WEBVTT - Emily Post: Ettiquette Queen 0:00:01.480 --> 0:00:05.020 Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:11.140 --> 0:00:13.930 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck, 0:00:13.980 --> 0:00:17.290 and Jerry's here, too, keeping us proper. And this is 0:00:17.350 --> 0:00:20.150 Stuff You Should Know, the Sit Up Straight edition. 0:00:21.970 --> 0:00:25.410 I got to say, after researching this, I am a 0:00:25.450 --> 0:00:26.590 big fan of Emily Post. 0:00:27.330 --> 0:00:32.390 Yeah, she's a surprisingly cool person, especially... for somebody who 0:00:32.810 --> 0:00:35.019 literally wrote a book on etiquette. Yeah. 0:00:35.540 --> 0:00:37.659 I didn't know much about any of this. And now 0:00:37.700 --> 0:00:40.159 I'm like, I want to know about her number one fan. 0:00:40.200 --> 0:00:42.060 I'm sure there's one person on planet earth that likes 0:00:42.100 --> 0:00:43.080 her more than me. Sure. 0:00:43.700 --> 0:00:47.170 Maybe number two, we'll say three. All right. But yeah, 0:00:47.290 --> 0:00:49.350 still a big fan. Are you going to buy the book, 0:00:49.470 --> 0:00:49.970 the blue book? 0:00:51.170 --> 0:00:53.850 Uh, I mean, I probably should. I'm sure it goes 0:00:53.910 --> 0:00:57.530 to something like her foundation or I want to support 0:00:57.550 --> 0:00:59.760 her financially still years after her passing. 0:01:00.020 --> 0:01:03.580 That'll do it. Um, I know that I read some 0:01:03.660 --> 0:01:06.380 think pieces on people who went and read that book 0:01:06.459 --> 0:01:08.680 and were like lessons I learned from reading this book. 0:01:10.180 --> 0:01:14.440 And it's pretty much roundly described as lovely, charming. 0:01:14.470 --> 0:01:15.440 Yeah. 0:01:15.620 --> 0:01:17.929 And also useful still, because one of the things that 0:01:17.990 --> 0:01:21.209 set her apart is because of the way she approached 0:01:21.370 --> 0:01:24.910 etiquette and rules of etiquette and how to, you know, 0:01:24.970 --> 0:01:29.970 learn social graces. The, the, It was like a progressive 0:01:30.030 --> 0:01:32.500 way of doing it. So she was able to basically say, 0:01:32.520 --> 0:01:34.880 this is what's really important. So a lot of the 0:01:34.920 --> 0:01:38.620 stuff that she talks about is completely applicable today. 0:01:40.740 --> 0:01:41.899 Some might say more so. 0:01:42.140 --> 0:01:45.480 Yeah. More needed for sure. Yeah. 0:01:45.580 --> 0:01:48.930 So, I mean, they had etiquette guides for sure. It's 0:01:48.970 --> 0:01:51.910 not like she, even though, you know, you might commonly 0:01:51.950 --> 0:01:54.210 hear people say she literally wrote the book on etiquette. 0:01:54.250 --> 0:01:56.950 She did. But she wrote one of the many books 0:01:57.010 --> 0:02:01.030 on etiquette. Hers was a little bit different than the 0:02:01.070 --> 0:02:02.790 others in a lot of ways that we're going to 0:02:02.810 --> 0:02:04.170 talk about kind of here and there. But one of 0:02:04.190 --> 0:02:07.740 the big ways is she was all about ethics. And 0:02:07.960 --> 0:02:10.020 as we'll see, you know, we're going to detail her life. 0:02:10.060 --> 0:02:13.140 She was born into money, but she was basically like, hey, listen, 0:02:13.720 --> 0:02:17.150 just because you have money doesn't mean that you are respectable. 0:02:18.230 --> 0:02:20.840 You have to have a grounding in ethics. No matter 0:02:20.880 --> 0:02:24.720 who you are and if you don't have money and 0:02:24.760 --> 0:02:27.080 if you're, you know, not born into like a great 0:02:27.160 --> 0:02:30.140 family or something, then that doesn't mean you can't be 0:02:30.180 --> 0:02:32.609 a part of what she called good society. You just 0:02:32.650 --> 0:02:34.850 have to know like you have to be grounded in 0:02:34.950 --> 0:02:37.590 ethics and how to know like how to keep a 0:02:37.610 --> 0:02:39.690 clean house and how to behave with manners. 