Emily Post

by Laura Claridge

  “very next day”: William G. Post, phone interview with the author, May 19, 2006.

  345 members had uncovered: “N.Y. Social Register Dropped Mrs. Mildred Tilta Holmsen Because of Her Scandalous Behavior and Attire,” New York Times, November 24, 1934.

  much of her time: The two women would serve jointly on several committees during the Depression years, working alongside other illustrious figures eager to see women succeed at home and in the workplace. Lillian Gilbreth’s biographer has pondered the reason that no further connection between the two women occurred: “Odd, but not unexpected. LMG was probably too busy to make many friends, especially in the 30s. Also she lived in NJ, not Manhattan, and spent a lot of time at Purdue where I imagine EP would not have been very much at home. Also, she favored efficiency over graciousness” (Jane Lancaster, e-mail to the author, May 18, 2006).

  “layout of rooms”: “Model Home Opens: Throng Inspects It,” New York Times, November 7, 1934. “America’s Little House” was the Depression’s version of New York City’s 2006 Kips Bay house, designed professionally and benefiting charities into the early twenty- first century.

  grandson Bruce Post: “Society and Fine Arts Join in Gay Pageantry of the Beaux Arts Ball: Event Epitomizes Beauty and Style,” New York Times, February 2, 1935, p. 8.

  “Old World punctiliousness”: Time Etiquette (Lancaster, Pa.: Hamilton Watch Company, 1935 [probably September]).

  “smart to be late”: Ibid.

  348 “perfect timing”: Ibid.

  CHAPTER 55

  needing no introduction: New York Times, November 24, 1935.

  holding a balloon: Time, November 18, 1935.

  “of college women”: “Today on the Radio,” New York Times, January 6, 1936, p. 35, and April 13, 1936, p. 33.

  “distressing beyond words”: Truly Emily Post, p. 240.

  to be readmitted: “News of the Stage,” New York Times, May 14, 1936; see also “Volpone Opens Play Series,” New York Times, September 8, 1948.

  “New Yorkiest”: Ann Douglas, Terrible Honesty, 111.

  ball once again: Herman Klurfeld, Winchell, 34.

  “bobby socks up”: Richard Yates, Revolutionary Road (London: Methuen, 2001), 256.

  “many other things”: Gretta Palmer, “Mrs. Post Regrets,” New York Woman, February 3, 1937, p. 13.

  country’s newspapers: Larry Wolters, “News of Radio,” Chicago Daily Tribune, November 3, 1937, p. 21.

  CHAPTER 56

  would be divorced: “Priscilla St. George Is Married to Angier B. Duke in Tuxedo Park,” New York Times, January 3, 1937, p. 85; “In Washington Tomorrow,” Syracuse Herald, January 19, 1937; and “Roosevelt Pledges to ‘Blot Out Injustice,’ ” Fitchburg Sentinel, January 20, 1937.

  “hours a week”: Gretta Palmer, “Mrs. Post Regrets,” New York Woman, February 3, 1937, p. 11.

  general huffed: “Hagood Scorns ‘Emily Post’ in Army Training,” Chicago Daily Tribune, February 9, 1937, p. 13, referring to Dudley Harmon, “Top Hats and Tiaras,” Washington Post, February 7, 1937, p. S1.6.

  “already vanished”: Palmer, “Mrs. Post Regrets,” p. 11.

  last, definitive time: Court case, Court of Appeals, State of New York: Holman Harvey v. Bell Syndicate, 541–42.

  “restful companion”: Margaret Case Harriman, “Dear Mrs. Post,” Saturday Evening Post, May 15, 1937, p. 51.

  things her way: Ibid.

  “writes fluently”: Ibid.

  CHAPTER 57

  two frequently: Truly Emily Post, 162–63.

  fruitful regeneration: John Russell Pope, New York Times, August 28, 1937, p. 15.

  of Bruce Price: Chris Sonne, phone interview with the author, August 7, 2002.

  “present-day society”: “Etiquette up to Date,” Publishers Weekly, September 18, 1937.

  “fifty-year history”: New York Times, September 8, 1937.

  on counters: Display ad, New York Times, September 19, 1937, p. 112.

  ignorant speech: Time, September 20, 1931.

  “are illiterate”: Procter & Gamble radio broadcast, March 21, 1931, rough draft, courtesy of Cindy Post Senning.

  consideration for Emily: Washington Post, February 7, 1937.

  “a mere 723”: “Why We Behave,” Washington Post, September 3, 1937, p. 8. 364 “or Park Avenue”: Time, September 20, 1937.

