Etiquette

This page requires fuller treatment: currently sourced almost entirely from John C Turpin's "Domestic Doyennes" (Intimus, 2006). The courtesy-book genre (Castiglione), the École des mines of civilité (Elias's civilizing process), and the modern etiquette-book industry await fuller sources.

Definition

Etiquette is the codified apparatus of manners that governs social interaction — and, in John C Turpin's account, the historical engine of the interior's social life: the ritual whose restructuring created the salon, whose possession made women "the gatekeepers of elite society," and whose American failure created the interior decorator. Katherine Grier supplies the concept's pairing principle: etiquette and decoration "express the progress of civilization; both [are] … a way of choosing language that reflects the presence of some cultural framework for organizing many kinds of human experiences" — etiquette and decoration are the spoken and visual languages of the same culture. John Kasson supplies the ritual mechanism: the "protocols of conversation" are "a ritual that establishes the structures by which individuals define one another and interact, defining social identities, social relationships, and an individual's perception of their social reality."

The concept's history is a trajectory of instruments: "The history of etiquette as a well-defined entity begins in Renaissance Italy with the development of a new literary genre, the courtesy book. The Florentines regarded the art of civility as a branch of rhetorical theory. From these rather philosophical beginnings, etiquette eventually evolved into a political tool for social advancement and control in seventeenth-century France." Its pivotal restructuring: "In 1630 Nicholas Faret altered the design of human relations by rejecting the military metaphors of the past… With the exclusion of a male-only topic such as the military, Faret facilitated the participation of women in a new definition of elite sociability. Due to their 'natural' taste, women soon became proprietors of good manners and civility." Etiquette thus gendered itself as it modernized: redefined without war-talk, it became women's jurisdiction — "the best social education emanated from cultivated women, the gatekeepers of elite society" — and its power never became theirs to own: in Victorian England, "Again, etiquette bestowed the power" on ladies who were constitutionally dependent ("The great hostess must be a wife or nothing"). Its American climax is a vacuum: with no hereditary aristocracy to carry it, the bustling city and the suburb breaking "ceremonious intercourse," and the 1918–1945 wave of over 140 etiquette books (Eichler selling a million copies; Post reaching 65 million homes) — "For the first time in American history, etiquette was disentangled from the religious-based ethics of the past and now accepted as a generalized pattern of behavior designed to lubricate social intercourse" — the void was filled by a new profession: "Prior to the appearance of the likes of Emily Post and Lillian Eichler, a new professional arose to fill the cultural void and embrace the need for etiquette. Enter the interior decorator."

Key Thinkers

John C Turpin — the concept's historian here: etiquette from courtesy book to political technology to women's proprietorship to American vacuum; the decorator as etiquette's substitute-profession (2003/2006).
John F Kasson (cited figure — PAGE NEEDED, see log) — the ritual thesis: Rudeness and Civility: Manners in Nineteenth-Century Urban America (1990), protocols as the apparatus that defines social identities and social reality.
Katherine Grier (cited figure — PAGE NEEDED, see log) — the language thesis: Culture and Comfort (1988), etiquette and decoration as twin languages "choos[ing] language that reflects the presence of some cultural framework."
Nicholas Faret (cited figure — see log) — L'Honnête homme ou l'art de plaire a la cour (1630): the restructuring that "altered the design of human relations" by excluding the military topic and opening sociability to women.
Arthur M Schlesinger (cited figure — see log) — Learning How to Behave (1946), the American etiquette-book industry's historian: the 1918–1945 wave, the secularization ("disentangled from the religious-based ethics of the past… designed to lubricate social intercourse").
Elsie de Wolfe — etiquette's professional fusion: "Clearly fueled by her views of etiquette, Elsie de Wolfe expounds her rules regarding entertaining and decorating in her publication, The House in Good Taste… Elsie de Wolfe would combine the ritual of entertaining and etiquette and the practice of interior decoration into a cohesive whole" (via Turpin, 1913).
Quentin Skinner (cited figure — see log) — the genealogy's scholarly source: The Foundations of Modern Political Thought (1978), the Renaissance courtesy book and civility as a branch of rhetorical theory.

Conversation — etiquette's primary content and container: conversation's protocols (no domination, no interruption, no long stories) are etiquette's most elaborated chapter; Kasson's ritual thesis names both.
Salon — etiquette's restructuring as the salon's birth-vehicle: "The vehicle for change would be the restructuring of etiquette."
Advice Literature — etiquette's genre: the courtesy book (Renaissance Italy) through the etiquette-book wave (Eichler, Post) — the literary apparatus of manners.
The Decorative — the twin language: Grier's pairing ("both [are]… a way of choosing language") makes decoration etiquette's visual medium — the stage for conversation's performance.
Taste — the sanctioned judgment: "'natural' taste" as the warrant by which women became "proprietors of good manners and civility" — taste as the qualification etiquette's gatekeepers required.
Gender and the Interior — the gendered proprietorship: etiquette restructured (Faret) into women's jurisdiction; "etiquette bestowed the power" without transferring ownership.
Respectability — the moral wing: the Victorian wife's "presentation of the home" as duty, the guilt economy of display, social death as the sanction.
Domestic Interior — "Both their interiors and manners were highly manufactured" — the double manufacture that pairs this concept with the decorated room.
House Decorator — the profession etiquette's failure founded: "Enter the interior decorator" — the void-filling professional as the etiquette-apparatus's heir.

