Etiquette Books

The dining room, perhaps even more than the parlor, has been the testing and proving ground of etiquette in America. Changing etiquette—which codifies the proper use of furniture and tableware, appropriate menus and recipes, and the specifics of table service and deportment—has been a guide to shifting social, economic, and cultural values and a means to understanding the various strata of the population at different times. During the earliest colonial decades, the wealthier classes set styles and fashions; later, the newly emerging middle classes, striving to become accepted into society, followed their lead. In the past this kind of idealized regimen was not as much a part of lower or working-class lives, presumably because the necessary leisure and resources were too scarce.