The young war widow Libby Cookman didn’t read this book upon its publication, four years before she married Bill Post. But her fiancé had been brought up in large part on its precepts, his grandmother influencing him as much as anyone, he believes. Libby’s baby son Allen was a Post from the first day Emily held him in her arms, the child not of her blood but of her heart, and she made sure everyone knew it. Yvonne Sylvia remembers that “Bill Post was especially kind and generous to Allen’s biological grandparents, whose son had been killed in the war.” There would be no legal ambiguities after her death, either: her will specified that equal estate portions be granted to her great- grandchildren, including Allen Post, “adopted son of William.”
CHAPTER 61
UNTIL MAY 1940, WHEN GERMANY DEFEATED FRANCE, AMERICANS couldn’t be blamed for conspicuously ignoring the escalating terror in Europe. During September, however, London became the target of sustained bombing, which continued for the next eight months. Emily’s friends living in the city left for the English countryside within weeks of the first attack. An average of two hundred bombers battered London nightly, with the Blitz claiming forty- three thousand lives and a million residences. On October 15 alone, a six- hour attack by four hundred bombers was resisted by a meager forty- one RAF fighters. Along with most middle- class Americans, Emily listened to the voice of Edward R. Murrow; using shortwave, he described the scene on London After Dark. The radio refused to let the war stay overseas, as citizens around the nation sensed the conflict creeping closer to their hitherto invulnerable homes.
That autumn, however, Emily addressed office, rather than national, politics. On September 22, her syndicated newspaper column (a copy of which she uncharacteristically saved) tackled the workplace. Detailing ways that smart office protocol made employees appear indispensable, she wrote with the enthusiastic, sure tone that guaranteed her an audience. Now she constructed a scenario about a highly successful worker quietly commanding the office. To the reader’s presumed surprise, this superworker turned out to be a woman. Today, Emily emphasized, this composite was characteristic of many fifty- year- old women spearheading America’s workplaces. Minimally trained upon their hiring, they had quickly become exemplars for their fellow citizens. Such an employee represented “the typical competent American woman whose heart is in her job, and who is blessed with plain common sense!”
Focusing on office life afforded Emily a subject many less intrepid columnists would avoid even today. Refusing to flinch from the awkward, even back in 1922, when she addressed the matter briefly in Etiquette, she now used Good Housekeeping magazine to promote awareness of possible “personal” offenders, from onions to “bodily defects,” which, presumably, included everything from bad breath to flatulence to hygiene: “If [a woman] should ever notice that people seem to draw away from her, she should ask a friend the reason. If she tells her that it is a personal unpleasantness she shouldn’t resent her friend’s truthfulness. The chances are that her druggist can give her an immediate cure, but if he can’t then she can go to her doctor.” Otherwise, she reasoned, an embarrassed employer, too shy to tell her the truth, might fire the unsuspecting worker with a trumped- up reason. “The strangest angle of this not uncommon situation,” Emily pointed out, “is that the sufferer is herself completely immunized and therefore unaware of this unpleasantness.”
Having stayed on the Vineyard later than usual that year, in early October, before returning to New York, she spoke about her forthcoming book on children to a group of sixty women from the Edgartown Women’s Club. During her appearance, she was interviewed by a local reporter, who was surprised when Emily used his forum to campaign for Republican presidential contender Wendell Willkie. Though she seldom talked about politics, “Mrs. Post wanted to speak about the third term that President Roosevelt was seeking: ‘Washington and Jefferson . . . refused third terms because they knew the love of power would overcome the good they’d achieved,’ ” she explained. Though Willkie had initially sounded suspiciously idealistic to scared voters, with his “one world” concept of global co-operation, now, as the election drew closer, the candidate took a hard line, accusing the government of being soft on defense preparations. To Emily, who had also campaigned for Al Smith, Wendell Willkie just sounded practical.
