The Emily Post Institute created by Emily in 1946 and run today by third generation family members, serves as a "civility barometer" for American society and continues Emily's work. That work has grown to address the societal concerns of the 21st century including business etiquette, raising polite children and civility in America.

---

is more than just a look at mid-19th-century rules of etiquette. Leslie covers the wide range of daily life: four pages are devoted to selecting an umbrella (green silk ones weren't colorfast); she includes instructions for making a good black ink; and bed-making gets half a page. It's a chatty book, full of anecdotes (George Washington telling a tall tale to a credulous traveler) and one-paragraph essays on subjects like having a bedroom window open and how to refer to black servants. It's also a wealth of anecdotal information about Leslie's native Philadelphia, including a child's rhyme listing its principal streets. The two chapters on how to treat writers and how to become a writer probably answered questions Leslie had heard over and over.

---

Gothic Charm School When the Lady of the Manners discovered the existence of the whole Gothic subculture, she clapped her hands with glee and fell upon it like a babybat upon a box of Count Chocula cereal. Eventually the Lady of the Manners came to realize that excellent clothes were not, contrary to popular opinion, a substitute for excellent manners, and that being a Black-Clad-Freak didn’t have to mean being depressed and snarly.

---