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Born into a wealthy, socialite Eastern family, the date of birth variously reported as October 3, 27, or 30, 1873, Emily Price was the only child of Bruce Price, a distinguished Baltimore architect, and Josephine Lee Price. She grew up in an era of footmen, servants, chaperones, and cotillions.
Emily was educated at home and attended Miss Graham's finishing school in New York where her family had moved.
After divorce with her husband she asked no alimony since there had been a small crash in the stock market in which her husband had suffered a severe financial reversal.
To supplement a small income and support herself and her sons, Emily Post wrote short stories which were published in the popular fiction magazines Ainslie's and Everybody's. She also produced several novels, the first-The Flight of a Moth-about a young American widow attracted to an unscrupulous Russian nobleman, which was published in 1904.
As a successful writer and a woman of social position she was encouraged by an editor at Funk and Wagnalls publishers to write a book on etiquette. Emphasizing the social graces, she wrote Etiquette-The Blue Book of Social Usage.
First published in 1922, it quickly became a best seller, going through ten revisions and 89 printings and bringing her fame and fortune. Post's guiding precept was that good manners began with consideration for the feelings of others and included good form in speech, knowledge of proper social amenities, and charm of manner.
Before her book had been out a month readers deluged her with questions the book had not addressed, and these formed the basis of later revisions. Originally written for the newly rich who presumably wanted to live, entertain, and converse like the wealthy, the heroine of later editions was "Mrs. Three-In-One, " a wonder woman who performed the functions of cook, waitress, and charming hostess at small, informal dinner parties without a maid. Post also started a syndicated column of questions and answers which appeared in 150 newspapers and received as many as 26, 000 letters annually at her New York office in addition to those sent to newspapers in other cities.
During the 1930s she had her own radio program three times weekly which continued for eight years. Although her advice on social behavior changed over the years, her Victorian upbringing made her reluctant to part, in later editions of the book, with the chaperone. She adhered to an earlier convention that considered it improper to visit a man alone in his apartment or to go on overnight automobile trips.
Her "Blue Book," which was the American standard of etiquette for decades, was reported to be second only to the Bible as the book most often not returned or stolen from libraries. Emily Post maintained her social position, travelled extensively in Europe, and always spent the hot summer months away from New York City at a home in Tuxedo Park, New York (designed and built by her father) and later in life at Edgartown, Martha's Vineyard, in a summer home she remodelled.
Besides her writings on etiquette, she wrote The Emily Post Cook Book (1951); The Personality of a House (1930), partly based on her experiences rebuilding and remodeling her summer home at Martha's Vineyard; Children Are People (1940), much of it derived from hours she spent with her grandson; How To Behave Though a Debutante (1928); and other books.
In 1946 she formed the Emily Post Institute to study problems of gracious living and relinquished a great deal of her work to the staff of the institute, headed by her surviving son, Edwin.
She remained active throughout her life, awakening early, but remaining in bed to devote time to letters and the daily column. She always made her first appearance of the day at luncheon, which was served promptly at one. The arbiter of American etiquette, whose name became a household word, died in her New York apartment on September 25, 1960, at the age of 86.
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 (2008), the first full-length biography of the author. In 1950, Pageant named her the second most powerful woman in America, after Eleanor Roosevelt. Emily's most accredited works included those regarding the courtship of young women.
Quotations:
"Manners are a sensitive awareness of the feelings of others. If you have that awareness, you have good manners, no matter what fork you use."
"Good manners reflect something from inside-an innate sense of consideration for others and respect for self."
"Any child can be taught to be beautifully behaved with no effort greater than quiet patience and perseverance, whereas to break bad habits once they are acquired is a Herculean task."
"Nothing is less important than which fork you use. Etiquette is the science of living. It embraces everything. It is ethics. It is honor."
"If you are hurt, whether in mind or body, don't nurse your bruises. Get up and light-heartedly, courageously, good temperedly get ready for the next encounter. This is the only way to take life - this is also 'playing' the game!"
"To make a pleasant and friendly impression is not only good manners, but equally good business."
Quotes from others about the person
The New York Times' 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 with its complex forms and its dances — the Fan, the Ladies Mocked, Mother Goose — called out in dizzying turns by the dance master. "
Emily married society banker Edwin Main Post in 1892 and had two sons, Edwin M. Jr. (1893) and Bruce Price (1895). The Posts drifted apart, and although society frowned on divorce at that time her husband's infidelity caused the marriage to end in a divorce in 1905.