0:02:40.669 --> 0:02:43.250 Yeah, which is kind of groundbreaking because up to that point, 0:02:43.310 --> 0:02:45.650 most etiquette books were basically like, this is what the 0:02:45.790 --> 0:02:48.210 ultra rich expect of you if you're in their presence. 0:02:48.270 --> 0:02:50.340 And if you don't do this, you're going to embarrass yourself. 0:02:50.380 --> 0:02:53.280 So memorize all of these. And she definitely turned it 0:02:53.360 --> 0:02:56.340 on its head, which, as you said, her being a 0:02:56.419 --> 0:03:01.500 society or socialite, I guess, herself was really something. She 0:03:01.540 --> 0:03:04.810 had like the background to basically say, no, there's a 0:03:04.830 --> 0:03:06.970 better way to do this. Not coming from the outside. 0:03:07.010 --> 0:03:08.570 She was on the inside and that helped. 0:03:09.100 --> 0:03:13.350 Yeah. And also like she wasn't so stodgy that she 0:03:13.450 --> 0:03:16.910 didn't embrace change when it was like kind of clearly happening. 0:03:16.950 --> 0:03:19.210 And as we'll see, you know, this book she started 0:03:19.250 --> 0:03:21.630 to write and came out during the Roaring Twenties. So 0:03:21.690 --> 0:03:24.190 it was a lot of people, including her sons, thought 0:03:24.220 --> 0:03:26.320 like this probably isn't the right time for this kind 0:03:26.360 --> 0:03:28.320 of thing. Like that kind of stuff is old fashioned. 0:03:29.220 --> 0:03:31.440 And she just said, just hold my tea and I'll 0:03:31.460 --> 0:03:31.940 take care of this. 0:03:32.460 --> 0:03:36.760 Yeah. So the U.S. in particular has long had a 0:03:36.800 --> 0:03:40.600 preoccupation with etiquette for a big reason. One is we 0:03:41.140 --> 0:03:44.360 established our country as a society of equals. There's not 0:03:44.420 --> 0:03:48.800 an aristocracy, which is where people receive their etiquette from, say, 0:03:49.130 --> 0:03:51.890 in like England or the U.K. You just did what 0:03:51.930 --> 0:03:55.090 the aristocrats did or, you know, that was your etiquette. 0:03:55.470 --> 0:03:57.970 We don't have an aristocracy here. So it was like 0:03:58.050 --> 0:04:00.630 the wealthy. And like I said, up to that point, 0:04:01.560 --> 0:04:03.520 Up to the point of Emily Post, the wealthy were 0:04:03.540 --> 0:04:05.670 just like, or etiquette books were like, here's what the 0:04:05.710 --> 0:04:08.290 wealthy tell you to do. The problem is, is there 0:04:08.310 --> 0:04:09.950 are a lot of people in the middle class who 0:04:09.970 --> 0:04:11.870 were kind of working their way up because in the 0:04:11.910 --> 0:04:15.780 United States, wealth equals aristocracy, not being born with a title. 0:04:16.660 --> 0:04:20.420 And those people resented the heck out of the upper 0:04:20.480 --> 0:04:23.789 classes who were just ready and waiting to embarrass them 0:04:23.810 --> 0:04:26.789 when they slipped up. And so Emily Post came and 0:04:26.830 --> 0:04:28.990 was like, hey, like you said, you don't have to 0:04:29.029 --> 0:04:31.890 be born wealthy. You don't have to. Your ancestors didn't 0:04:31.910 --> 0:04:35.670 have to come on the Mayflower. Anybody can learn etiquette 0:04:35.750 --> 0:04:39.750 and everybody should practice good etiquette. And that was, again, revolutionary. 0:04:40.540 --> 0:04:44.260 Yeah, for sure. So she was born into a rich family. 0:04:44.279 --> 0:04:47.220 Like I said, her dad, Bruce Price, she was born 0:04:47.260 --> 0:04:50.660 Emily Price in October of 1872. But her dad was 0:04:50.680 --> 0:04:56.510 a pretty prominent architect in Baltimore. Her mom, Josephine Lee Price, 0:04:56.570 --> 0:04:59.880 was an heiress to a coal fortune. And she was 0:04:59.920 --> 0:05:03.020 basically an only child. She very sadly had a brother 0:05:03.060 --> 0:05:06.100 who died in infancy. So she was raised an only child. 