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 with its complex forms and its dances — the Fan, the Ladies Mocked, Mother Goose — called out in dizzying turns by the dance master.
Marriage to Post
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 she inherited from her father. The couple moved to Staten Island and had two sons, Edwin Main Post Jr. and Bruce Price Post. Emily divorced Mr. Post in 1905 because of his affairs with chorus girls and fledgling actresses, which made him the target of blackmail.
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 magazines including Harper's, Scribner's, and The Century. She wrote five novels: Flight of a Moth, Purple and Fine Linen, Woven in the Tapestry, The Title Market, and The Eagle's Feather. 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 in various styles, including humorous travel books, early in her career. She published her first etiquette book Etiquette in Society, in Business, in Politics, and at Home when she was 50; it became a best-seller, with updated versions continued to be popular for decades, and it made her career. 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 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, 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.
Peggy Post, the 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. Peggy Post is the author of more than 12 books.
Peter Post, Emily's great-grandson, writes the Sunday edition of The Boston Globe column Etiquette at Work. He's authored the best-selling bookEssential Manners for Men, and of Essential Manners for Couples, and co-authored The Etiquette Advantage in Business, in its third edition.
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, 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. Additionally, 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?. Lizzie also writes about twenty-something life and etiquette on her blog Not Gonna Lie.... Anna and Lizzie co-authored Great Get-Togethers: Casual Gatherings & Elegant Parties at Home, which presents techniques for hosting social gatherings for any sizes of groups.
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. Laura Claridge wrote a book addressing that topic: Emily Post: Daughter of the Gilded Age, Mistress of American Manners, the first full-length biography of the author. Emil Fuchs' portrait of Post is on display at the Brooklyn Museum. Frank Tashlin featured Post's caricature in his cartoonHave You Got Any Castles?. In the 1939 Three Stooges short: Three Sappy People, Moe reminds Larry of Emily Post manners while dining. On the 1943 Warner Bros. cartoon: A Corny Concerto, on the section "Tales from the Vienna Woods", Bugs Bunny shows a book entitled Emily Post Etiquette, then turns to a page that states "It ain't polite to point!" at which he then slams the book shut on a hound's nose. In 1950, Pageant named her the second most powerful woman in America, after Eleanor Roosevelt. On May 28, 1998, the USPS issued a 32¢ stamp featuring Post as part of the Celebrate the Century stamp sheet series.
