Minding your manners in the Gilded Age

Abstract

ABSTRACT Etiquette manuals may be used as a tool in which to investigate the intricacies associated with dining during the Gilded Age. An exploration of these dining habits, using historic etiquette manuals as primary sources, enhanced by the analysis of secondary sources, deepens understanding of a complicated age in American history. These sources reveal that food could be a curse, particularly to those not tutored in the table manners of a wealthy and hypercritical social climate. Newcomers to the volatile landscape of late 1800s society strived to increase their rank in the social hierarchy. Those with upper class lineage were alarmed by the upheaval of the system that once deemed them superior. Unnerved by this threat to their authority, the established elite encouraged systems of behavior which judged and classified newcomers. The minutiae associated with dinner parties, menus and eating, was one way to sort unwelcome new arrivals. Etiquette manuals cautioned insecure readers that the dinner table was a dangerous arena, one which could expose “imposters,” who now had money, but not pedigree. These guides advised on all aspects of social interaction, with special detail given to the act of eating; arming anxious readers with the particulars needed to negotiate the treacherous rules of dining in the Gilded Age.