Six Impossible Episodes: Etiquette Manuals

00:00:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson, and I'm Holly Frye. Something I think I've mentioned on the show before is that I think about etiquette a lot because in my lifetime there's been just a huge shift in how we interact with other people, Like social media did not exist when I was born, and now it is a major way that a lot of people communicate with one another. And I don't know if anyone has heard, feels like etiquette hasn't really kept up with that shift. A lot of the time, there is a lot of stuff on social media happening continually that I would say is inconsiderate, like at best, a lot of it actively incredibly rude. A lot of people use the word manners and etiquette interchangeably, but they have slightly different but interrelated meanings. Different sources, of course, give slightly different definitions, but essentially manners that's a person's conduct or behavior, and then etiquette is the code of manners or the rules that delineate what good manners are. Books on etiquette, which is what we are talking about today in this installment of six Impossible Episodes. They don't necessarily reflect the rules that everyone is actually following. So if you're reading a historical etiquette manual, it's not necessarily depicting what day to day life is like for people. It's more like what the author thinks the ideal standard of behavior should be. So today we're going to do a little six Impossible episodes on a selection of etiquette manuals from history. And to be very clear upfront, this is focused on manuals that we're either written in or translated into English, because that's the language I am fluent in. And it also felt way outside of my lane to be commenting on etiquette books from parts of the world that I have no cultural connections to or experience with, where you know, the rules of etiquette might seem strange to me. You must give your neighbor a duck. The first work that we are going to discuss came out in fifteen fifty eight and its author was Giovanni de la Casa of Florence, who was born on June twenty eighth, fifteen oh three to a well off and aristocratic family. He seems to have been a little bit of a troublemaker in his youth, including writing some satiric and suggestive verse, but eventually he moved into writing lyric poetry and translating other works, and in fifteen forty four he was named Archbishop of Benevento. Unlike most of the existing manuals of behavior and conduct that were written before this point, this one wasn't focused on courtly behavior and diplomatic protocols. It was about how to behave yourself out in the world. Giovanni finished it in fifteen fifty five, and he died on November fourteenth, fifteen fifty six. Although he had instructed his family to burn all of his documents, they published this book as il Galateo o vera dicostumi or Etiquette or rather Customs two years later. This treatise was quickly translated into multiple other languages. It became really influential in a lot of Europe. It made its way into English for the first time in fifteen seventy six after being translated by Robert Peterson, and then it was retranslated and republished in English at different points after that, including in London in seventeen seventy four as Galateo or a treatise on politeness and delicacy of manners addressed to a young nobleman. That is the one that we are focused on today. Books on etiquette have often been written in response to changing social norms or a perceived need to address some kind of big shift in people's behavior, whether such a shift was actually happening, or the kinds of people who write etiquette books just thought that was what was happening. This retranslation came out as the Industrial Revolution and other social and economic changes were making it more possible for people to climb the social and economic ladders. There's this idea that newly affluent people might not know how to act. The preface to this seventeen seventy four English edition made it clear that Italy was seen as the birthplace of good manners. It quote shows to what a degree of refinement, both in manners and in literature the Italians were arrived at a period when we were just emerging from Gothicism and barbarity. It also makes clear that, in the translator's opinion, English society has progressed since the work was first written, to the point that some of the examples might seem absurd. But at the same time he mentions some very gross behavior that he's seen from other people, including a man spitting so vociferously it startled other people, and a woman using her napkin to clean her teeth after dinner, and those were points of evidence that a book like Galateo was still needed. So we can really sum up this book's whole approach to etiquette with this quote quote. It is to be observed, then, that whatever is offensive or disagreeable to any one of our senses, or contrary to our natural instincts and desires, and further, whatever raises in our minds an idea of anything filthy or indecent, or what shocks our understanding, I say that everything and every action of this kind, being as greatly displeasing to others, is carefully to be avoided. Nothing therefore, either filthy or a modest nauseous or disgusting, ought not only to be done, but even mentioned in the presence of others. Some examples of things to be avoided finding