A presidential reception in 1789, by Currier & Ives, c. 1876
A young Englishwoman of title visited this country recently she
expressed astonishment at the ignorance of the art of formal social
behavior which American girls displayed. They did not know how to bow
correctly, the curtsey seemed to have become an obsolete social form
here; they had not learned the graceful way to proceed down the length
of a receiving line, and there were countless other social manners and
customs, held in high esteem by foreigners, which seemed to have been
neglected in the early training of American girls, she said.
Children learning how to curtsy from an 1890 German Print.
Then it happened that teachers of social decorum began to consider
how to improve the girls’ social bearing, and in looking over the field
they decided that a touch of quaintness and old fashioned forms would be
both charming and suitable. So the curtsey was introduced, and now it
is one of the first lessons in etiquette taught the schoolgirl.
Arrival at a ball in Colonial Philadelphia by J. L. G. Ferris.
Its revival is expected to have a decided influence on the deportment
of the future debutante, for with the development of the curtsey there
is gradually growing a more formal attitude among young persons toward
older men and women.
A young girl curtsies as she presents a bouquet of flowers to Queen Elizabeth II outside Brisbane City Hall in March 1954.
The curtsey is a charming greeting from youth to its kind, or from
youth to its elders. It is graceful, quaint, has dignity and respect in
every movement, and when well executed is as attractive as any form of
greeting we have. Young girls master its intricacies of movements
readily and after a few lessons are as quick to adapt it to social life
as were their grandmothers.
One
of the VAD’s curtsies to the Princess Royal during her visit to the
Royal Naval Hospital Haslar, in Gosport, January 4, 1943.
One grandmother who had not seen her grandchildren since they were in
the pinafore stage was surprised the other day to observe one child,
aged 15, curtsey to her mother’s friends in the drawing room. It was the
hour before the serving of the informal dinner to which a few friends
had been invited and the children were having 10 minutes’ enjoyment with
the “company.” When the time came for the little group of boys and
girls, ranging in aged from 8 to 15, to withdraw while the older persons
proceeded to the dining room, each little one curtseyed gravely and
gracefully.
The grandmother was enchanted with the performance and expressed a
hope that all children would learn the good old fashioned style of
greeting and leave-taking, which is one of the sweetest tributes youth
can pay to age, or exalted position. — San Francisco, 1912
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