GRADUALLY, REVIEWS OF ANYTHING Emily Post wrote began to exhibit a subtle smugness, inspired by a faint shift in journalists’ attitude toward what she stood for as well as to her advanced years. Occasionally, the implication that an aged Emily Post was necessarily out of date underlay the prose. Gentle prodding, making fun of an authority no longer in command, suddenly went with the territory that Emily had comfortably overseen for the past two decades.
By the end of 1940, she was reading polite but lackluster reviews of her Children Are People: And Ideal Parents Are Comrades. The unenthusiastic responses almost apologized for endorsing a near dinosaur of an author. “At first glance the idea of ‘etiquette for children’ may seem artificial or stereotyped,” wrote the New York Times, “but readers should be assured forthwith that the principles and precepts here underscored are neither of those things.” In her “essentially human pages,” Emily “wisely” harnessed her high “ideals . . . to specific conditions and problems.” The author “believes that the happiest homes are those in which courtesy, consideration and self-control are joined with comradeship between parents and children; she believes in gentleness and resourcefulness and poise.” Time magazine seemed to review her book out of a bored courtesy: “Today, at 67 [she had turned sixty- eight that fall], Mrs. Post is still undisputed autocrat of U.S. etiquette. Mrs. Post has long had another ambition: to write a Blue Book for raising children . . . . Mrs. Post likes old- fashioned ways best.” Emily had argued against the “unrestrained self- expression” currently in fashion, believing children needed to be kindly kept in check instead, a position she did not believe old- fashioned at all.
At least the public school principal Angelo Patri, a writer of a syndicated newspaper column himself, “Our Children,” sent a more than polite thank- you letter to Emily in early December, which the usually unsentimental woman kept. Like Emily’s Etiquette, Patri’s book Child Training had been published in 1922, the year New York City’s boxing enthusiasm peaked; the innovative educator and immigrant subsequently used the activity to channel the anger of troubled boys in his Bronx school. Emily admired him and had mailed him an advance copy of her own child- rearing book, an act he promptly acknowledged: “I have been enjoying your book, every word of it is so true and so helpful—before writing to thank you for your kindness in sending it to me. Your thoughts of me touched and delighted me beyond words. I shall treasure the book doubly: as a fine piece of work, and as a cherished gift from a great lady of America. Sincerely, Angelo Patri.” Emily was so gratified that her book passed muster with Patri that she would later share the letter, “proud and pleased,” with Yvonne Sylvia, on Martha’s Vineyard.
Patri’s widely publicized work in support of educating the nation’s children and directing their frustrations outward must have been much on her mind these days, or she would never have sent him a gift copy of Children Are People. On December 13, an audience crowded the grand ballroom of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel for an afternoon panel sponsored by the National Association of Manufacturers, “Women’s Responsibility in Preparing America’s Future,” with national defense obviously the real subject under discussion. Emily, part of a panel of four, turned the topic into improving educational systems instead of pouring the government’s money into general relief causes, as she believed was now the case. She was deeply dismayed at the expense of Roosevelt’s New Deal, especially in its diversion of money to artists, who, she thought she had helped prove, could be privately subsidized. She urged women to learn the record of candidates “even for local offices” and, most of all, to be sure to cast their ballots. If she was chastened at the memory of her lack of enthusiasm when asked to campaign for the vote years ago, she gave no sign.
IN SPITE OF THE distressing condescension directed toward her the past few years, Emily had reason to feel content. The 1941 edition of Current Biography began her entry by noting her cultural importance: “It seems incredible that as late as 1921 [Emily Post] was not part of our national vocabulary.” The essay noted that “Mrs. Post’s own views on etiquette have changed considerably” since her earlier writings, her advice in 1940’s Chidren Are People minimizing the importance of proper “form” even further. For Emily, the titles following her name said it all: “author, radio commentator, arbiter of etiquette.” A well- respected encyclopedia had finally granted precedence to her life as a writer—not first and foremost an authority on etiquette. Almost defiantly, she had submitted to the editors an older photograph that highlighted her short hair, softly waved above her ears. Her skin was still translucent, and in the picture her small mouth didn’t yet turn down at the corners. Two strands of pearls, one long, the other lying against her neck, adorned a flowered blouse, which, she vaguely suggested in a subsequent interview, she had designed and even sewn herself.