something stinky and saying to the person next to you, smell this, it smells terrible. Similarly grinding your teeth, just breathing too loud. I feel like I do that one making horrible noises when coughing or sneezing, howling like a wolf while yawning, which I think we should all adopt, actually expactorating in company, smelling glasses of wine or plates of food belonging to other people, speaking about vulgar subjects, being profane about God, whether you are serious or joking, going on at length about what you dreamed about last night, lying arrogance, buffoonery, and giving unsolicited advice, especially to people who are not your true and intimate friends. Uh. I like how many of these are still things that people point out. Uh. Also, Giovanni de la Casa sure did not like jingling puns, as well as what we might describe today as dad jokes. Quote. You will meet also with some people who, for every word that is spoken, have some other word without any meaning ready at hand by way of jingle. Others who will change the syllables in a word in a trifling, foolish manner. Others will speak and answer in a different manner from what we expected, and that without any wit or beauty of thought. As where is thy Lord in his clothes unless he is bathing or in bed? How does this wine taste a little moist, I think, how is this dish to be eaten with your mouth? And the like? All which kinds of wit, as you will easily apprehend, are low and vulgar. Givanni, I'm with you. We talk about that on behind the scenes. An fan next up Letters to his son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman, by Philip Stanhope, fourth Earl of Chesterfield, purported namesake of the Chesterfield Sofa. Philip had no children with his wife, but he did have two sons, and he wrote a series of letters to one of them, also named Philip, starting in seventeen thirty seven. The younger Philip died in seventeen sixty eight, and a few years later his widow started publishing the letters because she really didn't have any other source of income. There was also a book that collected the parts that were focused on etiquette and combined it with other works, which was published as Principles of Politeness and of Knowing the World, and that came out in seventeen eighty six. I chose this as one of the things to talk about in today's episode because it is frequently cited as the first use of the word etiquette to mean something like rules for polite behavior in English. Turns out that doesn't really hold up. Though the word etiquette comes from a French word meaning label or ticket, and then later this word etiquette was used to describe cards or signs that outlined rules for proper conduct at court, so that label was sort of a label on the wall telling you how to act, and then the word etiquette came to describe those rules themselves. The Earl of Chesterfield did use the word etiquette in these letters, starting with one that he wrote in seventeen fifty, but he was talking about those formal protocols, not a more general standard of good behavior. Specifically, in that letter he was telling the younger Philip to follow the current protocols when he met the Pope Nowadays. The Oxford English Dictionary also cites an even earlier use of this sense of the word etiquette from London Magazine in seventeen thirty seven. Although the Earl did not write these letters with the intent of their ever being published, it makes a lot of sense that they came to be used as an etiquette manual once they were. Here's an example from October sixteenth, seventeen forty seven quote, Dear boy, the art of pleasing is a very necessary one to possess, but a very difficult one to acquire. It can hardly be reduced to rules, and your own good sense and observation will teach you more of it than I can do. As you would be done by. Is the surest method that I know of pleasing. Observe carefully what pleases you in others, and probably the same thing in you will please others. If you are pleased with the complaisance and attention of others to your humors, your tastes, or your weaknesses depend upon it, the same complaisance and attention on your part to theirs will equally please them. Take the tone of the company that you are in, and do not pretend to give it. Be serious, gay, or even trifling as you find the present humor of the company. This is an attention due from every individual to the majority. There are and hundreds of pages of these letters. I mean, this is this man's correspondence to his son, going on for many years, and as was the case with the Galateo, this was written to a man. It's focused on how a man should act We are going to get through some other works and some works by women that were on etiquette after we have a quick sponsor break. A ton of etiquette manuals came out in the United States and Europe in the nineteenth century, thanks in part to developments in printing for a mass market, and of course there were huge ongoing social changes related to things like race, gender, and class. All this happened before, during, and after the US Civil War. Our next book was written in eighteen sixty eight and it was published under the pseudonym Daisy Ibright. That was really Sophia orn Edwards Johnson. She was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, and then later moved to Bath, New Hampshire. We don't have a ton of detail about her life, but she was married to James