ETIQUETTE BOOKS AND EMOTION MANAGEMENT IN THE 20TH-CENTURY .1. THE INTEGRATION OF SOCIAL-CLASSES

This is the first part of a comparative study of changes in twentieth- century American, Dutch, English and German etiquette books, focusing on connections between changes in ranking and formality, especially wi th regard to classes and sexes, and changes in emotional management. D irect references to differences in class, status and gender, particula rly with regard to feelings of superiority and inferiority, have dimin ished or even vanished from the social codes as workers and women came to be further integrated into their national states. Within the conse quential narrower limits these codes have become more lenient and vari ed for a wider and more differentiated public: an informalization proc ess. After a preliminary section on etiquette books as a source of evi dence, this first report concentrates on the diminishing social and ps ychical distance between people of different class and rank. It presen ts examples of changes in what was written on the 'dangers' of social mixing, familiarity, the use of Christian names and 'social kissing'. These examples indicate an expanding social integration and identifica tion as well as a change in the regimes of power and emotions in the d irection of increasing social constraint towards 'unconstrained self-r estraint'.