Between sponsoring lunches for business contacts and sharing meals with her son or Katharine Collier, Emily had developed a satisfying daily routine. Katharine, with her frequent chitchat about the Roosevelts’ contentious affairs, state and otherwise, provided a perfect forum through which the writer could keep in touch with the political world, motivating Emily to register change on grounds other than the domestic, cultural level of etiquette and ethics. Both women leaned toward a libertarian position, wherein the “defense of every conceivable freedom” resulted, paradoxically, in a free market that pitted poor and rich, native and immigrant, man and woman—all in theory—against each other as equals. The friends believed in freedom and dignity for all the world’s people, but they also thought that human beings saw the world refracted through their “national community”—in Emily’s case, as “an American”—where they had to work hard in order to achieve equality for all of its citizens.
Katharine’s daughter, Katharine Collier St. George, would serve as New York state representative from 1946 until 1964. Her complicated politics shed light on the beliefs of her mother and her mother’s best friend, fleshing out ideas about women’s abilities that the older women considered sacred. An “ardent Republican,” the younger Katharine was also known as an outspoken advocate of equal rights for women (supporting an early equal rights amendment). Like Emily and Katharine, whom many believed to be elitists, Katharine Collier St. George was strongly opposed to “protective legislature” for women, claiming women neither “need nor want” such paternalism. Instead, they sought “to be free to work as equals, asking for no special privileges, but insisting on equality of opportunity and pay.” Yet in spite of their political differences, Katharine St. George maintained a cordial relationship with the president, who would die just before she first took office.
Because of her close association with Katharine Collier, Emily occasionally socialized with President and Mrs. Roosevelt. From vague comments she made to her grandson, however, it was not only the president who failed to win Emily’s vote; she didn’t admire the first lady either. Echoing the lessons of Josephine Price, Emily deemed Eleanor far too pushy about getting things done. Though the first lady was twelve years younger, she still came from the Gilded Age that had produced Emily Post, and she exhibited some of the same personality traits. Possessed by a deep- rooted horror of wasting time, Eleanor was impatient with the slowness of ocean liners, choosing the new option of the airplane every time, while Franklin solicited “her companionship on languid trips by boat and train” to no avail. Just like Emily Post, when she had a mission, she wanted to execute it at once, without delay. Lillian Gilbreth, Emily Post, Eleanor Roosevelt, even Alva Vanderbilt: it’s as if the new professional woman, sure of her right to be where she was, didn’t have time to waste anymore, nor the emotional reserves to spend on the maintenance of a husband.
Perhaps Emily also mistrusted the aura of do- gooder some believed clung to Eleanor Roosevelt. But the deeper reason surely included the envy the first lady bred. After all, she conducted her marriage as a throwback to Emily’s parents’ generation, primarily for the sake of the children, redefining ways to live together in lieu of a divorce. Though her husband’s mistresses were more than suspected in government and social circles, Eleanor—and the president—maintained appearances, however minimal. The family came first, at least in its public persona.
Like Emily, Eleanor Roosevelt did not depend on men for her emotional life after her de facto separation from her husband. Unlike Emily, she was still married, creating her private space within the context of a very public marriage. It was what Emily would have liked to salvage with Edwin. Somehow Eleanor Roosevelt had managed to keep her marriage without compromising her individuality—and certainly without shortchanging her work. Seeing such a success story, in its own way, must have galled Emily, who had tried hard but had failed to dictate her own marital terms.
IN FEBRUARY 1941, Hitler, seeking sovereignty over the Atlantic, began attacking British port cities. The Germans aimed the bombs at civilian rather than industrial targets, but with Britain’s increased radar- controlled defenses, the Luftwaffe’s losses mounted dramatically, increasing from 28 planes in January to 124 five months later. Finally, if only to prepare for the invasion of Russia, the German command ended the Blitz in May, just after the British Museum and Houses of Parliament were severely damaged in one of Germany’s strategic demoralization attacks.
