Personal Comportment

April 15

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , , ,

What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?

New-Hampshire Gazette (April 15, 1774).

“Taught in such a Manner as to add Grace and Beauty to the Deportment of either Sex.”

Monsieur Viart once again took to the pages of the New-Hampshire Gazette in the spring of 1774, announcing that he “opened his Accademy for dancing last Monday at the Assembly Room” in Portsmouth.  Viart had previously advertised in that newspaper in the summer of 1772 and as spring approached in 1773, but by the end of the summer he was running notices in the Pennsylvania Journal.  Perhaps he had experienced too much competition with Edward Hackett and decided that he might have better prospects in Philadelphia, the largest and most genteel city in British North America.  Whatever his motivation, Viart’s time in the Quaker City did not last long.  That city had plenty of dancing masters and French tutors, a factor that may have influenced Viart’s decision to return to a place where he had cultivated a reputation among prospective students.

His presence in Portsmouth suggests a market for his services even in smaller towns, not just the largest urban ports like Boston, Charleston, New York, and Philadelphia.  Viart described himself as a “Professor of the polite Arts,” signaling that his instruction aided students in maintaining or improving their status as they strove to display their gentility to others.  He provided dancing lessons to “Ladies and Gentlemen who have not perfected themselves in that agreeable Accomplishment,” promising that he taught “in such a Manner as to add Grace and Beauty to the Deportment of either Sex, in the Genteelest Characters in Life.”  In addition to dancing, Viart “teaches the French Language in the easiest Method.”  He reassured even the most anxious prospective students, those “Scholars of the least Aptitude,” that in just six months they “may be sufficiently acquainted with the Rudiments of the Language” that they would “pronounce and write it with Delicacy and Propriety.”  Viart’s advertisements in the New-Hampshire Gazette demonstrate that just as the consumer revolution reached far beyond major port cities and into smaller towns and even the countryside, so too did concerns with refinement of character and comportment.  As colonizers acquired more goods and associated meaning with them, they also recognized that dancing well and speaking French testified to their gentility and validated their choices to wear fine clothing and purchase fashionable housewares.  As a “Professor of the polite Arts,” Viart marketed skills that helped his students complete the picture of their “Genteelest Characters.”

September 2

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?

Sep 2 - 9:2:1766 South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal
South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (September 2, 1766).

“DANCING and FENCING.”

Elite and middling colonists consider personal comportment an important aspect of demonstrating their gentility to anyone who happened to observe them, most especially their peers. Comportment consisted of practicing proper manners, dressing appropriately and according to current fashions, and engaging in social rituals (such as drinking tea or dancing) with ease. Much of this could be learned through informal instruction within the household or carefully watching and then putting into practice the comportment of others, especially those generally acknowledged for combining good character and grace. Other aspects could be learned through reading newspapers and magazines and, increasingly throughout the eighteenth century, various sorts of instructional manuals or guides to good etiquette.

A few aspects of genteel comportment, however, required (or at least greatly benefited from) formal instruction by experts. Such was the case with dancing and fencing, two endeavors taught by Mr. Pike in Charleston, South Carolina, for nearly a decade in the late 1760s and early 1770s before he took up residence in Philadelphia and advertised his services there. (In advertisements that appeared in both cities, he was known only as “Mr. Pike,” the absence of a first name perhaps lending authority and cachet to the dancing master.)

Pike announced that his dancing school would open “for the ensuing Season” within the next couple of days. He encouraged all sorts of “scholars” (many of them presumably women and youth of both sexes) to attend his daytime lessons, but he also offered evening lessons for “grown Gentlemen” who needed to brush up on their skills or learn the steps that had most recently come into fashion. At a separate time, early mornings, he also taught “the Use of the SMALL-SWORD.” Fencing certainly would have been a pastime adopted by the select few with sufficient leisure times to pursue it.

Pike concluded his advertisement by announcing that the “BALL for his young Ladies and Gentlemen, will be the second Week in December.” In so doing, he encouraged potential students to envision their dancing abilities – and their ability to make an impression on others – after taking his lessons. Hosting a ball also had the potential to be good for business, putting Pike’s students on display and demonstrating the quality of his instruction. Like any other sort of recital, it also implicitly incorporated elements of competition that might prompt clients to continue to engage his services.