My grandmother was a classy dame. So classy, in fact, that she’d probably disapprove of my calling her a dame. She was a lady.

(When she died, and family gathered together to talk to the rabbi about her life, I remember my mom and aunt saying something like, “She never wore pants. Because ladies didn’t wear pants.” And in that moment my mind positively reeled, as though I was flipping through scene after scene with my grandmother from my childhood to the last time I saw her, and by golly they were right. I’d never realized it in those terms before, but that woman never wore pants. Only skirts. Only ever skirts.)

My grandmother wore hats, though, when it was fashionable to wear hats, and even when styles changed and ladies didn’t wear hats on a daily basis anymore, she kept most of her hats, the daily wear hats as well as those for fancy occasions. True, my grandmother was a skirt-wearing lady who never threw anything out, but I like to think she kept these hats not because she thought they’d come in useful someday — like the jewelry boxes filled with paper clips we kept finding in her desk drawers — but because she thought they might some day become heirlooms. Right now I think she held on to them because she knew someday I would have them, and even though they were meant to be worn, that I’d treasure them as works of art.

Because you guys — look at these hats.

The top one, with the hearts on the veil, is one of my favorites. I think it’s one of the older hats, from the 1940s maybe? And the bottom one intrigues me as well because I’ve never seen anything like it and have no idea when it’s from. All I really have are the labels inside to work from.

So I know that she purchased most of her hats from Field-Schlick, a now defunct department store whose flagship was in downtown St. Paul, on Wabasha and Fifth. I dug a little and found this photo of the Wabasha St. entrance in the Minnesota Historical Society’s online collection:

Although it’s more likely that my grandmother went to the store on S. Cleveland, since it was closer to her house (the house I grew up in).

I also found out that Field-Schlick used to be D. W. Ingersoll & Co. and opened in 1856. By 1896 it had become Field-Schlick, according to an advertisement I found in the St. Paul Globe. (The ad was for a sale on fancy parasols and something called “crash skirts,” but I couldn’t find any information online about what a crash skirt was.)

I do happen to have one of the hatboxes from Field-Schlick:

And one that might interest other native Minnesotans, from Dayton’s. Look at that old logo:

(Oh, Dayton’s. Now you are Macy’s. It’s a little sad.)

More hats:

This one strikes me as a winter hat. The beadwork suggests it was for nice outings like to the theater, but based on what I know of my grandmother I’m more inclined to guess that she wore it on a regular basis, like for shopping or lunch with the girls, or perhaps to normal Friday night services at the synagogue.

This one I can’t picture my grandmother wearing at all, even though it’s her favorite color. The style looks like it would be suited more for a young girl, so my guess would be that this was my mom’s or aunt’s:

I almost didn’t see this one when I was unpacking everything, but it must be part of a bridal veil.

And this one . . . this one simply takes my breath away.

How on earth did hats like this go out of style?

Ever since my grandmother’s hats came into my possession I’ve pondered the best way to display them — well, best and least expensive. I’m wary of simply hanging them as is because some of them are fragile and they’ve been preserved so well through the decades, I don’t want to be the one responsible for their decay. So I think a sort of acrylic box that could be wall mounted would be the way to go, but that’ll take some scratch, and I’m not there yet.

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The Esquire Handbook for Hosts has a list of questions you can ask yourself for self-diagnosis, followed by tips on how to modify your behavior, if necessary. Let us enter the world of delightfully antediluvian heteronormativity!

(click to embiggen)

Ha ha! Look at the illustration of the unattractive woman! Her hair is stringy! Her teeth are buck! She has a big nose and bushy eyebrows! She wears GLASSES! The horror.

#3 — If you are asked to get another girl for a foursome, do you pick one obviously less attractive than you are? You are unwise to do so. Get the most glamorous girl you know, and both men will be pleased.

Ladies! All you are is arm candy. But also! Sixty years later, women are given a different sort of advice all together: that if you want to appear more attractive, hang out with people less attractive than you are. Studies have shown that this works! Science!

So what’s interesting here is the assumption on Esquire’s part that women in general would not want to invite their better-looking friends out on a double date, and encouraging them here and in the next question to be more generous to their female friends, less jealous and prone to acting out scenes from The Women. It’s condescending at best, wholly insulting, and yet — not bad advice, in a stripped-of-context general rule sort of way. Hos before bros.

For obvious reasons, my favorite is #5:

Do men marvel at your capacity for holding liquor?

Yes! They do! I think! I’m usually too tipsy to worry about it!

A great mistake: it gives you a fast reputation and runs into money — the man’s money — besides.

Oh, well, shit.

#8 was read aloud in the company of Stephanie and Kim (who was visiting from Vancouver, and it was so awesome that we had a gorgeous spring day to hang out and have fun):

Do you make things easier for a man by suggesting that he climb into a car first, if he’s driving, or by asking him not to stand up when you come into a room? This is an error — men know that they are supposed to show these signs of consideration to a girl and they respect her more if she takes them as a matter of course.

We all gave Esquire a pass on this one, with not a little bit of grumbling about how feminism should have little to nothing to do with the question of whether opening doors, pulling out chairs, or walking on the outside was acceptable and that focusing the debates on whether this was oppressive patriarchy crap shifted attention away from stuff like equal pay and domestic violence and race/class/sexuality-based inequities and this is all anyone who had even one decent Women’s Studies course already knows.