  “newspaper business”: William G. Post, phone interview with the author, May 2, 2003.

  had a choice: Eric Felten, “How’s Your Drink?,” Wall Street Journal, July 15–16, 2006, p. 14.

  good manners: Emily Post, “Good Taste Today,” Los Angeles Times, September 12, 1937, p. K16.

  “out of life”: A typical column of Emily’s from this period can be seen in ibid.

  The promotion was announced in the New York Times: “Florida Campaign Detailed,” October 23, 1937, p. 33. Given her penchant for details, Emily must have known that the prestigious advertising agency handling the fruit commission’s massive new campaign that fall was none other than Ruthruff and Ryan, the launchpad fifteen years earlier for Lillian Eichler, copywriter, and the sure beneficiary of the cartoon advertising campaign Eichler had spearheaded for Doubleday. Now the vice president of Ruthruff and Ryan announced “an elaborate advertising program for the citrus products of Florida” to be unveiled at the Waldorf-Astoria, with the Florida governor as the guest of honor (Emily Post radio programs courtesy of the Emily Post Institute).

  “taste and cultivation”: From a brochure she wrote for the commission, How to Get the Most Out of Life (Lakeland, Fla.: Florida Citrus Commission, 1937).

  “are bankrupt”: Ibid.; pages quoted are 3–5, 12–13, 15, 21, 28.

  “we think and are”: Display ad, New York Times, October 31, 1937.

  “younger readers”: “Etiquette Author Tells of Her Woes,” New York Post, November 19, 1937.

  laudatory in that: New York Times, December 11, 1937, p. 11.

  “oil instead”: Emily Post, radio broadcast, January 10, 1931.

  CHAPTER 58

  “table manners”: “Mrs. Post Unbends at Gourmet Dinner,” New York Times, January 24, 1938.

  State Department protocol: New York Times, January 30, 1938, p. 2.

  “colors fresh”: William G. Post, phone interview with the author, from Naples, Florida, April 3, 2004.

  residence in Edgartown: Thanks to Tuxedo Park town historian Chris Sonne for an e-mail to the author, May 5, 2006.

  thing as “typical”: “Typical Girl of 16 Outlined by Emily Post,” Dallas Morning News, August 21, 1938, p. 11.

  a happy ending: Courtesy of Betty Osborne, letters from Emily Post, n.d., and October 31, 1949.

  CHAPTER 59

  for Decca Records: In 1939, music still dominated radio programming. It was good to laugh along with Jack Benny and with George Burns and Gracie Allen, but even more people preferred to escape with Glenn Miller’s band. Between 1928 and 1939, major symphony orchestras in American towns and cities had grown from ten to seventeen, while the number of small orchestras had increased from 60 to 286. Pianos, even during the height of the Depression, sold faster than ever before. When the 1920s began, music instruction was nonexistent in most public schools; by the late 1930s, nearly all schools had music courses, along with 30,000 school orchestras and 20,000 school bands. It wasn’t as if the radio had corrupted musical taste: the legendary Walter Damrosch, Leopold Stokowski, and Arturo Toscanini, among others, were “early advocates of radio music.” See R. LeRoy Bannerman, Norman Corwin and Radio, 43, and George Douglas, The Early Days of Radio Broadcasting, 154.

  room to roam: “Advertising News and Notes,” New York Times, April 18, 1939, p. 30. Two of the most vivid fictional re creations of the fair are E. L. Doctorow’s World’s Fair and The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, by Michael Chabon. “Fifty Years After the Fair” is a song written and recorded by Aimee Mann. See also “World’s Fair Opens!,” Hammond Times, April 3, 1939.

  “of her personality”: “Edgar
town House Exemplifies Real Hobby of Emily Post,” Vineyard Gazette, May 1939.

  377 interest implied: Charles Hanson Towne, “Jogging Around New England,” New York Times, June 6, 1939, p. 27.

  “equipment I suggested”: Yvonne Sylvia, interview with the author, Martha’s Vineyard, 2002.

  “next to the other”: Pony Duke, phone interview with the author, July 18, 2005.

  “all up to her”: Cindy Post Senning, interview with the author, April 5, 2004.

  beside the point: Holly George-Warren, Public Cowboy No. 1: The Life and Times of Gene Autry (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007).

  CHAPTER 60

  fourth edition: Truly Emily Post, 245.

  “to the family”: Etiquette (1940), 871.

  “back in order”: Ibid.

  “as well as diverting”: Ibid., 828.

  “of their friends”: Ibid., 876.

  “are intolerant”: Ibid.381 “counteract the effect”: Ibid., 714.

  her favorite book: Yvonne Sylvia, interview with the author, Martha’s Vineyard, 2002. See also William Engle, “The Emily Post Story,” American Weekly, February 6, 1949.

  “not have told you”: Truly Emily Post, 233.

  “mind of a child”: Children Are People, x–xii.