H. Johnson, who was a colonel in the New Hampshire Militia and also served two terms in the House of Representatives. He was more than twenty years older than she was and she was his second wife and they had three children together. Like the younger Philip Stanhope's widow, Johnson turned to etiquette to try to earn some money, especially after her husband's lumber mill was destroyed in a flood in eighteen sixty nine. In addition to her book A Manual of Etiquette with Hints on Politeness and Good Breeding, she also wrote books on homemaking and gardening, including every Woman Her Own Flower Gardener in eighteen seventy one and Household Hints and Recipes in eighteen seventy seven, and she published columns on etiquette and household tips in newspapers. Here is how she kicked off. The preface to this book, quote often speak of good manners as an accomplishment. I speak of them as a duty. What, then, are good manners? Such manners as the usages of society have recognized as being agreeable to men, Such manners as may take away rudeness and remit to the brute creation of all coarseness. There are a great many who feel that good manners are effeminate. They have a feeling that rude, bluntness is a great deal more manly than good manners. It is a great deal more beastly. But when men are crowded in communities, the art of living together is no small art. How to diminish friction, how to promote ease of intercourse, How to make every part of a man's life contribute to the welfare and satisfaction of those around him. How to keep down offensive pride, how to banish the rasping of selfishness from the intercourse of men, How to move among men inspired by various and conflictive motives, and yet not how collisions. This is the function of good manners. Ebright's opinions on etiquette and manners continued quote Etiquette has been defined as a code of laws which bind society together, viewless as the wind, and yet exercising a vast influence upon the well being of mankind. But she writes at the same time, quote good manners are not merely conventional rules, but are founded upon reason and good sense, and are therefore most worthy of the consideration of all. And there are many points of good breeding which neither time nor place will ever change, because they are founded upon a just regard of man for man. Like a lot of nineteenth century writers in the US, Daisy Ibright framed etiquette and religion, specifically Christianity, as intrinsically connected, and her view bad manners were not just rude, they were sinful. She describes the first code of good manners as the Epistle of Saint James, and she all so describes Philip Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield, as the pattern of good breeding, and she includes a couple of quotes from his letters in her book. Some of her rules for etiquette are more like marriage advice quote nothing can be more injurious or inconsistent with true politeness and good breeding than the constant habit of fault finding concerning little petty trifles, when indulged in by either husband or wife in the presence of others, or by themselves. This book also has a special section of advice to children, including quote, be polite, respectful, and modest to all, and especially to your elders and superiors. There is nothing more disgusting than a youth who assumes an air of disrespect and self importance toward his superiors, equals, or inferiors. This section aimed at children also included quote never go up and downstairs or about the house with the speed of a trotting horse and the tread of an elephant. Step lightly quickly and orderly. There is a whole chapter in this book on visits of ceremony, visits of condolence, congratulation, and friendship each of which has its own code of etiquette. A visit of friendship wouldn't be going over to a friends for a dinner party. It's the formal visit, to be made afterward as a gesture of thanks for having been invited. She talks about rules for what should be on your calling card, and that if you can't go for a formal visit, you should leave a card yourself or send it with a servant because quote, it is not well bred to send it through the post. She describes these calling cards not just as a way of presenting yourself to the person being visited, but also as part of letting people know that you're going to be out of town. Quote. If previous to a long voyage or absence, or on the occasion of your marriage, you omit to call or send a card to your friends. It is understood that the acquaintance ceases when you return home. Those to whom you have sent cards or paid visits will pay the visit first to you. This book has chapters on etiquette at home, receiving visitors, visiting others, table etiquette, dinner parties, evening entertainments, forms of address, social intercourse, dress, and marriage Toward the end, there's a chapter with advice specific to husbands, wives, old bachelors, and old maids, and a final brief poem called good Advice to Everybody, which reads quote, if Wisdom's ways you wisely seek five things observed, with care of whom you speak, to whom you speak, and how and when and where quaint this very Although it was written after the end of the US Civil War during the period of reconstruction, Daisy Eyebright's a manual of etiquette with hints on politeness and good breeding, makes almost no mention of race. Although it's presented as though it's