Emily Post

by Laura Claridge

  Forty years later, Vogue magazine, in a retrospective of the Gilded Age, would claim that “hostesses . . . were thought niggardly if they failed to serve both terrapin and canvasback duck” (“Men About Town,” Vogue, October 1, 1937, pp. 155–57).

  his infamous terrapin suppers: Upton Sinclair, Candid Reminiscences, 10.

  “necessary to every gentleman”: Etiquette, 229

  “removing the bouquet”: Alessandro Filippini, The Table.

  “lore about wine”: James Lea Cate, “Keeping Posted,” p. 24.

  CHAPTER 16

  picked up their tab: Jerry Patterson, The First Four Hundred, 151.

  a million oysters each day: Mark Kurlansky, The Big Oyster, 234.

  Washington and New York: Ibid.

  “never in formal Society”: Quoted in Cleveland Amory, “Tuxedo: All Club and 5,000 Yards Wide,” Washington Post, July 19, 1953, p. S4.

  Edwin lived on the island: “Staten Islanders’ Fete: Given Jointly by the Cricket and Ladies’ Clubs. Dancing, Refreshments, and Many Booths Presided Over by Young Women, All Out of Doors—Large Attendance of Society Fold,” New York Times, June 23, 1892.

  to reach the mother-to-be: Truly Emily Post, 10.

  his mother-in-law’s approval: Ibid., 4–6.

  better commute as well: Ibid., 13.

  CHAPTER 17

  a bad mother: Truly Emily Post, 22.

  “only its freaks—himself”: The Flight of a Moth, 14.

  winter of 1893–94: Thanks to the New York City Social Register for sharing its records with me.

  two leading men: “Yachtsmen Enjoyed the Race,” New York Times, October 14, 1893, p. 2.

  best by being predictable: Children Are People, 7.

  hurting others’ feelings: The Flight of a Moth, 50–51.

  “image of a duke”: See Margaret Case Harriman, “Dear Mrs. Post”; Cleveland Amory, The Last Resorts; and William Engle, “The Emily Post Story,” American Weekly, February 6, 1949, p. 19.

  “all during prayer”: Truly Emily Post, 66.

  “come too close”: Ibid., 72.

  content with her solitude: “The Social World,” New York Times, December 8, 1893, and New York Times, December 19, 1893.

  “height of the structure”: Warren Briggs, quoted in Samuel Graybill, “Bruce Price, American Architect,” 190.

  fifteen stories high: Sarah Bradford Landau and Carl W. Condit, Rise of the New York Skyscraper, 231.

  Briggs remembered happily: Quoted in Graybill, “Bruce Price, American Architect,” 190.

  to rest on bedrock: Landau and Condit, Rise of the New York Skyscraper, 231–35, and Truly Emily Post, 26.

  tallest building in the world: Landau and Condit, Rise of the New York Skyscraper, 235. In 1895 the Astors brought suit against the owners for blocking the light and air of their own Schermerhorn edifice next door, but the matter was resolved by American Surety leasing the family’s building for the next ninety-nine years.

  “careful refinement”: Many years later, in the early twenty- first century, New York Times critic Christopher Gray would say this about Bruce’s achievement: “It’s built in the round, so it didn’t have these awful blank walls. That was a point of very hot contention; I mean a tall building is criticized for many things but none more pointedly and more brutally [than] for the awful blank walls that we still see today. Now, at the beginning of the century this was really [considered] . . . offensive, especially at a time when there was a City Beautiful movement . . . . And so the American Surety Building...was designed to be seen from all sides and . . . didn’t just present a rude face to the rest of the city.” Courtesy of Laura Jacobs, interview with Christopher Gray, May 22, 2001.

  gifted father decades later: Children Are People, 23.

  CHAPTER 18

  “Ancient Mariner”: Macy log, courtesy of Nora Post. Apparently the time of year didn’t affect the boating: on December 1, 1893, Edwin filled the log with Coleridge’s “Ancient Mariner,” and throughout the winter months he continued taking the boat out.

  “really big money”: Jerry Patterson, The First Four Hundred, 140.

  one of the will’s executors: “Hamilton’s Remarriage Reveals Divorce from the Late J. P. Morgan’s Daughter,” New York Times, January 4, 1924; New York Times, April 22, 1894, p. 11; and Jean Strouse, Morgan, 332.

  “homes at reasonable rents”: “The Social World,” New York Times, May 26, 1894, p. 8; and see “Opened Its New Clubhouse: Staten Island Ladies Club Holds Reception and Open-Air Ball,” New York Times, June 2, 1894, p. 8.

  “never spank him again”: Truly Emily Post, 75–76.

  bequeath his daughter: “Drank Eggnog as Was Eggnog: People from Dixie Land Observe an Old Southern Custom,” New York Times, December 23, 1894.

