What Would Emily Post Do?

Emily Roast: A 1927 Review Reviewed

After watching two seasons of Mad Men, I start to wonder sometimes if anyone had a sense of humor before the Beatles. Well, turns out someone in 1927 certainly did. Dorothy Parker reviewed--er, satirized--no, roasted--Emily Post's most recent edition of Etiquette in 1927 for The New Yorker in a piece titled "Mrs. Post Enlarges on Etiquette."

I had never heard of Dorothy Parker before this little stroll through The New Yorker's archives, but I sure do wish I had known her, and I hope Emily Post did. Emily loved to poke fun at etiquette in much the same style that Ms. Parker does here, as she did when she wrote a novel satirizing the subject.

I find myself in sympathy with Ms. Parker. Like her, I too am relieved I will never have to remember the etiquette of informing someone, “I fear you have come too late to accompany me on your harp.” I will also never be caught saying “I’m thinking of buying a radio.”

And while I am not a fan of this practice, I am fascinated that she casually references the giving out of fake numbers to men a girl just didn't want to hear from. My sense of order in the universe shifted as I realized that my generation didn't come up with this one. (And that perhaps we're not so bad after all! Apparently previous generations had just as much need of Etiquette as we do now....)

Or maybe I need a little less Mad Men in my pop culture diet, and a little more Ms. Parker.

Emily Post: Daughter of the Gilded Age, Mistress of American Manners

For both personal and professional reasons, I am thrilled to let you know about a new biography of Emily Post, my great great grandmother, by Laura Claridge titled Emily Post: Daughter of the Gilded Age, Mistress of American Manners, on sale tomorrow, October 14th, from Random House.

Laura is an accomplished biographer (her works include a biography of Normal Rockwell) and has spent the last seven years working on her bio of Emily. I've had the fortune to meet her in person, and have every faith in her ability to tell about the life and times of Emily Post. Emily's story makes for a fascinating read, but it's Laura's deft ability to relate her life to the greater scope of what was happening in America at the time that takes her book to the next level.

I'm excited for the public to remeet Emily Post. There are often misconceptions about who she was and what she was like. People often think she was humorless, snobbish and prissy--which couldn't be further from the truth. USA Today did a piece on the biography today expressing this nicely.  The New Yorker did an even more extensive piece, highlighting Emily's sense of inclusiveness and her desire--like mine--to look past what fork to use and get to the heart of etiquette, which is all about how people treat each other.

Emily's "Guestroom of Perfection"

Surprisingly to many, Emily Post's personal family legacy was actually in architecture, not the business of manners. Her father, Bruce Price, had a been a well- respected architect in his day, and had times been different, Emily, his only child, probably would have followed in his footsteps. Instead, after raising her two sons, her life took a famous turn into etiquette in 1922. But in 1930 she had a chance to revisit her passion for architecture, in her book The Personality of a House. In addition to timeless advise on architecture, interior architecture and decorating, she included a section on guest rooms, and to this day I love what she had to say. In fact, my own list has hardly changed from it.

In Emily's own words, "The essential requirements of comfort for every guestroom [sic] of perfection, whether it be in a palace or in a little but well appointed house, include:

1. A bathroom of its own.
2. A delightful bed.
3. Plenty of light and air.
4. Choice of pillows.
5. A perfect dressing-table.
6. A good light to read by in bed.
7. Heat in cold weather.
8. Cross-ventilation in hot weather.
9. A sofa to rest on.
10. Situation as free from noise as possible."

I think most of us can offer heat in cold weather these days! Check back tomorrow for my updated take on Emily's list--with the holidays coming, it's the perfect time to make sure you're ready!

Introducing Emily Post

Emily Post was my great-great-grandmother. That's one too many greats for me to have known her personally, but I've made up for it through family stories, books, photos and news articles about her. This series of posts I'll be doing, always in the "Emily: Up Close" category, will introduce Emily Post to you as her world knew her and as her family knew her.

Let's start with a little joke Emily pulled on her public. The first edition of her best-seller Etiquette was first published in 1922. In the late 1920's what appeared to be a spoof of Etiquette--and it's author--appeared in a series of articles in Vanity Fair. Called How to Behave Though a Debutante, it was a satire of the flapper generation. Muriel, the main character, is heard saying, "Really, I'm getting fed up with this continual criticism about the behavior of me and my friends, because we think most rules of etiquette perfectly antique--and collecting antiques is no thrill to us at all." Everyone thought Emily was being roasted.

In 1928, the series was published as a book, and the author's name was cleverly presented on the title page: "Opinions by Muriel, As Overheard by Emily Post."

A profile of her that ran in The New Yorker shortly after Debutante was published described her as "a link between two worlds".  This sums up nicely how she could believe in the importance of Etiquette, and still have such remarkable insight into the mind of a twenty-something girl. Emily didn't do this to make fun of people who took her seriously; she did it because she was a smart woman who, unlike the other fifty-somethings of her generation, could still sympathize with a younger generation while believing in the end that using manners was the way to go.

PS - Debutante also had the most terrific illustrations by John Held, Jr.: