Details

Behaviour guides as political media?

What is the right way to dress for particular occasions? What equipment do I need when travelling? How do I appropriately welcome my counterpart? Answers to these and many other questions can be found in "etiquette books", which were particularly popular in the decades around 1900. These behaviour guides have been the subject of sociology, ethnology and literary research since the 1970s, but thus far the political dimension has been ignored. PD Dr. Marc von Knorring, lecturer under the Chair of Modern and Contemporary History, is now undertaking a three-year research project examining the extent to which etiquette books make statements on political matters.

Etiquette books were a mass phenomenon in the decades around 1900. Old and young, male and female, upper and lower classes, all used them to confirm the right way of behaving in society, promising social security and recognition and in some cases even upward mobility. Guide authors paid close attention to their readers' needs and designed their publications accordingly.

"The role of etiquette books in developing social behavioural norms, classes and gender roles has been the subject of intensive research since around 1970, in particular in the fields of sociology, ethnology and literary studies. However, the political dimension of the etiquette literature genre has thus far been ignored", project director PD Dr. von Knorring explains. His preliminary studies took this new direction, suggesting that etiquette books had another function in their respective countries: they adapted the approaches and attitudes of political sub-cultures, and thus served as media for self-affirmation and differentiation from other groups, whether in terms of solely ideological matters, party orientations or denominational backgrounds.

For the first time, this hypothesis will now be compared and reviewed on an international level and from a long-term perspective using a large quantity of etiquette books. Work will focus on Germany, France and the UK, which led the field of etiquette literature around 1900. As well as fundamentally determining the characteristics and importance of the genre, this DFG-funded project combining social and media history will also contribute to two very new, emerging fields of historical research: the relationship between the media and political subcultures, and the development and function of mass media in general. In addition to analysing 270 etiquette books, research will also be conducted in publishers' archives to determine publishers' and authors' intentions and above all reception by the books' target audiences.

Specific areas of research will include:

• How far etiquette books made statements on political matters in the broader sense, and could become guides for their readers
• How the works were received by target audiences and reviewers
• How authors and publishers reacted to feedback and changes to their clientele
• If etiquette literature was more important for some political subcultures than others, or of differing levels of importance in the countries examined
• What the reasons for this differing importance might be

The results of this three-year-long project will be recorded and published in a fundamental study.

Principal Investigator(s) at the University	PD Dr. Marc von Knorring (Lehrstuhl für Neuere und Neueste Geschichte)
Project period	01.04.2019 - 31.03.2022
Source of funding	DFG - Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft > DFG - Sachbeihilfe
Projektnummer	KN 1297/2-1 AOBJ: 650896