On this day, October 30, 1872, a woman was born who would tell Americans how to behave for the next hundred years. Emily Post didn’t invent etiquette. But she gave it style, heart, and relevance, and made good manners a national obsession.

She was born Emily Bruce Price, the daughter of a famed architect and a coal baron’s daughter. Her childhood was steeped in the rituals of the Gilded Age: cotillions, fine dining, and Fifth Avenue society. She grew up tall, poised, and polished. But Emily Post wasn’t just a debutante. She was a writer. And she had things to say.

Life Took a Turn

At 20, Emily married Edwin Main Post, a banker with status, but not restraint. After years of his public affairs and scandals, she divorced him in 1905. That was rare for her time. But Emily wasn’t about to let a broken marriage define her. With her two sons in boarding school, she wrote novels, travelogues, and articles on architecture. She was building a voice.

Then, in 1922, at age 50, she published Etiquette in Society, in Business, in Politics, and at Home. It exploded.

People bought her book in droves. Why? Because America was changing. Immigrants, the newly rich, and rising middle classes all wanted to know how to navigate society. Emily gave them a roadmap.

But she didn’t just list rules. She told stories. Her etiquette book read like a social novel, with characters like the Richan Vulgars and the Kindharts showing readers what to do, and what not to. She made manners human.

Emily Post Became a Brand

She wrote newspaper columns that reached over 200 dailies. She hosted radio shows. She updated her book constantly. And in 1946, she founded the Emily Post Institute, a family-run etiquette powerhouse that still operates today. She wasn’t about snobbery. She was about respect, kindness, and ease. Her rules were meant to make others comfortable, not to show off status.

As she once put it: “Etiquette is the science of living. It embraces everything. It is ethics. It is honor.”

Emily Post died in 1960 at age 87. But her legacy is far from dusty. To this day, her name remains shorthand for grace under pressure. Whether navigating a wedding, a dinner party, or an awkward email, her philosophy holds: Consider others. Be clear. Be kind.