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Young Lady's Own Book (1834)
Call number: BJ1681 .Y7 1834

The Young Lady's Own Book, published in 1834, is advertised as a manual of intellectual improvement and moral deportment. This book details how women should spend their time, what education they should have, how to write letters, the practice of drawing, the evils of card playing, their duties (female and filial), how to keep house, and female moral deportment. According to the author, a young lady's library should contain books on history, biography, poetry, travel, and moral and religious works. For the convenience of the reader, more than seventy titles or authors are listed, including biographies of Virginia's George Washington (by John Marshall) and Patrick Henry (by Parson Weems).
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Hill's Manual of Social and Business Forms (1885)
Call number: AG105 .H6 1885 (p. 147)

During the heyday of the Horatio Alger rags-to-riches stories, Thomas E. Hill found success with his illustrated publication Hill's Manual of Social and Business Forms. In the chapter the "Etiquette of Introduction," Hill illustrates three ways of clasping hands—one preferred by the snob; another preferred by the cold-blooded, languid person; and the final preferred by the generous, frank, whole-souled individual.
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A calling card of Prince Pierre Troubetzkoy, the second husband of Amelie Rives Troubetzkoy
Call number: Mss1 R5247 c 190-192

The Woman's Book (1894) demonstrates the flux of female roles in the late nineteenth century. Greater flexibility is allowed for women to work outside the home as indicated by the first two chapters offering advice about occupations and business affairs—topics not broached in advice books a few decades earlier. In social and domestic situations, however, the book's content deviates little from earlier books.

Virginia's own Constance Cary Harrison of Belvoir House in Fairfax County wrote the chapter "Society and Social Usages" in which, among other topics of entertaining, she describes the etiquette of calling cards. For instance, if a bachelor visits a house, he should leave two cards, one each for the master and the mistress. And should he be calling for a young lady in the house, the card left for her mother will suffice, evocative of the rigid rules of courtship from earlier decades.
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Richmond cartoonist, Fred O. Seibel, illustrates the hazards of not using hand signals when turning in Drive and Live, a 1937 driver's instruction manual.
Call number: TL152 .F5 1937 (p. 88)

Emily Post's Etiquette, considered a standard today, was printed in sixty-four runs between July 1922 and February 1945. Thus, in a twenty-three-year period, during which the country experienced an economic depression and a world war, the public demand for this one title was voracious. In her 1945 edition, Mrs. Post details at length rules for social engagements, including chapters for debutantes and weddings.

Perhaps the most interesting are the sections devoted to newer inventions, such as the telephone (always offer to pay for calls you make from a friend’s house, even if they are local), air travel (never tip the registered nurse who is part of the cabin crew), and motorists (always use arm signals to note left or right turns or if you are stopping; and make certain not to make such false signals as sticking your arm out the window to shake ashes off your cigarette.)
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