-12.

28. Ladies' Vase, p. 13.

29. Rev. James Porter, The Operative's Friend, and Defence: Or, Hints to Young Ladies, who are Dependent on their Own Exertions, p. 120.

30. Hervey, Principles of Courtesy, p. xiii.

31. The School of Good Manners: Composed for the Help of Parents in Teaching their Children How to Behave in their Youth, p. 13.

32. Arthur Martine, Martine's Hand-Book of Etiquette, and Guide to True Politeness, p. 126.

33. Hervey, Principles of Courtesy, p. 89.

34. Ibid.

35. School of Good Manners, p. 13.

36. Laws of Etiquette, p. 87.

37. D. Mackellar, A Treatise on the Art of Politeness, Good Breeding and Manners. With Maxims and Moral Reflections, pp. 122-23.

38. Habits of Good Society, pp. 309-10.

39. Elias Howe, Howe's Complete Ball-room Hand Book: Containing Upwards of Three Hundred Dances, including all the Latest and Most Fashionable Dances, p. 23.

40. Habits of Good Society, p. 310.

41. F. Hartley, Ladies' Book, p. 55.

42. F. Hartley, Ladies' Book, pp. 151-52.

43. Mackellar, Treatise, p. 119.

44. True Politeness; A Hand-book of Etiquette for Ladies, p. 17.

45. See Goffman, Presentation of Self, chap. 3.

46. Ibid., p. 64.

47. Habits of Good Society, pp. 372-73.

48. Sarah J. Hale, Manners; or, Happy Homes and Good Society All the Year Round, p. 284.

49. F. Hartley, Ladies' Book, p. 93.

50. Etiquette at Washington: and Complete Guide through the Metropolis and its Environs, pp. 47-48.

51. Mixing in Society. A Complete Manual of Manners, p. 50.

52. Mixing, p. 181.

53. F. Hartley, Ladies' Book, p. 48.

54. Habits of Good Society, p. 358.

55. Mixing, p. 182.

56. Cecil B. Hartley, The Gentleman's Book of Etiquette, and Manual of Politeness; being a Complete Guide for a Gentleman's Conduct in All His Relations towards Society, p. 4.

57. Eliza Leslie, Miss Leslie's Behaviour Book: A Guide and Manual for Ladies …, pp. 47-48.

58. Ibid., p. 49.

59. Chesterfield's Art, p. 17.

60. F. Hartley, Ladies' Book, p. 84.

61. Henry P. Willis, Etiquette, and the Usages of Society: containing the Most Approved Rules for Correct Deportment in Fashionable Life …, p. 40.

62. Martine, Martine's Hand-Book, p. 35.

63. Mackellar, Treatise, p. 104.

64. Martine, Martine's Hand-Book, p. 29.

65. Handbook of the Man of Fashion, p. 79.

66. C. Hartley, Gentleman's Book, p. 22.

67. Charles William Day, Hints on Etiquette and the Usages of Society; with a Glance at Bad Habits, p. 11.

Selected Bibliography

Secondary Sources

Aresty, Esther B. The Best Behavior: The Course of Good Manners—from Antiquity to the Present—As Seen through Courtesy and Etiquette Books. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1970.

Davidoff, Leonore. The Best Circles: Society Etiquette and the Season. London: Croom Helm, 1973.

Elias, Norbert. The Civilizing Process: The History of Manners. Translated by Edmund Jephcott. New York: Urizen Books, 1978.

Goffman, Erving. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1959.

Mason, John E. Gentlefolk in the Making: Studies in the History of English Courtesy Literature and Related Topics from 1531 to 1774. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1935.

Persons, Stow. The Decline of American Gentility. New York: Columbia University Press, 1973.

Schlesinger, Arthur M. Learning How to Behave: A Historical Study of American Etiquette Books. New York: Macmillan Co., 1946.

Wildeblood, Joan, and Brinson, Peter. The Polite World: A Guide to English Manners and Deportment from the 13th to the 19th Century. London: Oxford University Press, 1965.

Primary Sources

The Art of Good Behaviour; and Letter Writer on Love, Courtship, and Marriage: A Complete Guide for Ladies and Gentlemen, particularly those who have not Enjoyed the Advantages of Fashionable Life. New York: C. P. Huestis, 1846.

Chesterfield's Art of Letter-writing Simplified … to which is appended the Complete Rules of Etiquette, and the Usages of Society … New York: Dick and Fitzgerald, 1857.

Etiquette at Washington: and Complete Guide through the Metropolis and its Environs … Baltimore: Murphy and Co., 1857.

The Habits of Good Society: A Handbook for Ladies and Gentlemen. New York: Carleton, 1869.

Hale, Sarah J. Manners; or, Happy Homes and Good Society All the Year Round. 1868. Reprint. New York: Arno Press, 1972.

The Handbook of the Man of Fashion. Philadelphia: Lindsay and Blakiston, 1846.

Hartley, Cecil B. The Gentleman's Book of Etiquette, and Manual of Politeness; being a Complete Guide for a Gentleman's Conduct in All His Relations towards Society. Boston: G. W. Cottrell, 1860.

Hartley, Florence. The Ladies' Book of Etiquette, and Manual of Politeness. A Complete Hand Book for the Use of the Lady in Polite Society. Boston: G. W. Cottrell, 1860.

Hervey, George Winfred. The Principles of Courtesy: With Hints and Observations on Manners and Habits. New York: Harper and Bros., 1852.

How to Behave. A Pocket Manual of Republican Etiquette, A Guide to Correct Personal Habits … New York: Fowler and Wells, 1856.

Howe, Elias. Howe's Complete Ball-room Hand Book: Containing Upwards of Three Hundred Dances, including all the Latest and Most Fashionable Dances. Boston: Brown, Taggard and Chase, 1858.

Ladies' Vase; or, Polite Manual for Young Ladies; Original and Selected. Lowell, Mass.: N. L. Dayton, 1843.

The Laws of Etiquette, or, Short Rules and Reflections for Conduct in Society. Philadelphia: Carey, Lea, and Blanchard, 1836.

Mackellar, D. A Treatise on the Art of Politeness, Good Breeding, and Manners. With Maxims and Moral Reflections. Detroit: George E. Pomeroy and Co., 1855.

Magie, Reverend David. The Spring-time of Life; or, Advice to Youth. New York: Robert Carter and Bros., 1853.

A Manual of Politeness, Comprising the Principles of Etiquette, and Rules of Behaviour in Genteel Society, for Persons of Both Sexes. Philadelphia: W. Marshall and Co., 1837.

Martine, Arthur. Martine's Hand-Book of Etiquette, and Guide to True Politeness. New York: Dick and Fitzgerald, 1866.

Mixing in Society. A Complete Manual of Manners. London and New York: George Routledge and Sons, 1870.

The Perfect Gentleman; or, Etiquette and Eloquence. New York: Dick and Fitzgerald, 1860.

Porter, Reverend James. The Operative's Friend, and Defence: Or, Hints to Young Ladies, who are Dependent on their Own Exertions. Boston: Charles H. Peirce, 1850.

The School of Good Manners. Composed for the Help of Parents in Teaching their Children How to Behave in their Youth. Boston: Massachusetts Sabbath School Society, 1837.

True Politeness; a Hand-book of Etiquette for Ladies. New York: Leavitt and Allen, 1847.