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Emily Post

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This article is about the writer on etiquette. For the logician, see Emil Post.

Emily Post
BornEmily Price
about (1872-10-27)October 27, 1872
Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.
DiedSeptember 25, 1960(1960-09-25) (aged 87)
New York City
OccupationAuthor, Founder of The Emily Post Institute
NationalityAmerican
EducationFinishing school
SubjectEtiquette
SpouseEdwin Main Post (1892–1905)
Children2
RelativesElizabeth Post, Peggy Post, Bruce Price

Emily Post (about October 27, 1872 – September 25, 1960) was an American author famous for writing on etiquette.

Brooklyn Museum – Emily Post – Emil Fuchs

Background

Post was born as Emily Price in Baltimore, Maryland, possibly in October 1872[1] (the precise date is disputed).[a] Her father was the architect Bruce Price and her mother was Josephine (Lee) Price of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. After being educated at home in her early years, she attended Miss Graham's finishing school in New York after her family moved there.

Price met her future husband, Edwin Main Post, a prominent banker, at a ball in a Fifth Avenue 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 that she inherited from her father. The couple had two sons, Edwin Main Post, Jr. (1893) and Bruce Price Post (1895).[3]

The couple divorced in 1905, because of her husband's affairs with chorus girls and fledgling actresses, which had made him the target of blackmail.[3]

Writing career

When her two sons were old enough to attend boarding school, Post began to write. She produced newspaper articles on architecture and interior design, as well as stories and serials for such magazines as Harper's, Scribner's, and The Century. She wrote the following novels: Flight of a Moth (1904), Purple and Fine Linen (1906), Woven in the Tapestry (1908), The Title Market (1909), and The Eagle's Feather (1910).

She wrote in various styles, including humorous travel books, early in her career. In 1922 her book, Etiquette in Society, in Business, in Politics, and at Home (frequently referenced as Etiquette) became a best seller, and updated versions continued to be popular for decades. After 1931, Post spoke on radio programs and wrote a column on good taste for the Bell Syndicate; it appeared daily in some 200 newspapers after 1932.

In 1946, she founded The Emily Post Institute, which continues her work. She died in 1960 in her New York City apartment at the age of 88.

Family

Peggy Post, wife of Emily's great-grandson, is the current spokeswoman for The Emily Post Institute—and writes etiquette advice for Good Housekeeping magazine, succeeding her mother-in-law, Elizabeth Post. She is the author of more than twelve books.

Peter Post, Emily's great-grandson, writes the "Etiquette at Work" column for the Sunday edition of The Boston Globe. He is the author of the best-selling book Essential Manners for Men, Essential Manners for Couples and co-authored The Etiquette Advantage in Business, which is in its second edition.

Cindy Post Senning, Ed.D. is Emily Post's great-granddaughter and a director of The Emily Post Institute. She is also the author, with Peggy Post, of two recent illustrated books for children: Emily’s Christmas Gifts (2008) and Emily’s Sharing and Caring Book (2009).

Anna Post is Emily Post’s great-great-granddaughter. She is the author of Do I Have to Wear White? Emily Post Answers America’s Top Wedding Questions (Collins 2009), as well as Emily Post’s Wedding Parties: Smart Ideas for Stylish Parties, From Engagement to Reception and Everything in Between. She is the wedding etiquette expert for Brides.com and Inside Weddings magazine. She speaks at bridal shows and other venues providing wedding etiquette advice and tips.

Lizzie Post, another of Emily's great-great-granddaughters, is the first member of the fourth generation of Posts. Her book is titled How Do You Work This Life Thing? (Collins 2007). Lizzie also writes about twenty-something life and etiquette at her blog Not Gonna Lie….

Legacy

Emily Post's name has become synonymous, at least in North America, with proper etiquette and manners. More than half a century after her death, her name is still used in titles of etiquette books.[4] In 2008, Laura Claridge wrote Emily Post: Daughter of the Gilded Age, Mistress of American Manners, the first full-length biography of the author.[5]

Post's caricature (emerging from her etiquette book and scolding England's King Henry VIII about his lack of manners) was featured in Frank Tashlin's 1938 cartoon Have You Got Any Castles?. As a joke, she is called "Emily Host". The USPS issued a stamp of face value 32¢ on May 28, 1998 as part of the Celebrate the Century stamp sheet series.

A portrait of Post by Emil Fuchs, (ca.1906) can be found in the Brooklyn Museum.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Primary documents conflict with the birthdate she usually gave, October 27, 1872. The burial records of her brother, William Lee Price, who died in infancy, give his dates as 18 April 1873-6 December 1875. But he can't have been born 5 months and 21 days after his sister. That she was born six months after him is equally unlikely. So something is awry, and it's unresolvable from primary records. However, it seems less likely that a contemporary burial record of a two year old got his birth year wrong than that an adult used an erroneous birth date.[2]

References

  1. ^ http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/17/books/17book.html?_r=0
  2. ^ Claridge, Laura (2008). Emily Post: Daughter of the Gilded Age, Mistress of American Manners. Random House. p. 18. ISBN 978-0-375-50921-6. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  3. ^ a b Claridge, Laura (2008). Emily Post. New York: Random House. pp. 3–5, 165–70. ISBN 978-0-375-50921-6.
  4. ^ http://weddings.emilypost.com/
  5. ^ The New Yorker, "Place Settings", Kolbert, Elizabeth. October 20, 2008.

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