Emily Post ( Price; October 27, 1872 – September 25, 1960) was an American author, novelist, and socialite, famous for writing about etiquette.

Early life

Post was born Emily Bruce Price in

Baltimore, Maryland Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

, possibly in October 1872. The precise date is unknown. Her father was the architect

Bruce Price Bruce Price (December 12, 1845 – May 29, 1903) was an American architect and an innovator in the Shingle Style. The stark geometry and compact massing of his cottages in Tuxedo Park, New York, influenced Modernist architects, including ...

, famed for designing luxury communities. Her mother Josephine (Lee) Price of

Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania Wilkes-Barre ( or ) is a city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, Luzerne County. Located at the center of the Wyoming Valley in Northeastern Pennsylvania, it had a population of 44,328 in th ...

was the daughter of a wealthy coal baron. After being educated at home in her early years, Price attended Miss Graham's

finishing school A finishing school focuses on teaching young women social graces and upper-class cultural rites as a preparation for entry into society. The name reflects that it follows on from ordinary school and is intended to complete the education, wit ...

in New York after her family moved there. ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' Dinitia Smith reports, in her review of Laura Claridge's 2008 biography of Post,

Emily was tall, pretty and spoiled. ..She grew up in a world of grand estates, her life governed by carefully delineated rituals like the
cotillion The cotillion (also cotillon or French country dance) is a social dance, popular in 18th-century Europe and North America. Originally for four couples in square formation, it was a courtly version of an English country dance, the forerunner o ...
with its complex forms and its dances—the Fan, the Ladies Mocked, Mother Goose—called out in dizzying turns by the dance master.

Price met her future husband, Edwin Main Post, a prominent banker, at a ball in a

Fifth Avenue Fifth Avenue is a major and prominent thoroughfare in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It stretches north from Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village to West 143rd Street in Harlem. It is one of the most expensive shopping stre ...

mansion. Following their wedding in 1892 and a honeymoon tour of Europe, they lived in New York's Washington Square. They also had a country cottage, named "Emily Post Cottage", in Tuxedo Park, which was one of four Bruce Price Cottages she inherited from her father. The couple moved to

Staten Island Staten Island ( ) is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Richmond County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located in the city's southwest portion, the borough is separated from New Jersey by the Arthur Kill and the Kill Van Kull an ...

and had two sons, Edwin Main Post Jr. (1893) and Bruce Price Post (1895). Emily and Edwin divorced in 1905 because of his affairs with

chorus girl A chorus line is a large group of dancers who together perform synchronized routines, usually in musical theatre. Sometimes, singing is also performed. Chorus line dancers in Broadway musicals and revues have been referred to by slang terms s ...

s and fledgling actresses, which made him the target of

blackmail Blackmail is an act of coercion using the threat of revealing or publicizing either substantially true or false information about a person or people unless certain demands are met. It is often damaging information, and it may be revealed to fa ...

Career

Brooklyn Museum - Emily Post - Emil Fuchs - overall

Post began to write once her two sons were old enough to attend

boarding school A boarding school is a school where pupils live within premises while being given formal instruction. The word "boarding" is used in the sense of "room and board", i.e. lodging and meals. As they have existed for many centuries, and now exten ...

. Her early work included humorous travel books, newspaper articles on architecture and interior design, and magazine serials for '' Harper's'', ''

Scribner's Charles Scribner's Sons, or simply Scribner's or Scribner, is an American publisher based in New York City, known for publishing American authors including Henry James, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Kurt Vonnegut, Marjorie Kinnan Rawli ...

'', and '' The Century''. She wrote five novels: ''Flight of a Moth'' (1904), ''Purple and Fine Linen'' (1905), ''Woven in the Tapestry'' (1908), ''The Title Market'' (1909), and ''The Eagle's Feather'' (1910). In 1916, she published ''By Motor to the Golden Gate—''a recount of a road trip she made from New York to San Francisco with her son Edwin and another companion. Post wrote her first etiquette book ''

Etiquette in Society, in Business, in Politics, and at Home ''Etiquette in Society, in Business, in Politics, and at Home'' (frequently referenced as ''Etiquette'') is a book authored by Emily Post in 1922. The book covers manners and other social rules, and has been updated frequently to reflect social c ...