As if to stay distracted—she had friends and relatives overseas, including in England—Emily granted more interviews than usual. She had no intention of ceding control over her schedule just because she had hired efficient secretaries. Juggling her radio broadcasting and her column, she fit in a lengthy interview for Reader’s Digest with Hildegarde Dolson, a young woman determined to be a second Dorothy Parker.
From the beginning of their encounter, a friendly tug- of- war seemed the order of the day. Dolson would seek personal information, either about Emily’s divorce or her income, and Emily would parry cleverly. Dolson then feinted, and Emily dodged. This back-and-forth went on for several hours, intricate enough that years later Dolson, by then a New Yorker writer, would include a humorous piece about the interview in her collection of essays, concluding that Emily was a “very nice woman” in spite of it all.
In June, another friendly dialogue was published. Probably because Margaret Case Harriman had produced such a strong interview several years earlier in the Saturday Evening Post, Emily had consented to a second meeting with her, this time for Reader’s Digest, the audience enthusiastic for more about Emily Post after the interview with Dolson that spring. While the women talked, Emily sat comfortably on the couch with her legs drawn up and her feet tucked under. Her hands nonetheless fluttered compulsively, “busy with one of the gadgets—eyeshades, file boxes, and so on—she likes to make out of colored pictures clipped from magazines and stuck together with gummed tape,” Harriman reported. The sign of a person on the go, Emily’s edgy hands were often remarked upon as she grew older, as if age was not going to slow her down. Clearly startling Harriman, Emily, after she’d finished eating, plopped “her elbows on the table.”
AT THE END of the year, questions about good taste lost their fascination as the nation shifted from debate to commitment in a matter of minutes. On Sunday, December 7, the Japanese killed or wounded over three thousand American military personnel at Pearl Harbor, sinking or crippling eight battleships and thirteen other vessels and destroying nearly two hundred aircraft. On the day after the debacle, the roll call on the floors of the House and Senate met with a near- unanimous accord: the Senate voted 82 to 0 and the House 388 to 1 to grant President Roosevelt’s request to declare war on Japan.
“We interrupt this program to bring you a special news bulletin. The Japanese have attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, by air” framed America’s collective memory of December 7, 1941. Co
ntrary to those recollections, no bulletin actually interrupted network programming that day. Instead, exploiting new technologies seven years later, engineers spliced together two separate recordings to “re-create” FDR’s famous radio message. In a testimony to the power of the radio, even now, the catastrophe seared into their minds, people still swear they heard the announcement themselves, just hours after the attack.
CHAPTER 62
PEARL HARBOR CHANGED EVERYTHING—FOR THE COUNTRY, AND for Emily’s radio career. The war quickly rendered niche shows expendable, even as the Armed Forces Radio Service, or AFRS, boasted 306 stations for military personnel worldwide. Nonetheless, as Emily focused her daily newspaper column on questions created by the war, ranging from private Department of State inquiries about protocol to suggestions on carpooling, she secured a fresh currency. She reveled in having her advice sought, and to matter during wartime was a great acknowledgment indeed.
Though not signed to a show of her own that season, she began the year by appearing on Alma Kitchell’s radio program on WJZ. But soon she found even such guest slots becoming scarce, as being nice to one another hardly seemed relevant to the order of the day. The columnist Henry McLemore, complaining irately that military training was too soft, wrote, “Uncle Sam, let’s take the likes of Emily Post off the General Staff. Please, let’s forget the military counterparts of how to hold your fork, which spoon to use and when to use it, and who leads whom into the smoking room . . . . Hasn’t Hitler been in operation long enough for us to have learned that when he dropped his first calling card in the form of a bomb, Adolf ended all national courtesy?”
Emily Post Page 46