rules of etiquette apply to everyone, there's kind of an implicit assumption that the person reading it is white. The only specific mentions of anybody else are references to people doing things differently from what she considers typical of Americans, with Americans here meaning white, middle and upper class Christian Americans. It's clear that she just sort of sees this as the default. This is one of the ways that etiquette can be really fraught. There is often this underlying assumption that there's one right way of doing things that applies to everybody, without really acknowledging all the nuances that exist among people of different cultures and races and genders and classes and et cetera. This means that rules for etiquette can really easily be used to marginalize people outside of a society's dominant cultural group, and have been used and are still used actively to marginalize people. The next book that we're talking about is The National Capital Code of Etiquette, which was published in nineteen twenty, and it's almost the opposite. It's aware of race from the beginning. Its author, Edward S. Green, was a government employee living in Washington, D C. In nineteen twenty, about twenty five percent of the capital city's residence were black. Green's publisher, Austin Jenkins Company, produced quote Bibles and special books for the Colored race by Negro authors. The publisher's note at the beginning ends with quote, we consider it a great pleasure and are especial privilege to respectfully dedicate this volume to the Colored race. The author's preface also starts with an anecdote about George Washington. In this anecdote, he bows and raises his hat to two black laborers after they had done the same to him, and then when a friend that he was with, said that it was undignified for him to have returned these laborers salute. George Washington answered, quote, do you suppose I ever want to think that he had better manners than I did? Various elements of the story are very cringey to me. And then the preface went on to say, quote, thus spoke the perfect gentleman, kindly consideration of our inferiors, as well as deference to our superiors as one of the first rudiments of good manners. But this book is not about how black people should interact with white society. Its audience is Washington, DC's black middle class and the rules for behavior within that society. And a lot of the actual rules parallel the ones in the books that we've already discussed, like quote, first, you know what displeases or angers you personally avoid all such words or actions in your contact with others. After a little bit about not monopolizing conversations, this part of the book continues quote, Third, strive to please study your friends and acquaintances. If they have hobbies, encourage them to talk about their specialty. This all sounds very familiar. Yeah, a lot like the things that we've just talked about, even though the rules them them selves are often similar, though the racial context of this book adds some additional nuances. Public schools and recreation facilities in Washington, d C. Were segregated, and after being inaugurated as president in nineteen thirteen, Woodrow Wilson had empowered his administration to segregate the federal workforce. Black workers in Washington, d C. Were increasingly forced into lower wage jobs and barred from opportunities that were open to their white coworkers. So while this book doesn't explicitly mention race after the preface, it's really threaded through with layers of things like respectability, politics, and a sense of racial uplift. Here's what Edward S. Green says about dressing for the types of formal visits that Daisy Ebright also covered in her book. Quote. In making formal calls, the lady does not remove her gloves, hat, or veil. A gentleman may carry his hat into the room. If wearing gloves, the right should be removed and held in the lane left gloved hand during the call. And here are his thoughts on dancing. Quote. The author has seen these spasmodic revolutions of the dancing public come and go for many years, but the custom invariably returns to the dreamy waltz, the more conservative dances, and the sane orchestra sooner or later. Unless at least seven musicians are employed, a drum is not only superfluous, it is an abomination. Since this book was published in nineteen twenty, it was able to include photographs. Unlike the earlier books that we've talked about. There are pictures of the social settings that were being described, examples of well dressed people in the like. One thing that stands out is that most of the people in these pictures have relatively light skin. While the idea of racial uplift was theoretically focused on lifting up black people as a whole, in reality there was a lot of colorism, with people with lighter skin being seen as the best examples of the race. Yes. This book also includes a lengthy section on writing letters, and it includes examples of letters for all kinds of different purposes, like there is a sample letter for a man who wants to propose to a woman in writing because he's either too timid to do it in spoken words, or just feels better able to express himself in writing, than there are examples of how she could write back to him, either accepting his proposal or turning it down. Then there's another example of his letter to her father asking for his