  CHAPTER 19

  “And that’s coming”: Stephanie Coontz, Marriage, 194.

  “everlasting bow-wows”: “Mrs. Sherwood’s Mistake: She Told Only of the Wrong Side New-York Society, Scheduled Bow-Wows Far Away,” New York Times, May 26, 1895.

  documented by excited reporters: Lately Thomas, Delmonico’s, 255 and 256.

  could be collected: Shadi Rahimi, “Next to 1936, ’05 Is No Sweat,” New York Times, August 3, 2005.

  nomenclature of the sea: Macy log.

  invalids’ friends and family: Truly Emily Post, 84.

  a friend of Emily’s: Town Topics 36, no. 15 (April 15, 1897).

  formerly august club: Lloyd Morris, Incredible New York, 239–42; Jerry Patterson, The First Four Hundred, 187–97; and Truly Emily Post, 11.

  “blazoning it, either”: Purple and Fine Linen, 178.

  Emily almost apoplectic: Truly Emily Post, 116.

  and left the room: Ibid.

  Emily remembered it: Ibid., 54.

  Dr. Charles Parkhurst: “Resorts on Long Island,” New York Times, May 30, 1897, p. 20.

  increasingly silly: Truly Emily Post, 11.

  build for her and her husband: Ibid., 71.

  CHAPTER 20

  and Niagara Falls: “Canadian Hotel Syndicate,” New York Times, January 6, 1898.

  the animals didn’t: “E. R. Thomas Injured in an Auto Smash,” New York Times, August 15, 1908, p. 1.

  help him heal faster: “E. R. Thomas Taken South: Sent to Atlanta for a Change of Scene—Stands the Trip Well,” New York Times, November 3, 1908, p. 1; “Mrs. E. R. Thomas Sues for Divorce,” New York Times, March 20, 1912, p. 1.

  “happy tho unmarried!”: Macy log, p. 63.

  often absent husband: “Status of Married Women: American Wives Not to Be Envied, Says an Englishwoman; Marriage Crushes Her Life; Friendships with Men, Participation in Sports, Even True Companionship of Her Husband, Denied Her,” New York Times, August 14, 1898.

  “a bit gray now”: “Brant Shooting on Great South Bay,” p. 197.

  “best in class”: “Racing with Tiny Yachts,” New York Times, July 4, 1899, p. 5.

  assets of $2.6 million: “Business Troubles,” New York Times, June 23, 1899, p. 8, and July 8, 1899, p. 9.

  Tuxedo horse season would open: Jerry Patterson, The First Four Hundred, 118–20, and “Orange County Horse Fair: Numerous Entries at the Fifth Annual Exhibition at Goshen,” New York Times, October 8, 1899, p. 10.

  Times solemnly reported: “Society at the Opera: The Wealth and Fashion of the Metropolis on View Last Night,” New York Times, December 19, 1899, p. 3.

  she hadn’t been forgotten: “The First Assembly Ball: Society Out in Force Last Night at the Astoria,” New York Times, December 15, 1899, p. 7.

  ($5 million in today’s dollars): “The Gould House Party: New York and Philadelphia Guests Lavishly Entertained,” New York Times, December 22, 1899, p. 1.

  designing their house: Cleveland Amory, The Last Resorts, 58.

  “find your way around”: “Georgian Court,” New York Times, July 23, 1899, p. SM6.

  CHAPTER 21

  she said, would disapprove: Truly Emily Post, 125.

  “a little turtle�
��: Ibid., 124–34.

  “every vestige of formality”: “A Day’s Wedding,” New York Times, October 2, 1900.

  theatricality and flair: “Broker Roughly Handled,” New York Times, November 3, 1900, p. 14. Edwin M. Post was a member of the NYSE from August 22, 1900, to December 13, 1906. (Thanks to Steve Wheeler, the archivist for NYSE Luncheon Club, for this information.)

  would join him: Truly Emily Post, 131.

  exulted in it: The purely masculine profession was a chimera, it is true: in January 1870, Victoria Woodhull and Tennessee Claflin had been backed in opening the first female brokerage house, at Twenty-fourth Street and Broadway.

  “even try to sleep”: Julie Chanler, From Gaslight to Dawn, 49.

  enormous, dated cupola: Samuel Graybill, “Bruce Price, American Architect,” 210.

  farm in New Jersey: Reported earlier in “Tuxedo’s Society Event,” New York Times, September 29, 1900.

  CHAPTER 22

  New York Yacht Club: Thanks to M. Watson at the New York Yacht Club for researching the club’s records.

  than the Macy: Edwin Main Post, “Brant Shooting on Great South Bay,” p. 204.