  “fortunately placed”: Ibid., 4.

  “influence their children”: Ibid., 3.

  “grown person”: Ibid., 92.

  “to the telephone”: Ibid.

  everyone’s affections: Ibid., 189.

  “boiled in oil”: Ibid., 188.

  “the very nicest”: Vineyard Gazette, October 4, 1940.

  anyone, he believes: William G. Post, phone interview with the author, September 5, 2002.

  CHAPTER 61

  “this unpleasantness”: “Good Taste Today: Full Knowledge of Job Makes Worker Valuable,” Good Housekeeping, September 22, 1940.

  defense preparations: Vineyard Gazette, October 4, 1940.

  “and poise”: “Brief Reviews,” New York Times Book Review, December 8, 1940.

  old-fashioned at all: Time, December 9, 1940.

  “Angelo Patri”: Letter from A. Patri to Emily Post, December 18, 1940, archives, Emily Post Institute.

  on Martha’s Vineyard: Yvonne Sylvia, interview with the author, Martha’s Vineyard, 2002.

  their ballots: “Tasks for Women in Defense Urged,” New York Times, December 13, 1940.

  “form” even further: Current Biography: Who’s News and Why, ed. Maxine Block (New York: H. W. Wilson, 1941), 681–83.

  other as equals: Francis Fukuyama, America at the Crossroads, 28.

  its citizens: Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwood, American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer (New York: Vintage, 2006), 5.

  first took office: “Katharine Collier St. George, Former GOP Representative, Dies,” Washington Post, May 6, 1983.

  and Mrs. Roosevelt: Phone interview July 18, 2005, with Pony Duke. The Delano-Collier-Roosevelt crowd fueled social events to the north and west of Tuxedo Park. Pony Duke remembers how often “family” and friends flocked to the Hudson Valley Staatsburg estate, called “Evergreen Lands,” where his distant cousin Laura Delano lived. “Laura even hosted several unpublicized cocktail hours on the porch with the president, her cousin, when he wanted to see Churchill privately,” he recalls. “I remember playing around the chairs while the two men talked in August [1943], and I climbed all over them. I watched the president being carried by his Secret Service men to sit in a chair in the pool.”

  without delay: Doris Kearns Goodwin, No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995), 409.

  a second Dorothy Parker: Hildegarde Dolson, “Spilling Tea,” Sorry to Be So Cheerful, 43; Dolson, “Ask Mrs. Post,” Reader’s Digest, April 1941; “Doomed but Happy,” New York Times Book Review, August 21, 1955.

  in spite of it all: Dolson, Sorry, 41.

  “on the table”: Margaret Case Harriman, “Don’t Call Me Lady Chesterfield,” Reader’s Digest, June 1941.

  after the attack: The attack on Pearl Harbor occurred on a Sunday, so there was no immediate confirmation. Sunday was the day off for major radio news reporters and executives. As the story broke over the shortwaves and telegraphs, everyone rushed to cover it and discover what had really happened. Thanks to Donna Halper for her detailed e-mail to me, July 3, 2006.

  CHAPTER 62

  “national courtesy?”: Henry McLemore, “It’s a Tough War,” Dallas Morning News, December 29, 1941.

  “under their guidance”: Etiquette (1942), 896.

  “twenty years ago”: Truly Emily Post, 246.

  “definite and brief”: Etiquette (1942), 896.

  “even more human”: Yvonne Sylvia to the author, Martha’s Vineyard, 2002.

  “ ‘Pardon me’ ”: New York Times, December 23, 1942, p. 16.

  military radio stations: Big-business machinations continued, and a federal antitrust ruling transformed NBC Blue Network into the American Broadcasting Company (ABC).

  CHAPTER 63

  as she could: Washington Post, February 2, 1943, p. B4.

  at Emily’s status: “Thumbing à la Emily Post,” Newsweek, February 22, 1943, pp. 71–72.

  newly mean-spirited: “Topics of the Times,” New York Times, May 17, 1943.

  rivets into bombers: J. Howard Miller’s poster was published by the Westinghouse for War Production Co-ordinating Committee in February 1942. Special thanks to Linda Pero, curator of collections at the Norman Rockwell Museum, Stockbridge, Massachusetts, for her correspondence of July 10, 2006.

  “surrogate children”: Yvonne Sylvia, interview with the author, Martha’s Vineyard, 2002.

  “not at Emily’s table”: Poem by Ethel Jacobson, “People You Know,” Saturday Evening Post, July 10, 1943.

  “in all directions”: “Doughboy Etiquette for Occupation of Italy,” Dallas Morning News, September 11, 1943.

  Wyler’s 1946 movie: Etiquette (1942), 878.