permission to get married, followed by examples of letters from the father answering yes or no. There are some sample letters in some of the other books that we were talking about today, but there are quite a lot of them in this one, and that makes a lot of sense considering that this book was written a couple of generations after the abolition of slavery in the United States, Literacy rates in black communities were still recovering from laws had prohibited enslaved people and sometimes free black people from learning to read and write. Yeah, literacy rates had improved a lot within black communities, but there were still big disparities between black communities and white communities, and then within the black community there were disparities by age groups, with much younger people generally more often able to read, and older people. Maybe not. After we take a quick sponsor break, we are going to talk about one of the more famous American etiquette books. When I started thinking about this episode, which I usually say at the beginning, we usually pick six things, or I usually pick six things that for whatever reason can't stand on their own. This one really probably could the thing that we're going to talk about next, but I'm including it for reasons that I'm about to say. My original intent was that we would talk about some etiquette books that were fairly evenly distributed from the sixteenth century, when the focus of these books started to shift from like courtly protocols to more general rules of good behavior, up to sometime in the early twentieth century, when we get to the end of things being in the public domain so we can quote from them however much we want. I wound up, though, with more stuff from the early twentieth century than I really had originally intended to, and one reason was that it seemed like it would just be weird to not touch on any of the more famous names in etiquette, like Emily Post. Emily Post was a real person born Emily Price in Baltimore, Maryland, in October of eighteen seventy two. She was from a very well off family. She went to private school. She had a formal society debut, and she started writing after she and her husband divorced. Once her children were in school. In addition to her works on etiquette, she wrote about things like architecture and interior design. Her father was a well known architect. She also wrote novels and stories, many of which were published serially in magazines. Her nineteen twenty two book Etiquette in Society, in Business, in Politics, and at Home is what she became most famous for. There have been lots and lots of subsequent editions of this book, revised and updated according to the changing social norms, including a centennial edition that came out in twenty twenty two. She eventually founded the Emily Post Institute, which is still a family business that is still run by her descendants and their spouses, to kind of carry on her work in the field of etiquette. That original nineteen twenty two work is in the public domain now, and a lot of the basic standards of etiquette it contains are again right in line with the earlier works we've been talking about. There are chapters on greetings, public gatherings, conversation, cards and visits, dinners, dances, weddings, and manners at home and abroad. There are also examples of letters and which styles of envelope are in good and bad taste. The diagrams of envelope shapes that are in poor taste kind of cracked me up. This book became an enormous bestseller. It went through almost ninety printings and ten revisions before she died in nineteen sixty. It's also seemingly exhaustive, clocking in at thirty eight chapters and six hundred and twenty seven pages, including an index that is about three times long or even longer than all the other books that we've talked about so far, with the exception of the Earl of Chesterfield's letters, which like that was years and years of personal correspondence that he had never intended to have published as a book. As a side note, Lord Chesterfield is again name dropped several times in this book. This book is also very specific, like here's what to say when introduced quote best Society has only one phrase and acknowledgment of an introduction, how do you do it? Literally accepts no other. When mister Bachelor says missus Worldley, may I present mister Struthers, Missus Worldley says, how do you do? Struthers bows and says nothing to sweetly echo mister Struthers with a rising inflection on theirs is not good form. Saccerin chirpings should be classed with crooked little fingers, high handshaking, and other affectations. All affectations are bad form. Persons of position do not say charmed or please to meet you, et cetera. But often the first remark is the beginning of a conversation. For instance, young Struthers is presented to Missus Worldley. She smiles and perhaps says, I hear that you are going to be in New York all winter. Struthers answers, yes, I am at the Columbia Law School, et cetera. Or since he is much younger than she, he might answer yes, Missus Worldly, especially if his answer would otherwise be a kurt yes or no. Otherwise he does not continue repeating her name. The idea of best society which Polly said at the very beginning of that quote that was at the heart of this whole book quote, society is an ambiguous term. It may mean much or nothing. Every human being, unless