0:05:06.140 --> 0:05:09.520 And at five, they moved to New York City. And 0:05:09.550 --> 0:05:11.290 they were a part of the good society there because 0:05:11.310 --> 0:05:13.630 they had money. They were not part of that of 0:05:13.790 --> 0:05:16.969 what was called the 400, which was the super elite 0:05:17.050 --> 0:05:19.750 upper crust that, you know, a lot of them had 0:05:19.950 --> 0:05:23.960 aristocratic lineage. But She was in New York and like 0:05:24.020 --> 0:05:25.980 going to finishing school, that kind of thing. 0:05:26.580 --> 0:05:29.400 Yeah. And you mentioned the 400. I read that that 0:05:29.460 --> 0:05:33.980 was a way for this elite upper class of old 0:05:34.060 --> 0:05:38.480 money and old lineage to differentiate themselves from the newly 0:05:38.600 --> 0:05:41.860 minted wealthy people who were starting to rub elbows with them. 0:05:42.460 --> 0:05:44.520 That list was one way to do it. Another way 0:05:44.560 --> 0:05:47.310 to do it was to found a little village called 0:05:47.350 --> 0:05:51.190 Tuxedo Park, a little north of New York City. And 0:05:51.350 --> 0:05:54.350 it was created as like an enclave, an escape for 0:05:54.390 --> 0:05:58.910 the incredibly wealthy old money to get away from new money. 0:05:59.570 --> 0:06:02.310 And I want to preface this, Chuck, by telling everybody 0:06:02.330 --> 0:06:05.250 I'm not making this up, but Tuxedo Park in New 0:06:05.300 --> 0:06:10.240 York is where the tuxedo came from, aka the dinner jacket. 0:06:10.839 --> 0:06:16.760 That's right. And her dad in 1885 built four cottages there. And, 0:06:17.400 --> 0:06:21.330 you know, cottage is a It's a loose description. These 0:06:21.390 --> 0:06:25.510 are very lovely, very large homes that he built. I 0:06:25.570 --> 0:06:27.850 looked them up and I was expecting, you know, what 0:06:27.890 --> 0:06:28.790 I think of as a cottage. 0:06:28.870 --> 0:06:29.050 Right. 0:06:29.410 --> 0:06:32.789 Same. Which is something like 1,200 square feet. These are big, 0:06:32.830 --> 0:06:36.610 beautiful houses. Tuxedo Park looks amazing. I would love to 0:06:36.630 --> 0:06:39.370 visit there one day, in fact. But he built four 0:06:39.390 --> 0:06:42.050 of these, rented out three of them, used one for 0:06:42.070 --> 0:06:48.430 the family, and, you know, Everyone started like going there 0:06:48.529 --> 0:06:51.710 in the summers and some people started living there year round. 0:06:51.810 --> 0:06:55.529 And the Prices were one of those families. Yeah. 0:06:55.750 --> 0:06:59.600 And Emily was just doing basically everything that was expected 0:06:59.640 --> 0:07:01.740 of her. Like you said, she went to finishing school 0:07:01.800 --> 0:07:05.659 and at age 17, she premiered at a debutante ball. 0:07:06.200 --> 0:07:10.310 I think this is 1889. Following the script perfectly, she 0:07:10.350 --> 0:07:13.530 met her future husband at that debutante ball. His name 0:07:13.570 --> 0:07:15.510 was Edwin Post, and he didn't come from a ton 0:07:15.550 --> 0:07:18.130 of money, but he could trace his lineage back pretty 0:07:18.170 --> 0:07:21.500 far to old New Amsterdam. So he had that going 0:07:21.560 --> 0:07:24.200 for him. And Emily brought the money to the marriage. 0:07:24.220 --> 0:07:27.660 This is apparently not unusual at the time. And they 0:07:27.700 --> 0:07:31.119 just went ahead and had two sons, Ned and Bruce. 0:07:31.600 --> 0:07:34.600 I guess Bruce the Two, the Deuce. Bruce the Deuce. 0:07:34.620 --> 0:07:36.080 They got there eventually. 0:07:36.730 --> 0:07:39.450 Would they call him? How do you handle that if 0:07:39.470 --> 0:07:40.990 you're just named after a grandparent? 0:07:41.230 --> 0:07:44.110 I think they differentiated him by calling him Bruce Lee Post. 0:07:45.170 --> 0:07:48.010 Oh, is that it? 0:07:48.040 --> 0:07:50.620 I don't know. Different last name. Little Bruce, Old Bruce, 0:07:50.640 --> 0:07:53.660 Wrinkly Bruce, Chubby Bruce. Who knows? 