  “for the rich”: “Scenes of Disorder in Stock Exchange,” New York Times, May 10, 1901.

  often spent their autumns: Truly Emily Post, 170.

  toward the dark side: Ibid.

  or the local hostilities: More importantly, on July 7 Katharine asked her half brother for a loan: “My dear Warren, I find that, for certain reasons I shall require some money and although I have it in my bank account I cannot very well get it [without being obvious].” In light of the lavish house the Colliers were building, the reason for the loan remains a secret; money was not the issue. Delano Family Papers, Box 35, FDR Library, Hyde Park, New York.

  “very slim one”: “Pierre Lorillard Sinking: Members of His Family Remain Constantly at His Bedside,” New York Times, July 7, 1901, p. 5; “Pierre Lorillard’s Will,” Baltimore Sun, July 13, 1901; “Report on Lorillard Will: Estate’s Value When He Died $1,797,925.53, and the Executors Now Hold $1,589,725,” New York Times, August 15, 1902, p. 5; “How Mr. Lorillard Divided His Estate: Bequest of Rancocas to a Woman Arouses His Family,” New York Times, July 14, 1901, p. 10.

  “wore no mourning whatever”: “Mrs. T. Suffern Tailer Obtains Her Divorce,” New York Times, August 15, 1902.

  gagged its citizens: C. F. Talman, “Long Heat Waves Are Often Costly,” New York Times, August 6, 1933.

  her husband’s attention: Truly Emily Post, 98–100.

  she would later remember: The Flight of a Moth, 7.

  end of the race: Emily’s anger and her failure ever to appreciate Edwin’s passion are described, in Truly Emily Post, 105–15.

  “and at Newport”: Ibid., 108. See also “Yachting Notes,” Brooklyn Eagle, September 21, 1901, p. 8, and “News of the Yachting World,” Brooklyn Eagle, February 7, 1902, p. 17.

  reflect years later: Truly Emily Post, 115.

  happiness shocked her: In contrast to the Victorian ideal of near-perfect happiness, it was becoming hard to believe that there were any satisfying marriages among the rich. The exceptions—at least those who made their affection public—were so notable as to become inscribed in the history books of the Gilded Age. Mamie and Stuyvesant Fish had one of the few high-society marriages widely believed to be based on mutual love, even devotion, in spite of the rumors about their own sometime irregular behavior. Perhaps Mamie Fish’s defiant refusal through the years to play the proper society wife made her a real, multidimensional person to her spouse. Just before the irrepressible, flamboyant Mrs. Fish died in 1915, her husband celebrated her: “In looking back over the many bitter and sweet but ever pleasurable memories of long years of married life, I can recall no moment when I failed to be thankful for my action and above all my choice” (quoted in Jerry Patterson, The First Four Hundred, 203).

  Mrs. Lorillard’s revenge: “Tuxedo Park’s Gayeties,” New York Times, August 4, 1901, p. SM17.

  by the younger set: “Gayety at Tuxedo,” New York Times, October 13, 1901, p. 24, and “Autumn at Tuxedo,” New York Times, September 8, 1901, p. 7.

  Colliers and St. Georges: The Colliers and at least one of their four children would spend part of each year in Tuxedo Park, in the house Bruce Price built them, through the 1950s.

  a plan of reorganization: “Financial Announcements,” New York Times, November 24, 1901, p. 18.

  working extra hours: “At the Hotels,” New York Times, September 13, 1901, p. 3.

  CHAPTER 23

  the New Year: “Baltimore’s Social Season,” New York Times, January 19, 1902.

  “Bruce Price, the architect”: “Clubmen,” New York Times, August 10, 1902.

  “gossip about the matter”: “Mrs. T. Suffern Tailer Obtains Her Divorce,” New York Times, August 15, 1902.

  lose its luster: “Dull Week at Tuxedo,” New York Times, September 21, 1902.

  hosted by the Posts: “Society at Tuxedo,” New York Times, September 14, 1902.

  “Huguenot family”: New York Times, May 2, 1899, p. 2.

  Vogue magazine: “Arthur Turnure Dead,” New York Times, April 14, 1906, p. 11.

  when Edwin was away: Truly Emily Post, 133.

  New York Supreme Court: New York Times, October 9, 1902, p. 7.

  “when we are working”: Truly Emily Post, 118.

  to the opening: “Dinner and Musicale at George J. Gould’s: Remodeled Town Residence the Scene of a Brilliant Function,” New York Times, January 23, 1903, p. 9.

  “sympathy and condolence”: “Death List of the Week,” New York Times, May 31, 1903, p. 18; “Decisions and Calendars,” New York Times, June 13, 1903. La Savoie, the ship returning Bruce Price’s body to the United States, was later used in World War I to land troops in the Dardanelles and eastern Mediterranean operations. For comprehensive studies of Bruce Price’s work, see Russell Sturgis, “The Works of Bruce Price,” Architectural Record, Great American Architects Series, 5 (June 1899), and issues of the American Architect and Building News throughout his life.