dwelling alone in a cave, is a member of society of one sort or another. And therefore it is well to define what it is to be understood by the term best society and why its authority is recognized. Best society abroad is always the oldest aristocracy, composed not so much of persons of title, which may be new, as of those families and communities which have, for the longest period of time known the highest cultivation. Our own best society is represented by social groups which have had, since this is America widest rather than the longest, association with old world cultivation. Cultivation is always the basic attribute of best society, much as we hear in this country of an aristocracy of wealth. In addition to spelling out that in her mind, the best society in the US is the people who have the widest association with old world cultivation. This book is underpinned by the idea that its readers have money. On the one hand, it frames good manners is something that everyone can aspire to. On the other, there are so many references to maids and servants and secretaries and housekeepers and butlers. One theory on why this book became so popular is that it gave everyone else a glimpse into the inner workings and manners of high society, full of fictionalized depictions of good breeding with names like missus kindheart and mister worldly. Yeah. I kind of cracked up at how often it was like, and you can just send your secretary to do this. It's like, my, what so easy? Uh? Personally, I found Emily Posts nineteen twenty two Etiquette to be way more overwhelming than any of the earlier books we have talked about. The basic idea of etiquette is pretty similar across all the books, like it's a way to try to make society better, try to make other people comfortable, and don't act like a jerk. It was not until I got to Emily Post's work that I started to feel worried about messing up all kinds of very particular little rules. Like that whole passage that Holly read about greeting people really stressed me out. This book also felt judgier to me than a lot of the other works we have talked about today. As one example, there is a section on pronunciation, inherently a stressful subject to me, and it starts quote, a gentleman of Irish blood may have a brogue as rich as plumcake, or another's accent be soft Southern or flat newingand or rolling Western, And to each of these the utterance of the others may sound too flat, too soft, too harsh, to refined or drawled or clipped, short, but not uncultivated. The sounds almost like it's acknowledging that all these different accents can have a place in her best society. But then the next paragraph names the quote cultivated Englishmen as nearest to perfection in English, before describing the accents of New York, Boston, the South, and Pennsylvania in a way that came off to me as very insulting. I can't wait to talk about Emily Post on Friday. Oh our last Etiquette book for today is Emily Post's biggest competitor in the nineteen twenties, Lillian Eichler later Lillian Eichler Watson. We've been going chronologically up to now, but the copyright on her two volume Etiquette is from nineteen twenty one, so that's a year before Emily Posts book. I really wanted to do a full episode on Lillian Eichler a while back, but I just could not find enough information to make it work, which is one of the reasons why sometimes I do six impossible episodes. Lillian Eichler was the daughter of Jewish immigrants from Hungary and she liked to write. At the age of eighteen, she got a job at an advertising agency on the strength of that writing. She really did not have much formal education or any experience beyond that. She basically showed them a sample and then they hired her. The advertising agency was Ruth, Ralph and Ryan and one of its clients was Doubleday Publishing. Lillian was tasked with writing an ad to help double Day sell through a backlog of an etiquette manual by Emily Holt. She wrote an ad about spilling coffee on a tablecloth and not knowing what to do, sort of like, has this ever happened to you? You could protect yourself from this kind of mortification with this book on etiquette. And this ad worked really, really well, and people bought the book, but a lot of them returned it because it was a reprint of an older book and at this point its advice was really out of date. So then Eichler wrote a new two volume book of etiquette. Volume one of this book included Etiquette for engagements, weddings, funerals and Christenings, Letters, correspondents and calling cards, and Etiquette for parents and Children. And then volume two included servants, dinners, luncheons, teas, dancing, games, and etiquette for things like business, theater, hotels, and travel and also like pretty much everyone in this episode, it references the work of Lord Chesterfield. Eichler wrote the advertising campaign for these books as well. The most famous ad in this campaign ran under the headline again she Orders a Chicken Salad Please, which told a story of a young woman who wanted to impress a man on a date, but didn't know how to pronounce the French words on the restaurant menu or how to con verse with them, so she just kept ordering chicken salad and all that folded in on itself to make her feel graceless and awkward. Another full page ad that Eichler wrote for this book had the headline are you haunted by the ghosts of your social