Knock, Knock! Who's There?

Marissa’s posts on calling got me thinking. (Uh oh!) On Tuesday, she discussed the exchange of cards after meeting someone for the first time. You called at that person’s house, let’s say Lady A as Marissa did. (I love internal consistency—don’t you?). You left a card for Lady A with her footman, along with ones from your father for her and her husband. Shortly thereafter, Lady A leaves cards at your house, and she bends down the corners meaning she is delivering them in person.

Immediately, my creative mind wondered what happened then?

Knowing the lady was waiting in the entry hall, you might

1. Tell the footman to invite her up for a nice visit, either in the sitting room (for those you were still a bit cautious about) or the withdrawing room (for those you hoped would become bosom beaus).


2. Realize you were in shocking dishabille (okay, so you were wearing that hideous morning dress Aunt Elspeth insisted on embroidering with puce mangel wurzels and you simply cannot be seen in public in that) and have no time to change so you tell the footman to announce that you are not at home. Note that this isn’t a lie. As Marissa mentioned, “at home” meant you were receiving callers. Being “not at home” meant that you were not receiving callers at this time. That might be because you were out or because you simply weren’t up to company for whatever reason.


3. Have heard the most torrid rumors about the lady (truly, she seemed so sweet!) since leaving the card and have decided not to pursue the acquaintance. In this case, you would have the footman return her cards to her. Note that this was an insult, and you had better mean it because this lady, and likely her family and friends, will never speak to you again.


4. Have learned the lady is a vicious gossip who has been maligning you, your family, and your friends ever since you laid eyes on each other and is just coming around today for more spite. In fact, one of her cruel stories has forced your dear cousin Neville Wedepickler to flee to the Continent in shame. In such a case, you might be justified in ripping her card to shreds and sending the pieces down with the footman to show her your utter disapproval. There is likely no salvation from this insult, so use it wisely.

So, let’s say you are sitting in your library catching up on correspondence, and the footman brings in a lovely card from Lord Hugh Jackman, Earl of Wolverton, and the corner is bent! He’s absolute charmer, but you’re not entirely sure his motives are on the up and up. What do you do?

Duty Calls, Part 3: Let's Go Visiting!

So…let’s pay some calls. It’s 3:00 pm, the accepted time to begin to pay morning calls. Yes, morning calls—morning is loosely defined as the time after breakfast and before dinner. We’re suitably dressed, with that elegant new hat that just arrived yesterday from the milliner’s shop and spotless gloves and our ever-so-pretty carved mother-of-pearl and tortoise-shell card case with the cards engraved with our name in fine copperplate. The coachman awaits us with the carriage at the door, and the footman is ready to help us climb in and then take his place riding on the little platform at the back of the carriage…

…except that there are different types of calls. Which shall we make, and where? Let’s have a look at our options:

1. Acknowledgement calls: Lady Violet Hyacinth gave such a splendid dinner last night! We’ll call on her first; it’s only polite to pay a call on hostesses within three days of attending a party or ball given by them. If it had been a ball she gave, we’d just leave a card…but for a dinner or more intimate party, it’s proper to call in person.

2. Leaving cards: We were introduced to Lady A last night at Lady Hyacinth’s party. She seems very amusing, and it would be pleasant to get to know her better. We’ll stop at her house and give the footman one of our cards to leave with her…oh, yes, Papa said that knowing Lord A could be useful for his work on the army bill in Parliament…so we’ll send in two of his cards (one each for Lord A and Lady A) and one of ours. Some time in the next week or so Lady A will return the favor and leave cards for us. If she wants to be friendly, the card she sends up will have the corner bent over—that means she’s leaving the card in person, not just having servants leave the card as a friendly gesture. If we actually home, we’ll invite her in to pay an actual visit. If she doesn’t choose to pursue the acquaintanceship but still wishes to be cordial, the cards she sends up won’t have a bent corner.

3. Visiting during an "at home": Lady B is always "at home" to callers on Tuesdays between three and five. She’s a bit of a bore, but she is a distant cousin and one should keep up the connection. We’ll stop in for the proper fifteen minutes, make light, general conversation without removing hats or gloves or pelisses (and if Papa were with us, he'd keep his hat and umbrella), and leave.

4. Calling on best friends: It’s just past five and we’ve paid several different calls this afternoon—now it’s time to visit our dearest friends, for this hour is reserved for calling on close friends. We’ll catch up on gossip and news, and maybe darling Lucy will give us a cup of tea because we’re parched after all the smiling and chatting we've done elsewhere. Refreshments are not generally served to morning callers, but certainly to friends in need!