0:07:54.200 --> 0:07:57.020 I didn't know if there was an official way you 0:07:57.040 --> 0:07:58.600 honor someone besides just the name. 0:07:58.860 --> 0:08:01.320 I think it's the second. Is it really? 0:08:01.400 --> 0:08:03.260 I thought that was just if you're named after your parent. 0:08:03.670 --> 0:08:04.310 That's Junior. 0:08:04.320 --> 0:08:07.100 Junior. Oh, okay. So it's the second, huh? 0:08:07.300 --> 0:08:09.680 I believe so. I'm making this up as I go along, 0:08:09.720 --> 0:08:12.970 but it's based on 50 years of paying attention on Earth. 0:08:13.710 --> 0:08:15.670 I got you. So that's my problem. 0:08:16.430 --> 0:08:16.610 What? 0:08:17.590 --> 0:08:18.190 Don't pay attention. 0:08:18.290 --> 0:08:19.090 That is not true. 0:08:19.110 --> 0:08:20.010 I probably would have picked this up. 0:08:20.250 --> 0:08:22.390 You just pay attention to stuff that's important to you. 0:08:24.140 --> 0:08:28.940 So, yeah, Ned was born in 1893, and Bruce II, 0:08:29.140 --> 0:08:30.960 Deuce Bruce, Bruce the Deuce, was born in 1895. 0:08:30.940 --> 0:08:31.020 Very. 0:08:34.290 --> 0:08:37.400 disappointedly, I guess she didn't have a very good marriage. Uh, 0:08:37.490 --> 0:08:39.770 Edwin doesn't seem like a very good dude. He was 0:08:40.070 --> 0:08:43.670 into sailing. Uh, she was prone to seasickness. So they 0:08:43.710 --> 0:08:47.590 didn't spend a lot of time together, like with shared passions. Uh, 0:08:47.670 --> 0:08:50.350 at one point he said that he had committed matrimony 0:08:50.470 --> 0:08:54.270 and was sentenced to life, uh, for it. So not 0:08:54.330 --> 0:08:57.429 cool to say something like that. Uh, and when her 0:08:57.470 --> 0:08:59.729 dad died, she was, she was a daddy's girl for sure. 0:08:59.790 --> 0:09:01.950 Very close to her father when he died in 1903 0:09:01.950 --> 0:09:06.170 on his deathbed. Apparently, she had a flair for writing, 0:09:06.230 --> 0:09:08.809 and he said, you should go write. Do that. That's 0:09:08.830 --> 0:09:12.010 what you're passionate about. And over the next year, after 0:09:12.070 --> 0:09:15.990 he passed away, she wrote and published her first novel, 0:09:16.030 --> 0:09:17.050 The Flight of the Moth. 0:09:18.050 --> 0:09:22.710 Yes. It's like a society novel about a woman who 0:09:22.750 --> 0:09:24.910 falls in love with a man who's already engaged. And 0:09:25.000 --> 0:09:27.860 this is actually one of six novels that she wrote, 0:09:28.410 --> 0:09:30.500 some of which were really popular. I only saw that 0:09:30.679 --> 0:09:33.680 one was poorly reviewed. One was mixed reviewed and the 0:09:33.730 --> 0:09:36.250 other four were pretty well received. So she was a 0:09:36.290 --> 0:09:39.550 good writer, a fiction writer. And that's what she wanted 0:09:39.610 --> 0:09:44.210 to be. Unfortunately, as her career's taking off, her marriage 0:09:44.270 --> 0:09:50.740 is deteriorating. Edwin's love of his ship or boating and 0:09:51.410 --> 0:09:54.660 her seasickness is not their only incompatibility. One of the 0:09:54.880 --> 0:09:56.760 big ones I think you could probably point to was 0:09:56.780 --> 0:10:00.510 him cheating on her all the time. Yeah. And he 0:10:00.590 --> 0:10:04.370 was the kind who I think didn't make too much 0:10:04.429 --> 0:10:07.510 of a secret of it. I don't think he talked 0:10:07.550 --> 0:10:09.770 about it openly because it's not clear whether she had 0:10:09.920 --> 0:10:13.560 full knowledge of it before he finally told her. But 0:10:13.600 --> 0:10:15.300 the reason he finally told her is because he was 0:10:15.340 --> 0:10:19.660 being blackmailed. And rather than submit to this blackmailing scheme 0:10:19.710 --> 0:10:21.610 that had been going on for a while, he decided 0:10:21.690 --> 0:10:24.250 he was going to be the hero of their circle 0:10:24.290 --> 0:10:27.689 of friends, I guess most of whom had been blackmailed 0:10:27.730 --> 0:10:31.790 as well, and expose the blackmailers. The problem is, is 0:10:31.860 --> 0:10:36.260 like this brought tremendous amounts of shame onto their marriage 0:10:36.300 --> 0:10:38.900 and onto Emily in particular. Yeah. 0:10:39.100 --> 0:10:42.819 I mean, I guess hell hath no fury like a 0:10:43.160 --> 0:10:46.929 man being blackmailed. because he was willing to throw it 0:10:46.970 --> 0:10:51.429 all away and embarrass, I guess he didn't feel too 0:10:51.450 --> 0:10:54.910 much embarrassment, but definitely embarrass Emily with all this stuff. 