Source Support

Sources in the wiki that discuss this concept:

Domestic Doyennes: Purveyors of Atmospheres Spoken and Visual (Turpin 2003/2006) — the concept's founding source: Grier's etiquette-and-decoration language-thesis (quoted, p. 368); the Renaissance courtesy-book origin and civility-as-rhetoric (Skinner cited, p. 369); etiquette as "a political tool for social advancement and control in seventeenth-century France" with courtiers "meticulously refashion[ing] their social selves" (p. 369); Faret's 1630 exclusion of the military topic and women's proprietorship ("Due to their 'natural' taste, women soon became proprietors of good manners and civility… the gatekeepers of elite society," p. 369); the Victorian gendered burden (the wife "legally bound to uphold the husband's social status… The first was the presentation of the home. The second required the acquisition of new manners," p. 371); "Again, etiquette bestowed the power" (p. 371); the American vacuum — no native aristocracy, the bustling city, the suburb ("an added obstruction was the exodus to the suburbs, which physically limited social interaction"), the 1918–45 etiquette-book wave and its secularization (note 20, p. 373); and the founding formula: "a new professional arose to fill the cultural void and embrace the need for etiquette. Enter the interior decorator" (p. 372).
Suitability, Simplicity and Proportion (de Wolfe 1913/2006) — the etiquette-decoration fusion in the founding professional text: via Turpin, de Wolfe "clearly fueled by her views of etiquette, expounds her rules regarding entertaining and decorating," claiming both as female responsibilities ("It is the personality of the mistress that the home expresses. Men are forever guests in our homes") — the House in Good Taste as the etiquette-manual and decorating-manual fused into one.

Open Questions

Etiquette's ownership: etiquette "bestowed the power" on its women proprietors — but "The great hostess must be a wife or nothing" (p. 371). Is etiquette then a delegated power that appears owned — the interior's distinctive mode of authority, exercised through inclusion/exclusion but never convertible into office? Does the salonnière's precarity ("she would lose her most valued position") and the hostess's dependency name the same structural limit?
The profession's founding void: if the interior decorator entered history as etiquette's substitute ("a new professional arose to fill the cultural void"), the discipline's genealogy (upholsterer → house decorator → interior decorator) is incomplete without a sociological line (etiquette → decorator). Does Turpin's origin story — the decorator as a manager of rituals, not just of rooms — change what the discipline claims to design?
The secularization datum: "etiquette was disentangled from the religious-based ethics of the past and now accepted as a generalized pattern of behavior designed to lubricate social intercourse" (note 20) — etiquette desacralized into technique in the same decades the decorator professionalized. Is the coincidence causal: does the decorator inherit precisely the technique-form of manners, and does that explain the profession's twentieth-century oscillation between service and expertise?
Etiquette and Elias: the trajectory Turpin sketches (courtesy book → political tool → women's proprietorship → secular technique) parallels Norbert Elias's civilizing process without citing it. Is the wiki's etiquette material an Eliasian register in disguise — and what would Elias's court-society frame add to the Louis XIV courtiers' "refashioned social selves"?
The guilt economy: Victorian display justified "by invoking the idea of social duty," with self-imposed restrictions "to soothe guilt" — and "such 'sins' were acceptable for women, but not for the men." Is the gender asymmetry here the same mechanism respectability documents a century later (women "bear[ing] the brunt of unfavourable judgements"), or a distinct economy of display-guilt with no modern successor?
The visual language: Grier's pairing makes etiquette and decoration "a way of choosing language" in two media. Can the pairing be made operational — reading a room's decoration as etiquette's transcript (the roving eye as staccato talk's visual analogue; de Wolfe's conversation centres as hospitality's protocol) — or do the two languages diverge historically (etiquette dying, decoration surviving)?

Notes

Created from Turpin's essay as the interior cluster's missing ritual-concept: the wiki's advice-literature page holds the genre's texts, but etiquette as an apparatus (ritual, vehicle of gendered power, profession-founder) had no page. Related future work: Norbert Elias's civilizing process (PAGE NEEDED candidate); Castiglione's courtesy book; the etiquette-book industry (Post, Eichler — cited figures, see log).