Duty Calls, Part 2: First, a Digression

Paying calls was, as we discussed a couple of weeks ago, the social glue of female society in the 19th century. But of course, this being the 19th century, a whole slew of customs and rituals and unspoken rules evolved around the process as the century progressed. Let’s consider why that happened for a moment.

One thing I think it’s very hard for 21st century Americans to understand is just how much social class mattered in 19th century British society…the truth is, it mattered enormously. In the first decades of the century, class was pretty straightforward: if you were born in a farm worker’s family, it was almost certain that you yourself would grow up to be a farm worker. If your father was a shopkeeper, then one day you took over and became a shopkeeper in turn…and if you were a girl, you married another farm laborer or shopkeeper or whatever.

So what does that mean? A lot, because what class you were born into determined many things about you: where you lived, what you ate, your clothes, your education…but also less tangible things like your outlook on life, how you spoke, how you moved, even. You could line up a plowman, a miller, an attorney, and a duke, put them all in identical suits, and more than likely still be able to figure out almost immediately who was who. For the most part, people were happy that way; it was comforting to know where you belonged and easy to understand the people around you because they were just like you.

With the industrial revolution, this began to change. Farm laborers’ sons started working in the new factories that were springing up, and if they worked hard and showed initiative, could become supervisors and make a little more money. In time, some of them worked their way up to owning factories of their own and became very rich. But their speech and manners revealed their origins, even if they could afford grand houses and carriages and all the trappings of wealth that had formerly belonged to the upper classes.

And the upper classes were, on the whole, appalled at this development. Being a gentleman at that time meant that one did no labor nor performed a trade. Remember how we discussed 19th century medicine a few months back, and how physicians, who were considered gentlemen, resisted the use of newly-invented stethoscopes because they were tools, and gentlemen did not use tools? It was all right for a man to inherit a large fortune, but certainly not to go out and earn it with his own hands.

So say a Mr. Stubbins has worked his way up from being a coal-hauler to owning half-a-dozen textile mills and shares in a shipping firm, and has bought a splendid townhouse next door to Sir George Uppercrust. He could perhaps expect an exchange of polite nods in the street with Sir George. But the Stubbinses would never be invited to dine at their neighbors’ house, and Sir George’s wife and daughters would not call on Mrs. Stubbins and her daughters. No matter their wealth, the Stubbinses were not gentlemen...er, ladies... (well...you know what I mean!)

The problem was, the Stubbinses rode in a carriage that was just as fancy as the Uppercrusts’ carriage, and Mrs. Stubbins wore clothes just as elegant as Lady Uppercrust’s. How could people like the Uppercrusts keep the world from confusing them with people like the Stubbinses?

The answer was manners and etiquette. The behaviors that were considered to be "proper" and "well-bred" by the upper classes gradually became more complex over the century, something that you it would be hard to master unless one were born to it…which is why how-to books on etiquette and how to behave in polite society became so popular as the century progressed, from nearly none in the Regency era to a handful in the late 1830s to dozens by the 1860s and 1870s and beyond.

I hope this sets the stage a little for next week, when I’ll talk about "at homes", the corners of calling cards, and what a gentleman did with his hat and umbrella.

Duty Calls! (part 1)

In her wonderful post on Friday Regina gave you a taste of just what it was young ladies did all day during the season. All the shopping certainly sounds fun, but another frequent activity does not: making calls. Yet in many ways it was one of the most important things people did: it was the glue that held society together.

Think about it this way: today’s women (and I include teens in that) have lots of opportunities for networking, being together, establishing friendships and acquaintances. They work, go to school, volunteer in their community—all great ways to meet and get to know other people on a casual, daily basis.

But the majority of teens and women of the 19th century didn’t work outside the home, didn’t go to high school or college, didn’t help out in schools or libraries or shelters or wherever. If you were anything more than living in poverty, you were constrained by your social class to more or less stay home…but you could have a social life. And that’s where the importance of paying calls comes in.

Paying a social call was the 19th century equivalent of chatting for a few minutes by the water cooler, or between classes, or in the aisle of the grocery store. It was how you stayed plugged in to your world. So when you came out in society, your mother took you around to pay calls on her friends and acquaintances to announce that fact. If you were leaving town for a while, or when you returned, you paid calls to let everyone know that you were going or had come back. When you had accepted someone’s hospitality the night before at a dinner or party, you paid a call on your hostess in the next day or two to thank them. And while you sat for the 15 to 30 minutes that was considered polite, you gossiped, shared confidences with close friends, got to know less familiar people…all the things we do today in a very different way.

As the century progressed, an elaborate etiquette around the paying and receiving of calls evolved, partly in response to the perceived encroachment of the growing wealthy middle classes into upper class society—a way to separate “them” from “us”. I’ll go into the etiquette and proper form of calls in future posts.