mistakes? Both ads noted that etiquette is the armor to protect yourself from such embarrassments. I'd find are you Haunted by the ghosts of your social mistakes? Just profoundly effective, Because yes, Lillian, I am. I am haunted by them all the time. Uh. As we said earlier, Lillian Eichler was Emily Post's biggest competitor in the nineteen twenties. Eichler's Book of Etiquette sold two million copies, and it was revised and reprinted. Her tone was generally a lot more casual and conversational than than Emily Posts. Eichler started it off quote, success without culture is like old fashioned strawberry shortcake without the whipped cream. It has no flavor. There are certain little courteous of deservances, certain social formalities that bespeak the true lady, the true gentleman. Some of us call it good form some of us call it culture, some of us call it etiquette. But we all admit that it makes the world a better place to live in. A bit later in the introduction, she wrote, quote, too rigid an observance of the laws of good society makes them nothing short of an absurdity. The purpose of correct manners is not to enable us to strut about in society and command the admiring glances of the people around us, as the peacock in its vanity parades before onlookers in a proud dignity that is quite obviously assumed. The true service of etiquette is so to strengthen and simplify this social life that we are able to do what is absolutely correct and write without even stopping to think about it. I like any book from one hundred years ago and all the other books we've been talking about today, parts of this are pretty backward by today's standards. Like she acknowledges that a lot more women were making their way into the world of business, and that was something that she praised. But here is some of what she had to say about women in the workplace quote, it took many centuries of hammering before the portals of business and industry and art were thrown wide open to women. Now that it has happened, it is her duty and pride to conduct herself in such a way that there can be no regrets and vain longings for the return of the woman of yesterday. By her manner and her dress, a woman determines her place, and the women who are careless of their appearance and careless of their standard are the ones who are hindering the progress of women toward the goal of perfect womanhood. When she enters business, she must realize that she is on an equal footing with men, and she should not demand or expect privileges simply because she is a woman. What she does and says and whares during the hours of her social life is entirely distinct from her business life, though of course she is always courteous, however hard it may be sometimes to control herself under the grinding of the routine work at the office. Her advice on tipping could have been written today, although her assertion is that it was a European custom and not an American one, and that's missing some big nuance. While tipping was introduced to the US from Europe, it became widespread in the United States after the Civil War when employers hired free black people for low wages and then encouraged patrons to tip them for good service. In her advice, Eichler wrote, quote, while the custom is observed as widely in this country as it is today, it is both inconsiderate and bad form to ignore it. The wages of waiters and waitresses, porters, and hotel servants are outrageously small for the reason that they receive tips for each service they performed for individual guests and travelers. If the tipping custom were abolished, the wages of these people would be correspondingly increased, but as things are now, it is inconsiderate to deprive them of the tips that both they and their employers expect that they will receive. On the other hand, though she describes lavish tipping as vulgar, I don't agree with her there. I don't either. Mind your own business, Lilian, Yeah. Lillian Eichler Watson continued to write about etiquette and other topics almost up until her death on June twenty fifth, nineteen seventy nine. She hit married Tobias F. Watson in nineteen twenty eight. They'd had two children together, but she had not turned her work into something of an etiquette empire that kept her name going and her recognition going after her death the way Emily post did. I have lots of feelings about him etiquette, and I think Holly has responded to a number of things in this episode too, so we'll be talking about all that more on Friday. Do you have listener mail for us? I also have some listener mail for us. This is from Lisa. This is another another message following our episode on Rebecca Lee Crumpler and Lisa wrote, Hi, Tracy and Holly from a very wet and windy Dublin, Ireland. I was thrilled to hear your recent episode on doctress Rebecca Lee Crumpler, as I used to work as an archivist at the Drexel University Med School Archives in Philadelphia, and immediately knew exactly what you're going to say about the medal with the mystery date, since that was my first introduction to her when a researcher asked for a copy of the photo of the medal many years ago. I even more thoroughly enjoyed the behind the scenes mini episode and was practically shouting my answers to your questions about the Black Women Physicians project begun by Margaret Jaredo back in the nineteen eighties. I managed to keep the dialogue