Women in the 19C United States of America: Etiquette for American Ladies 1840

Tuesday, January 15, 2019

Etiquette for American Ladies 1840 - On Leaving Cards & Recording Visits

Etiquette for Ladies: With Hints on the Preservation, Improvement, and Display of Female Beauty. Published by Lea and Blanchard, Philadelphia. 1838-1840

Should you not find the person you call on at home, leave a card.

With a friend or relation whom we treat as such, we do not keep an account of our visits.

The one who has most leisure, calls upon the one who has the least; but this privilege ought not to be abused; it is necessary to make our visits of friendship at suitable times. On the contrary, a visit of ceremony should never be made without keeping an account of it, and we should even remember the intervals at which they are returned, for it is indispensably necessary to let a similar interval elapse.

People in this way give you notice whether they wish to see you often or seldom. There are some persons whom one goes to see once in a fortnight; others, once a month; and others, less frequently.

In order not to omit visits, which are to be made, or to avoid making them from misinformation, when a preceding one has not been returned, persons who have an extensive acquaintance will do well to keep a little memorandum-book for this
purpose.
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About this blog

In colonial America, men were considered superior to woman in all ways. In a strict patriarchal hierarchy, men controlled not only wealth & political power but also how their children were raised, religious questions, & all matters of right & wrong.

In the early part of the 19Cy, however, many Americans experienced a revolution in gender. The doctrine of “separate spheres” maintained that woman’s sphere was the world of privacy, family, & morality while man’s sphere was the public world -– economic striving, political maneuvering, & social competition. But women were interested in equality.

In 1848, New York passed the Married Woman’s Property Act. Now a woman wasn’t automatically liable for her husband’s debts; she could enter contracts on her own; she could collect rents or receive an inheritance in her own right; she could file a lawsuit on her own behalf. She became for economic purposes, an individual. By 1900, every state has passed legislation modeled after this, granting married women some control over their property and earnings.

In 1870 after the Civi War, the 15th Amendment was ratified, saying, “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” African-Americans could vote, but women could not.

But it was not until 1920, that the 19th Amendment was ratified granting women the right to vote. “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.”