  A list of Price’s major achievements, all but the first three still standing, includes: East End Station, Montreal; West End Hotel, Bar Harbor, Maine; Long Beach Hotel; Cathedral, Savannah, Georgia; Lee Memorial Church, Lexington, Virginia; cottages and clubhouse, Tuxedo Park; American Surety Building and St. James Building, New York; Hotchkiss School, Lakeville, Connecticut; Georgian Court, Lakewood, New Jersey; Château Frontenac, Quebec; Windsor Station, Montreal; Royal Victoria Academy, Montreal; Osborn Memorial, Yale College; Welch Dormitory, Yale College; and Colonial Historical Society Building, New Haven, Connecticut. Price also invented, patented, and built parlor bay-window cars for the Pennsylvania and Boston and Albany railroads. (Information courtesy of the Enoch Pratt Free Library, Baltimore, Maryland.)

  Emily mourned alone: Truly Emily Post, 162–63.

  CHAPTER 24

  actually giving it up: “Receivers for Post & Co.: Special Partner Objects to Assignee of Firm of Brokers, Says General Partners Hypothecated His Personal Deposit and Tried to Sell Firm Seat on ’Change,” New York Times, November 7, 1903, p. 13.

  turn-of-the-century dollars: “Two Trust Companies Fail in Baltimore: Liabilities of Concerns Estimated at $10,000,000,” New York Times, October 20, 1903, p. 3.

  “International Silver securities”: “Two Firms Dissolved,” New York Times, October 9, 1903.

  through the bad times: Truly Emily Post, 200.

  and the Robert Goelets: “Tuxedo Park Social Events,” New York Times, October 4, 1903, and “What Is Doing in Society,” New York Times, November 14, 1903, p. 9.

  thirty-eight drafts: Gretta Palmer, “Mrs. Post Regrets,” New York Woman, February 3, 1937, p. 11.

  “talk of the town”: Advertisement, New York Times, October 1, 1904, p. RB653.

  “as I do, would I?”: The Flight of a Moth, 32–33.

  knowledge of society: “Recent Fiction: Emily Post’s Study of the Restl
ess American Woman,” New York Times, October 1904.

  Hamilton gently counseled: Truly Emily Post, 140.

  Duer, and Emily Post: New York Times, November 26, 1904.

  Paris and Brussels in 1903: Truly Emily Post, 158.

  to keep her attention: Ibid.

  in Purple and Fine Linen: Purple and Fine Linen, 172.

  was in the works: “Society at Tuxedo,” New York Times, September 18, 1904, p. 7.

  Emily left early: “Tuxedo Society Gossip,” New York Times, December 4, 1904.

  CHAPTER 25

  at Times Square: William B. Scott and Peter M. Rutkoff, New York Modern, 14.

  earth in this city: Ibid., 14–17, 20–21.

  to society women: Jerry Patterson, The Vanderbilts, 153.

  “off to Europe”: William Engle, “The Emily Post Story,” American Weekly, February 6, 1949, p. 19.

  attending as well: “Miss Mable Mcafee Wed,” New York Times, May 17, 1905, p. 9.

  “get away from”: The Flight of a Moth, 30.

  hero in the process: “May Confront Ahle with Society Leaders: Prosecutor Says They Were His Victims, Perhaps,” New York Times, July 13, 1905, p. 3.

  confessed to his wife: For a strong sense of the immediate excitement, see: “Got $500 from Post, Then Was Arrested: Blackmail Charge Against ‘Society Editors’ Solicitor’; A Promise to Hide Scandal; Ahle Also Took to Broker at Stock Exchange a Note from a Town Topics Editor,” New York Times, July 12, 1905, p. 1; “May Confront Ahle with Society Leaders,” New York Times, July 13, 1905.

  caught his man: Andy Logan, in The Man Who Robbed the Robber Barons, gives a detailed account of the affair and the trial. See also New York Times, July 15, 1905, p. 1; New York Times, July 16, 1905, p. 3; New York Times, July 23, 1905, p. 12; New York Times, December 3, 1905, p. 1; New York Times, January 20, 1906, p. 1; New York Times, January 23, 1906, p. 1; New York Times, January 27, 1906, p. 1; New York Times, January 28, 1906, p. 1; New York Times, February 6, 1906, p. 5; New York Times, December 18, 1906, p. 3; and New York Times, December 29, 1906, p. 1.

  city’s newspapers: “Stockbroker’s Way of Dealing with Bribe Offer,” New York Tribune, July 13, 1905.