0:10:55.850 --> 0:10:59.210 Later on, she would basically say that they agreed that 0:10:59.230 --> 0:11:02.450 they would expose the blackmailers as a sort of a team. 0:11:03.070 --> 0:11:08.189 But according to her biographer, Laura Claridge, that was just 0:11:08.230 --> 0:11:10.530 something she said to sort of make it look better. 0:11:10.620 --> 0:11:13.760 Like she had some agency because apparently He just said, hey, 0:11:13.970 --> 0:11:16.350 I'm doing this and that's going to happen. 0:11:16.470 --> 0:11:18.790 Yeah, he was basically like, heads up, your life's about 0:11:18.809 --> 0:11:20.770 to get really terrible. I just wanted to let you 0:11:20.809 --> 0:11:23.850 know the day before it happens. Essentially, he protected her 0:11:23.870 --> 0:11:26.470 in no way, shape or form on top of humiliating her. 0:11:26.570 --> 0:11:30.770 So they got divorced the next year and she moved 0:11:30.880 --> 0:11:33.360 on with the kids. I didn't get the impression that 0:11:33.420 --> 0:11:35.500 she shed too many tears over it, which is good. 0:11:35.920 --> 0:11:38.140 I mean, a guy who says he committed matrimony is 0:11:38.200 --> 0:11:39.660 not exactly a catch, you know? 0:11:40.360 --> 0:11:40.960 Yeah, agreed. 0:11:41.710 --> 0:11:44.370 So how about we take a break and we'll rejoin 0:11:44.650 --> 0:11:49.280 newly single Happening Lady Emily Post. 0:11:49.840 --> 0:12:19.800 Thank you. Okay, Chuck. 0:12:19.970 --> 0:12:22.730 So Emily has a lot more free time on her hands, 0:12:23.610 --> 0:12:26.390 not having to keep tabs on her gallivanting husband because 0:12:26.410 --> 0:12:30.110 she's now divorced. So she threw herself into a book, 0:12:30.390 --> 0:12:33.960 another novel, Purple and Fine Linen. Could not find anything 0:12:34.040 --> 0:12:37.720 about what that was about. That had some positive reviews. 0:12:38.250 --> 0:12:40.569 Two years later, she came out with Woven in the 0:12:40.610 --> 0:12:43.850 Tapestry that did not impress viewers. That was the one 0:12:43.870 --> 0:12:45.870 I was talking about that didn't get very well reviewed. 0:12:46.590 --> 0:12:49.890 And then shortly after that, she released another one, The 0:12:49.929 --> 0:12:54.170 Title Market, which was about European titled people marrying American 0:12:54.530 --> 0:12:57.390 wealthy people. And all of these are like people are 0:12:57.460 --> 0:12:59.900 fascinated by this, just like they are today. It's like. 0:13:00.480 --> 0:13:05.820 inside scoops of how society lives. But one of the 0:13:05.880 --> 0:13:08.860 things that I think gets overlooked about Emily Post, she 0:13:08.900 --> 0:13:11.740 was not just dishing gossip. She was not being salacious. 0:13:11.800 --> 0:13:17.900 She was providing a very clear picture into society without 0:13:18.110 --> 0:13:20.530 going all Truman Capote and making everybody hate her. 0:13:21.870 --> 0:13:25.850 For sure. So while she's doing this, putting out novel 0:13:25.890 --> 0:13:29.980 after novel, she's also writing articles in various periodicals. She 0:13:30.040 --> 0:13:33.360 wrote one for the delineator called What Makes a Young 0:13:33.380 --> 0:13:37.520 Girl Popular in Society. So at this point, she's she's 0:13:37.580 --> 0:13:40.569 sort of edging toward what she would eventually get, like, 0:13:40.750 --> 