How Emily Post taught the elite to greet
This weekend, Emily Post, born Emily Price, turns 147. Born in October of 1872 to an affluent Maryland family, her life from the start was governed by the rituals of privilege and dictated by decorum — balls, cotillion, dinner parties, calling cards, and all the other occasions and duties one can find advice about in her 1922 Etiquette in Society, in Business, in Politics, and at Home. Etiquette was the book that made her famous, and ensured her name would be forever synonymous with seemingly tedious and elite manners.