  “to be set apart”: This Week Magazine, December 12, 1943, pp. 72–73.

  CHAPTER 64

  real education too: Letters in the Doris Stevens archives, Schlesinger papers, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, December 28, 1943: “[indecipherable] of piece ‘Eleanor Roosevelt’ by Mary Hornaday.” Also letters to Doris Stevens, Schlesinger Library, from Emily Post to Doris Stevens, December 1943; July 22, 1944; and August 22, 1944.

  “bought a cat”: “Professions for Women” in The Death of the Moth (reprint, London: Harvest, 1974), 236.

  would follow: William G. Post, letter to the author, February 28, 2006. Emily would have loved one result of her accommodations: Bill’s son Peter, Emily’s youngest great-grandchild, would marry one of his summer childhood friends from the Vineyard. Tricia Post recalls: “When we were thirteen–fifteen, Peter and I were part of a rat pack of about fifteen–twenty kids that used to hang out [on the Island]—mostly playing Hearts! We ‘remet’ in college. I transferred to the University of Pennsylvania as a junior. Second semester, Peter was sitting behind me in an art history class. I recognized his voice! The rest, as they say, is history!” (From an e-mail to the author, July 11, 2006.)

  “into control”: Elizabeth Post, e-mail interview with the author, September 26, 2005.

  so vividly: Time, November 20, 1944, and November 27, 1944.

  upstairs for assistance: Nanette Kutner, “Emily Post Is Only Human, Too,” Family Circle, November 1955, p. 14.

  “be permanent”: Journal of the National Education Association, January 1945, p. 22.

  as they did so: “Emily Post Put on Pan,” Hammond Times, November 12, 1945.

  after it ended: Alice Payne Hackett, Sixty Years of Best Sellers, 12.

  to the post office: Letter from Emily Post to Betty Ward, March 1945.

  any day now: “Nations Gather to Make World of Peace,” Oakland Tribune, April 30, 1945, and Berkshire County Eagle, April 25, 1945.

&
nbsp; the frivolous: Universal 18-414 newsreel, July 9, 1945.

  during the 1950s: Stephanie Coontz, “A Pop Quiz on Marriage,” New York Times, February 19, 2006, p. 12.

  twentieth-century life: Witold Rybczynski, Waiting for the Weekend, quoted in the New York Times by William Grimes, “Time Off for Good Behavior,” April 28, 2006.

  “knew, at least”: Libby Post, interview with the author, December 15, 2005.

  discuss him with Bill: Nora Post, interview with the author, May 5, 2005.

  “bit flamboyant”: William G. Post, interview with the author from Naples, Florida, November 10, 2002, and phone interview, April 3, 2004. 410 cheerful pun: Jeanne Perkins, “Emily Post,” Life, May 6, 1946, p. 65.

  “wrapped package”: “Social Blunders, My Own and Others,” Reader’s Digest, July 1960. 411 “the entire time!”: Perkins, “Emily Post,” p. 62.

  CHAPTER 65

  “black and blue”: Letter from Emily Post to Yvonne Sylvia, undated, circa early January 1946.

  well-brought-up women: “Ever-Changing Rules of Etiquette Must Conform to Modern Business,” Zanesville News, January 20, 1946.

  to August 1: Letters between Yvonne Sylvia and Emily Post, circa February to April 1946.

  “changing situations”: Jeanne Perkins, “Emily Post,” Life, May 6, 1946.

  “Emily Post Institute, Inc.”: Letter from Funk and Wagnalls to Emily Post, August 21, 1946. Courtesy of Helen Moore at HarperCollins.

  Bill still chuckles: William G. Post, interview with the author in Naples, Florida, November 10, 2002.

  “in heaven”: Interview with Yvonne Sylvia in Edgartown, October 20, 2002.

  twenty questions: “Twenty Questions Quiz: Emily Post, Fred Van Deventer, Florence Rinard and Others,” WOR, November 23, 1946, 8:00–8:30 P.M.

  like Emily Post: “Stuyvesant Town Sale Closes Despite Effort to Halt Deal,” Charles V. Bagli, New York Times, November 18, 2006, p. B3.

  “supported to survive”: William G. Post, interview with the author from Naples, Florida, November 10, 2002.

  to the studio: “Betty Crocker, Talk; Emily Post, Guest,” WJZ, March 28, 1947, 10:25–10:45 A.M.

  Price admired: Phone conversations and e-mails with Bonnie Hass, December 1 to December 7, 2006; interview with Irving Hass, March 24, 1992, Wyomissing, Pennsylvania (on behalf of the Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, D.C.); and interview with Irving Hass, October 10, 1995, by Rose Sher Weiss, Delray Beach, Florida, on behalf of Steven Spielberg’s Visual History Foundation.