0:13:43.230 you know, widespread acclaim for kind of writing about some 0:13:43.250 --> 0:13:45.990 of this stuff, a little bit of society, a little 0:13:46.010 --> 0:13:50.010 bit of ethics. She published another novel in 1911 called 0:13:50.030 --> 0:13:53.010 The Eagle's Feather, kind of mixed reviews on that one. 0:13:54.170 --> 0:13:56.699 And then she starts writing articles on like, hey, if 0:13:56.720 --> 0:13:58.500 you're going to have a baby, here's how you should 0:13:58.540 --> 0:14:03.480 plan for expenses. She wrote about Tuxedo Park. So, again, 0:14:03.540 --> 0:14:05.900 she's just sort of inching toward what would be her, 0:14:06.080 --> 0:14:07.570 you know, her big tome. 0:14:08.660 --> 0:14:11.890 I'm talking about having a baby reminds me of, I guess, 0:14:11.929 --> 0:14:15.150 a tweet or something I saw recently. It said, how 0:14:15.170 --> 0:14:17.150 does somebody look at a baby and think I'm going 0:14:17.170 --> 0:14:18.350 to name that kid Gary? 0:14:19.980 --> 0:14:20.960 Oh, poor Gary's. 0:14:21.120 --> 0:14:23.229 I know. But it is true that it's not a 0:14:23.280 --> 0:14:26.190 baby's name. You know what I mean? Yeah. 0:14:26.630 --> 0:14:28.990 It's also a name you don't hear a lot anymore 0:14:29.090 --> 0:14:29.850 for new names. 0:14:30.470 --> 0:14:34.330 True. But it's also a middle-aged man's name, very clearly. 0:14:34.990 --> 0:14:36.880 But that middle-aged man had to be a baby at 0:14:37.000 --> 0:14:37.410 one point. 0:14:38.020 --> 0:14:38.540 Yeah, that's true. 0:14:39.140 --> 0:14:42.720 So- There's something that's going on here. Just like she 0:14:42.760 --> 0:14:47.040 basically told everybody that she and Edwin had kind of 0:14:47.720 --> 0:14:51.970 collaborated to come up with the way to expose these blackmailers. 0:14:52.270 --> 0:14:54.330 She also told people that she was kind of pushed 0:14:54.470 --> 0:15:01.250 into becoming an etiquette writer, an advice columnist, basically. Again, 0:15:01.390 --> 0:15:04.170 Laura Claridge has basically dug up that. No, she was 0:15:04.350 --> 0:15:07.140 basically going after it. And even her agent was like, 0:15:07.200 --> 0:15:08.920 you don't want to do that. It's going to bore you. 0:15:08.980 --> 0:15:11.900 It's beneath you. And she still kept at it until 0:15:11.920 --> 0:15:15.680 she got a project in. Oh, I don't know. I 0:15:15.700 --> 0:15:18.060 think it was the lady's home journal. She finally got 0:15:18.140 --> 0:15:20.400 one or no, it was Collier's, I think one of 0:15:20.440 --> 0:15:20.780 the two. 0:15:21.400 --> 0:15:24.090 Yes, she she went on a road trip, actually. She 0:15:24.110 --> 0:15:27.970 wrote another book that was serialized, but not picked up 0:15:27.990 --> 0:15:30.690 for publishing in book form. So she was like, all right, 0:15:30.850 --> 0:15:34.690 I need to clear my head. My sons are adults 0:15:34.850 --> 0:15:37.630 and they're going on a road trip in Europe. They 0:15:37.810 --> 0:15:40.130 apparently were all super close because it wasn't a drag 0:15:40.150 --> 0:15:42.800 for mom to come along. And then not only that, 0:15:43.400 --> 0:15:46.000 after that road trip, Ned was like, hey, I'm going 0:15:46.020 --> 0:15:47.859 to keep going. They built this new Lincoln Highway. I'm 0:15:47.880 --> 0:15:50.560 going to do a cross country trip across across the 0:15:50.580 --> 0:15:53.520 United States. And mom, I can't think of anyone I'd 0:15:53.560 --> 0:15:56.820 rather have along with me. So she goes on this 0:15:56.820 --> 0:15:59.550 45 day trip across country. And that's where Collier is. 0:15:59.970 --> 0:16:02.690 was like, hey, why don't you write about your road 0:16:02.730 --> 0:16:06.830 trip or whatever? She wrote these articles, compiled into a 0:16:06.850 --> 0:16:09.690 book later called By Motor to the Golden Gate. But 0:16:09.890 --> 0:16:11.310 that didn't do so well either. 