'' (1922, frequently referenced as ''Etiquette'') when she was 50. It became a best-seller with numerous editions over the following decades. After 1931, Post spoke on radio programs and wrote a column on good taste for the

Bell Syndicate The Bell Syndicate, launched in 1916 by editor-publisher John Neville Wheeler, was an American syndicate that distributed columns, fiction, feature articles and comic strips to newspapers for decades. It was located in New York City at 247 West 4 ...

. The column appeared daily in over 200 newspapers after 1932. In her review of Claridge's 2008 biography of Post, ''The New York Times'' Dinitia Smith explains the keys to Post's popularity:

Such books had always been popular in America: the country’s exotic mix of immigrants and newly rich were eager to fit in with the establishment. Men had to be taught not to blow their noses into their hands or to spit tobacco onto ladies’ backs.
Arthur M. Schlesinger Arthur Meier Schlesinger Sr. (; February 27, 1888 – October 30, 1965) was an American historian who taught at Harvard University, pioneering social history and urban history. He was a Progressive Era intellectual who stressed material cau ...
, who wrote “Learning How to Behave: A Historical Study of American Etiquette Books” in 1946, said that etiquette books were part of “the leveling-up process of democracy,” an attempt to resolve the conflict between the democratic ideal and the reality of class. But Post’s etiquette books went far beyond those of her predecessors. They read like short-story collections with recurring characters, the Toploftys, the Eminents, the Richan Vulgars, the Gildings and the Kindharts.

In 1946, Post founded

The Emily Post Institute The Emily Post Institute (EPI) is an organization located in Burlington, Vermont, that provides etiquette advice and training to news outlets and corporations in the United States of America and worldwide. It was founded by etiquette author Em ...

, which continues her work.

Death

Post died in her

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

apartment in 1960 at the age of 87. She is buried in the cemetery at St. Mary's-in-Tuxedo Episcopal Church in Tuxedo Park, New York.

Cultural legacy

A portrait of Emily Post by Emil Fuchs (ca. 1906) is in the collection of the

Brooklyn Museum The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 1.5 million objects. Located near the Prospect Heights, Crown H ...

Frank Tashlin Frank Tashlin (born Francis Fredrick von Taschlein, February 19, 1913 – May 5, 1972), also known as Tish Tash and Frank Tash, was an American animator, cartoonist, children's writer, illustrator, screenwriter, and film director. He was best kn ...

featured Post's caricature emerging from her etiquette book and scolding England's King

Henry VIII Henry VIII (28 June 149128 January 1547) was King of England from 22 April 1509 until his death in 1547. Henry is best known for his six marriages, and for his efforts to have his first marriage (to Catherine of Aragon) annulled. His disa ...

about his lack of manners in the

cartoon A cartoon is a type of visual art that is typically drawn, frequently animated, in an unrealistic or semi-realistic style. The specific meaning has evolved over time, but the modern usage usually refers to either: an image or series of images ...

'' Have You Got Any Castles?'' (1938). ''

Pageant Pageant may refer to: * Procession or ceremony in elaborate costume * Beauty pageant, or beauty contest * Latter Day Saint plays and pageants, run by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or by members local to the area of the pageant * ...

'' in 1950 named her the second most powerful woman in America, after

Eleanor Roosevelt Anna Eleanor Roosevelt () (October 11, 1884November 7, 1962) was an American political figure, diplomat, and activist. She was the first lady of the United States from 1933 to 1945, during her husband President Franklin D. Roosevelt's four ...

. On May 28, 1998, the

United States Postal Service The United States Postal Service (USPS), also known as the Post Office, U.S. Mail, or Postal Service, is an independent agency of the executive branch of the United States federal government responsible for providing postal service in the U ...

issued a 32¢ stamp featuring Post as part of their Celebrate the Century stamp sheet series. In 2008

Laura Claridge Laura Claridge (born 1952 in Clearwater, Florida) is an American author known primarily for her biographies of major 20th century figures, forcing re-examination of popular icons including Art Deco painter Tamara de Lempicka, Emily Post and Nor ...

published ''Emily Post: Daughter of the Gilded Age, Mistress of American Manners'', the first full-length biography of the author.

Notes

References

External links

* * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Post, Emily 1872 births 1960 deaths 20th-century American novelists American information and reference writers American women short story writers American travel writers American women novelists Etiquette writers Writers from Baltimore People from Staten Island American women travel writers 20th-century American women writers 20th-century American short story writers Novelists from New York (state) Novelists from Maryland