The walking on the outside part, though, that’s always been my favorite. My grandfather did it. We’d be walking somewhere and I’d notice that he’d switch which side of me he was on when we crossed streets or turned corners, and I finally asked him what he was doing, and he explained. And I thought that it was the sweetest thing ever, that my grandfather was being all chivalrous with me. It made me happy to see it referenced in an episode of Flight of the Conchords (the first one, right? I think).

All other things aside, I have to give Esquire’s Handbook for Hosts credit for adhering to the idea that a man should always strive to be a gentleman. There is a section of this book dedicated to the question of asking a woman up to your place “to look at your etchings.” (That is an actual quote. They actually say that. I think they’re being tongue-in-cheek.) Manners above all, appears to be Esquire’s main point. And different women require different approaches and other rules of conduct. To be sure, this whole section reeks of sexism, classism, elitism, entitlement, throwing down a number of eyebrow-raising assumptions about the breadth of sexual experience a “modern-day business woman” might have. It’s very Mad Men Season 1-ish.

It is intended as no reflection upon the business woman that she may be treated somewhat less conventionally than, say, a sub-debutante; rather it is a compliment. No modern woman in her right mind and past the age of consent wishes to preserve the ancient fiction of her fragility in the face of a practical world.

Let’s get this out of the way, since most of you are going to focus immediately on this:

10 — Do you knit when you are having a cozy, fireside evening with a man? For some reason, men hate to see a woman doing anything with her hands when talking to her. Undivided attention is best.

Ha ha ha! But here’s something: I’ve only just started knitting while watching a movie with Dan, and I remember asking if it would bother him first. Because yeah, I don’t want him to think that I’m not valuing our time together. Manners are important for the ladies, too.

Finally:

16–Do you save yourself wear and tear by not troubling to entertain men bores? A grave mistake. Bores have their uses since a clever girl can practice her conversation on them, with nothing much to lose. Besides, they often have attractive friends.

Men! The worst thing you can be is boring! But ladies won’t let on that they think so because they need you for practice. And for your cute friends. Esquire does not care about the men bores of the world — they get what they deserve for being so godawful boring. And apparently Esquire believes that even the bores of the male species are superior to the “clever” girls, when I would say that a clever anyone would be able to talk circles around a bore and thus not get much value out of her practice. But maybe I’m reading that wrong. (BTW, I think we should bring back the term “men bores.”)

Don’t miss the con at the bottom of the page. There are several of these throughout the book, all ways to trick rubes into paying for your drinks. This book. So useful.

Thursday: How Attractive are You to Women? (The answers may surprise you!)

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You guys.

On the right, one of my new plants, as yet unnamed. (I name my plants. What?)

On the left, the greatest book ever.

It’s Esquire’s Handbook for Hosts, published in 1949.

Dan found it while cleaning his apartment. He says it belonged to his grandfather, and Dan took it a long time ago, thinking to sell it on eBay or something, but finding it again after all those I’m guessing years he realized that this book had ME written all over it.

And not counting the GLORIOUS sexism and shocking-even-for-its-time racism, it does. It really really does.

It is a classic old-school how-to book for men, with recipes for food and cocktails (so. many. cocktails), techniques and tips on etiquette, rules for card games, party quizzes, and 365 excuses for throwing a party.

Interspersed are these cartoons, many of which fall into that New Yorker-esque “why is this funny?” category, most of which have something to do with people being falling-down drunk.

(click to make big)

The cocktails section is by far the largest, including a list of pre-dinner drinks segregated by gender. (The “Something for the girls” section didn’t scan properly for some reason, but I’ll try again tomorrow.) I am intrigued by many of these whiskey-based drinks; the “Harrity” on the right hand side is something I could mix up right now, though the idea of mixing gin and whiskey in one drink doesn’t quite sit right with me (then again, the genever I brought back from Amsterdam bears a striking resemblance to whiskey, so maybe I just need the right gin). Please also note how many of these boy drinks require raspberry syrup.

There’s also this:

The Sweet Martini is for Ladies Only.

BTW, “Tom gin” is also known as “Old Tom,” a sweetened gin similar to genever, used in a number of cocktails dating back to the 19th century. You can see pictures of Old Tom bottles here. It’s starting to make a comeback, I am sure thanks to the cocktail renaissance — check out what The Liquid Muse has to say. I see a Night of the Martinez gathering in my near future.

But first, I want to spend more time with this book, and put it to practical use. For every eye roll-inducing passage on the superiority of men in the kitchen:

“A bride takes up cooking because she must, whether she’s an eat-to-live gal or just medium-bored with the whole idea. But a man takes to the stove because he is interested in cooking, therefore he has long been interested in eating and therefore he starts six lengths in front of the average female.”

There is an equally delightful recipe or rule of etiquette. Tomato canapes! Champagne punch! Olde Time hangover cures! (Esquire recommends drinking warm water instead of ice water.)

There’s more, so much more, that I will have to save for another time. For now, I’m mighty attracted to the idea of holding Esquire-themed cocktail parties, especially given the “365 Excuses for a Party” list. Today is Old Lady Day? Everybody drink! May 23 is the anniversary of the opening of the New York Public Library, which seems a perfectly valid reason to throw a party. And on September 25th, we will toast to the anniversary of the assembly of the Telephone Pioneers of America!

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