0:16:12.130 --> 0:16:14.590 No, I read that on that road trip, they had 0:16:14.630 --> 0:16:17.330 to ship the heavy silver picnic set that they had 0:16:17.370 --> 0:16:20.220 brought with them back east because it was weighing the 0:16:20.290 --> 0:16:21.510 car down too much. 0:16:22.140 --> 0:16:22.540 Amazing. 0:16:23.080 --> 0:16:26.010 So I misspoke earlier, Chuck. I said that she was– 0:16:26.410 --> 0:16:29.770 angling for like a monthly column or something on etiquette. 0:16:29.850 --> 0:16:31.650 She already had those, like you said, she had a 0:16:31.670 --> 0:16:34.650 couple of them. But rather than get like that monthly 0:16:34.770 --> 0:16:37.850 regular one that she wanted, she jumped over that and 0:16:37.950 --> 0:16:42.150 ended up with a book deal. The thing was, when 0:16:42.210 --> 0:16:45.410 she got this book deal, I think in 1920, to 0:16:45.450 --> 0:16:48.290 write a book on etiquette, between the time where she 0:16:48.330 --> 0:16:51.290 had been writing those columns and 1920, the world had 0:16:51.330 --> 0:16:55.040 changed drastically. Because World War I had killed so many 0:16:55.120 --> 0:16:57.500 people and the Spanish flu had killed so many people 0:16:58.100 --> 0:17:00.680 that the people who were left were like really happy 0:17:00.700 --> 0:17:03.480 to be alive. And the idea of following books of 0:17:03.600 --> 0:17:06.810 etiquette was not in the zeitgeist, which is why, like 0:17:06.830 --> 0:17:09.350 you said, her sons at the time were like, this 0:17:09.410 --> 0:17:12.210 doesn't seem like the right time for this kind of project. 0:17:12.910 --> 0:17:16.310 Yeah, but she was excited about it. She was like, 0:17:16.369 --> 0:17:18.570 all right, I'm going to bang this thing out. It'll 0:17:18.590 --> 0:17:20.350 be a short little book on etiquette with my own 0:17:20.410 --> 0:17:26.129 spin on it. meticulous researcher and organizer. She was never like, hey, 0:17:26.150 --> 0:17:30.510 I'm the expert on this thing. I know all of 0:17:30.730 --> 0:17:32.729 like everything about etiquette. So you got to listen to me. 0:17:32.810 --> 0:17:35.970 She was asking friends. She was asking random people on 0:17:35.990 --> 0:17:38.389 the street. She was taking polls like from the public 0:17:38.850 --> 0:17:40.629 on what they thought to, you know, she wanted to 0:17:40.650 --> 0:17:45.129 put out something really thorough and well-researched. And so, you know, 0:17:45.150 --> 0:17:48.290 we like her. And she ended up writing a 619 0:17:48.290 --> 0:17:58.080 page book called Etiquette, colon, in society and politics, in 0:17:58.140 --> 0:18:01.919 business and at home. And it was expensive. It would 0:18:01.940 --> 0:18:05.340 have been about $ 75 in today's money. And it was 0:18:05.440 --> 0:18:09.260 super long, but people loved it. It became really popular 0:18:09.320 --> 0:18:11.899 pretty quickly. And I think she reached the top of 0:18:11.980 --> 0:18:16.520 the Publishers Weekly nonfiction bestseller list about eight months after 0:18:16.580 --> 0:18:16.980 it came out. 0:18:17.570 --> 0:18:20.619 Yes. I think they renamed it at some point to 0:18:20.650 --> 0:18:23.760 the Blue Book of Social Usage, which I don't think 0:18:23.780 --> 0:18:27.320 is any better a title than the original one. And 0:18:27.359 --> 0:18:29.360 she wasn't the only one coming out with the Book 0:18:29.400 --> 0:18:32.840 of Etiquette at the time. But so Jane McGrath, who 0:18:33.160 --> 0:18:35.050 we used to work with, who is a great writer 0:18:35.070 --> 0:18:37.389 at How Stuff Works and just a great person all around. 0:18:38.770 --> 0:18:41.490 She wrote the article that we're basing this episode on. 0:18:42.330 --> 0:18:44.389 And she was clearly a fan. I don't know if 0:18:44.430 --> 0:18:45.530 you picked up on that, did you? 0:18:47.460 --> 0:18:49.560 I mean, it seemed like she was into the article. 