Women in the 19C United States of America: Etiquette for American Ladies 1840 - Receive Guests in the Parlor NOT the Dining Room

Thursday, November 4, 2021

Etiquette for American Ladies 1840 - Receive Guests in the Parlor NOT the Dining Room

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

In a house where affluence abounds, it is indispensable to have a drawing-room; if that cannot be afforded, then let the receiving room be the parlour.

To receive company in a dining-room is not allowed, except among those who cannot bear the expense of furnishing a parlour or drawing-room. Simplicity admitted into an apartment of this kind, suited to smallness of means, we cannot but approve, while we regret, nevertheless the disagreeable things to which such a residence subjects the parties.

But we have, in this respect, an express warning to hold out to people who give themselves up to it unnecessarily, for it is altogether opposed to the received usages of good society to put yourselves in a situation which you cannot adorn; then you are exposed to receiving twenty visits during dinner, of seeing as many interruptions during the setting of your table, since it is impossible to spread the cloth properly, etc. while strangers remain; finally, of having them witness your domestic cares while removing the remains of a repast, the table-cloth, dishes, etc.

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.”