Woman Crush Wednesday: Emily Post in Greenwich Village
Emily Post, one of America’s most influential figures in the field of etiquette, lived a life that combined a deep understanding of social protocol with the pulse of New York City’s energetic, ever-changing culture. Though most famous for her book Etiquette in Society, in Business, in Politics, and at Home (1922), her personal life and experiences — particularly during her time living in Greenwich Village — revealed a complex, multi-dimensional woman who balanced the traditional with the modern.
Emily Post was born into the well-established, socially prominent Price family in Baltimore, Maryland, on October 27, 1872, and educated at home in Baltimore and New York. At the age of 8, her family moved to Greenwich Village, where they resided at 12 West 10th Street.
Her father was Bruce Price, the architect behind Pierre Lorillard’s development, Tuxedo Park. This first-of-its-kind exclusive community development outside New York City eventually became known as the birthplace of that eternally fashionable garment, the Tuxedo. Price also planned the American Surety Building on the corner of Wall Street and Pine in lower Manhattan, at the time the tallest building in America and an early example of the steel framing and curtain wall construction that paved the way for the modern skyscraper. He is perhaps best known as the architect of a series of Chateauesque railroad stations and grand hotels for the Canadian railway, and his signature project, the Chateau Frontenac, which defines the skyline of Quebec City to this day.
While Bruce Price designed the buildings, his wife Josephine, née Lee, the daughter of Wilkes-Barre coal baron Washington Lee and, by all accounts, a practical businesswoman, ran the enterprise. By the end of Bruce’s career, with Josephine as his partner, Price had built a summer palace for the Emperor of Japan and the Georgian Court in New Jersey for George Jay Gould. Bruce Price was also a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects (1890) and belonged to the Architectural League of New York.
While Emily Price Post’s life began in the rather conventional manner of a young woman in New York’s high society, she ultimately defied the traditional expectations of that set. The season of her debut, Emily Price met Edwin Post, her husband-to-be, at a ball in one of Fifth Avenue’s elegant mansions. Following a fashionable wedding and a honeymoon tour of Europe, Mrs. Post’s first home with her new husband was near Washington Square. When her two sons were old enough to attend boarding school, she turned her attention to her passion: writing. Her romantic stories of European and American society were serialized in several popular magazines, and many were successfully published in book form.
Around the time her first novel, The Flight of the Moth (1904), was published, Emily’s marriage began to falter and she found herself in the middle of a scandalous divorce, its humiliating details splashed across the front pages of New York newspapers for months. Traumatic though it was, the end of her marriage in 1905 forced Post to become her own person, and she turned her passion for writing into a profession. She would spend the next fifteen years as a published and prolific writer. She became a “traveling correspondent,” crossing the United States by car and touring Europe on the eve of World War I. Her stories were published in Vanity Fair, Collier’s, and McCall’s. In the process, she also became part of a burgeoning cultural transformation in New York City.
Greenwich Village during the early 20th century had become known for its embrace of artistic freedom and progressive ideas, and a bohemian haven. Post was somewhat of an anomaly within this crowd. While the Village was often associated with avant-garde art, free love, and defiance of societal norms, Post was rooted in more traditional values. Yet, she was not out of place in the Village. Her strong connection to the arts and literature brought her into proximity with some of the most notable figures of the time. Writers and artists frequented the neighborhood, and the post-Victorian, socially conscious Post was able to engage with a world that was increasingly interested in redefining what constituted proper behavior.
In 1922, Post wrote her most famous work, Etiquette, a comprehensive guide that not only offered advice on proper behavior for individuals and families, but also captured the essence of early 20th-century American society. While it may seem paradoxical that someone with Post’s focus on manners and decorum lived in the Village — an area known for its intellectual and cultural rebellion — the book’s publication in 1922 coincided with a time when society itself was undergoing significant change. The rise of the flapper, the shift toward more casual lifestyles, and the opening up of social spheres were all elements that Post had to reckon with while maintaining her steadfast belief in the importance of manners.
At her Greenwich Village home, Post would have witnessed the burgeoning of the Jazz Age, the early feminist movement, and the redefinition of what it meant to be a modern woman. The world she inhabited was one of tension between established social rules and the desire for personal freedom — something reflected in the nuanced way Post balanced tradition with the evolving social landscape.
Emily Post’s life in Greenwich Village is a reminder of the personal and cultural intersections that influenced her work and legacy. Though she would go on to achieve international fame and her name would become synonymous with proper etiquette, her Greenwich Village years reveal the complexity behind the polished image she later projected.
Her life in the Village was not just about writing a book on etiquette; it was about engaging with the world and observing the social changes of her time. Whether in her Village home, surrounded by her books and thoughts on civility, or in her public life as a consultant to high society, Post’s voice was always rooted in a belief that manners were a way to bring harmony to a rapidly changing world.