0:18:49.780 --> 0:18:53.880 For sure. She uses a rival or a competitor who 0:18:53.920 --> 0:18:56.260 released a book around the same time, a woman named 0:18:56.320 --> 0:18:59.080 Lillian Eichler, who revised a book of etiquette that had 0:18:59.119 --> 0:19:01.800 already been out by Emily Holt. And the premise of 0:19:01.859 --> 0:19:04.699 this was learn this stuff or you'll be embarrassed in 0:19:04.800 --> 0:19:11.050 social events or whatever. And Emily Post was not like that, 0:19:11.200 --> 0:19:14.370 as we've said a few times, like, It was everybody 0:19:14.380 --> 0:19:16.710 should learn etiquette because it's a lot more than just 0:19:16.930 --> 0:19:19.270 how to use a dinner fork or what to, you know, 0:19:19.310 --> 0:19:21.970 how to greet somebody. Those are all very important. Those 0:19:22.010 --> 0:19:24.350 are part of etiquette. But that is not the basis 0:19:24.390 --> 0:19:28.169 of etiquette. And anybody who says that is wrong, wrong, wrong. 0:19:28.390 --> 0:19:30.410 I think that was the blurb on the dust jacket. 0:19:31.510 --> 0:19:35.250 So, you know, it's 619 pages. So there's a lot 0:19:35.330 --> 0:19:38.450 in it. But she talks about, you know, how to 0:19:38.490 --> 0:19:42.380 have a proper conversation with someone. Um, obviously all kinds 0:19:42.420 --> 0:19:46.199 of things about like invitation cards, thank you notes, how 0:19:46.220 --> 0:19:48.470 to keep up your house in a way that's presentable. 0:19:49.820 --> 0:19:53.340 You know, you when introducing people, younger people are introduced 0:19:53.540 --> 0:19:56.909 to older people. But if you're a gentleman, you are 0:19:56.990 --> 0:20:00.730 always presented to a lady first. Don't put on airs 0:20:00.770 --> 0:20:03.409 like I don't want to say mixed messages, but at 0:20:03.450 --> 0:20:05.890 times she was like, you know, don't put on airs 0:20:05.950 --> 0:20:08.840 with your vocabulary. But at other times she was like, 0:20:08.900 --> 0:20:11.119 but you shouldn't say this. You should probably say this. 0:20:13.210 --> 0:20:16.570 And it was just, you know, reflected like what she 0:20:16.609 --> 0:20:18.649 like I said earlier, what she called good society. 0:20:19.230 --> 0:20:22.490 Yeah. So good society or she says that best society. 0:20:22.570 --> 0:20:24.890 And this is her her whole philosophy in a nutshell. 0:20:25.950 --> 0:20:28.090 It's not a fellowship of the wealthy, nor does it 0:20:28.170 --> 0:20:30.889 seek to exclude those who are not of exalted birth. 0:20:31.350 --> 0:20:34.119 But it is an association of gentle folk, which is 0:20:34.160 --> 0:20:34.920 my new favorite word. 0:20:35.530 --> 0:20:35.850 I love it. 0:20:35.950 --> 0:20:39.409 Of which good form and speech, charm of manner, knowledge 0:20:39.430 --> 0:20:43.209 of the social amenities and instinctive consideration for the feelings 0:20:43.250 --> 0:20:46.389 of others are the credentials by which society the world 0:20:46.510 --> 0:20:50.760 over recognizes its chosen members. So to heck with being 0:20:51.190 --> 0:20:54.399 rich and automatically having manners, you know, and at the 0:20:54.440 --> 0:20:56.760 same time to heck with being poor and never being 0:20:56.840 --> 0:21:00.810 able to reach people. a station in good society. And 0:21:00.850 --> 0:21:04.510 this is just completely turning convention on its head. And 0:21:04.650 --> 0:21:08.430 this is why Emily Post is revered and loved still today, 0:21:08.490 --> 0:21:12.650 because that is the ethos that America, at the very least, 0:21:12.990 --> 0:21:15.190 was like, we're going to keep going with this. This 0:21:15.270 --> 0:21:16.670 is right up our alley. 0:21:17.530 --> 0:21:20.929 Yeah, like it was that like while she was writing about, 0:21:21.790 --> 0:21:23.709 you know, how a lady sits in a chair or 0:21:23.810 --> 0:21:26.090 when to take off your hat in an elevator if 0:21:26.109 --> 0:21:28.850