Abstract
AbstractResearching the history of daily greetings is challenging, because references are casual and scattered through many sources. Nonetheless, some broad trends are apparent. In eighteenth-century Britain, the old tradition of deep bowing and curtseying was slowly attenuating into a brisker touching of the cap or head (for men) and a quick bob (for women). Yet that transition was not the whole story. Simultaneously, a new form of urban greeting, in the form of the handshake, was emerging. The strengths and weaknesses of many different sources are here assessed, including novels, plays, letters, diaries, etiquette books, travelogues and legal depositions, as well as artwork. Strategies for analysis are identified, with a warning against generalizing from single references in single sources. Finally, the emergence of the handshake among the middle class in Britain's eighteenth-century towns gives a clear signal that socio-cultural change does not invariably start at the ‘top’ and ‘trickle down’.
Highlights
Historians of the quotidian have to be patient detectives who put together many scraps of evidence to form a big picture.1 There are no large central archives that collect material on fleeting matters, such as gestures and interpersonal greetings
That observation applies to the study of interpersonal greetings
Eighteenth-century greetings in flux in the growing towns,3 styles of greeting in the long eighteenth century were in notable flux
Summary
Historians of the quotidian have to be patient detectives who put together many scraps of evidence to form a big picture.1 There are no large central archives that collect material on fleeting matters, such as gestures and interpersonal greetings. The discussion looks briefly at the broad picture of changing styles of greetings in British towns in the long eighteenth century before assessing the variety of sources, with their characteristic strengths and weaknesses.
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