internal, though, as I didn't think the good people of Sheffield, where I was for the weekend, would appreciate a mud covered American. I had just finished an especially mucky parkrun, enthusing loudly about the collection on their buses. So finally I can share my thoughts here. First, a bit of background on the archives as a whole. They held the papers of the former Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania and Hannaman University. It's a bit ironic that the two came together as Drexel University College of Medicine, as the former was one of the first in the United States to admit women, and Hannaman was one of the very last to do so, although Women's med started admitting men and became simply the Medical College of Pennsylvania in nineteen seventy. Without getting too far off topic, the Hanneman side of the collection is also a fascinating look at the history of homeopathy, although that focus had been largely dropped by the school by the nineteen twenties, partially because of the earlier Flexner report which you mentioned, but because of its earlier grounding. In that approach, there is a Paracelsus collection of rare books more people should know about, but that's a story for another time. Back to the Black Women's Physician Project. Margaret Jaredo began the work relatively early in her career. She later went on to work at to University as an archivist and still consults with the Mother Bethel Ame Church Archives. Jaredo created what archivists call an artificial collection, pulling together items from across the Drexel med Archives and I've spent a goodly amount of time with those boxes. It's often the first place to look when a researcher needs anything relating to Black women in medicine, whether they attended Women's Med or any of its descendant institutions or not. It's essentially an analog starting to point to other parts of the collection, or indeed to others elsewhere. It was an initiative very much ahead of its time and is hugely valuable. Of course, the rest of the collection is also amazing. Other early black women doctors who did graduate from Women's Med include Rebecca Cole and Eliza Grier. Lisa points to some blog posts and says that they're a little too old now to count as self promotion. Eliza Greer had a heartbreakingly difficult journey to becoming a doctor and a tragically early death, all to commonist story for many early women doc There's a letter in her file from Susan B. Anthony, essentially asking for someone else to offer her some assistance. There's also a great online collection on the question of whether doctor or doctress was the most appropriate title. There were certainly opinions among these early physicians supporting both views. But in short, it's an amazing collection to visit, and still the friendliest place I've ever worked. Everyone goes above and beyond to support researchers of all sorts and to make sure that these women's stories are told. If you ever do visit, you can see Harriet the preserved nervous system of probably Harriet Cole, although with all the caveats we would now have today about informed consent or its historical absence. Apologies for this being so long, but it's a place and team I remember with such fondness, and the care for the collections and drive for accessibility is second to none. I am, of course also attaching a picture of our two cats, Ruby the Devin Rex who has made a previous listener mail appearance on a letter from my husband about of all things turnips, and Ginger the Tory. Both are tearing around the house right now. They are the best colleagues anyone could have for working at home. As always a great listen Lisa, ps. I must always make more people aware of Doctor Euthanasia Med WMCP class of eighteen sixty nine, later the personal physician of Sarah Winchester of so called Mystery House fame, and her graduate thesis. It is a triumph of nominative determinism. Please enjoy, Lisa. So thank you so much, Lisa for all of this. I received this, I think mere minutes before we read or before we went into the studio to record last Tuesday. I wanted to note a couple of things besides just saying thank you so much for this. One is that there was also there's also a lot in the Boston University School of Medicine history that is about homeopathy. I did not get into any of that in that episode at all because it felt sort of tangential to what we were talking about. But there are a lot of medical schools in the US that, like late nineteenth early twentieth century, we're very focused on homeopathy. And I also loved hearing sort of another perspective on this collection, sort of the perspective of someone who has worked there versus the perspective of some students accessing the collection. And of course to incredibly cute cats sitting on some stairs, magical deaf and Rex Baby looking a little startled cutie pies. So thank you so much for this, Lisa. If you would like to send us a note about this, or any other podcast. We're at history Podcasts at iHeartRadio dot com, and we're all over social media at Misson History. I say all over. It's kind of all. It's like there's the ex that used to be Twitter. There's Facebook, there is Instagram. We put up our new show announcements there. And you can subscribe to our show on the iHeartRadio app or wherever else you'd like to get your podcasts. Stuff you missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.