Convention

This quote is from Good Manners in A Nut Shell by Sally (Hines) Bradbeary, published date: 1941,

Q: Would a person be considered impolite to refuse to conform with conventions in whatever place or country he is visiting or living?

A: Yes! There is nobody more displeasing than a person who is obstinate in his conduct and not willing to change his ways just because the conventions of a community are not the practices he has been used to. One is always conspicuous who appears indifferent toward observing local customs, and his friends are ashamed of him. Convention has to do with a situation like the following: In Mexico when the women attend church at the old cathedrals, they always have their heads covered; but numbers of foreign women wander through the chapels and the churches hatless. This is thoughtless, of course, but certainly shows lack of respect for the natives and their religion.

….Observing conventions and rules of etiquette makes one a pleasant and polite person.

The author clearly shows the contemporary practice of Hat=Covering. The Mexican ladies probably wore lace mantillas or some other fabric covering, like their shawls pulled up over their heads. (Or perhaps, the higher class ladies wore hats, too?)

Another cultural aspect of the quote is pointing out the dichotomy tourists make between destination and actual place where people live. If the same foreign women had gone to church in the U.S. or Europe, they would most likely have worn their hats. An old cathedral in Mexico is a destination, a stop along the tour, not a sacred place where real people worship God.

Random Quotes From History

Part of my work involves scanning the yearbooks for the university to be made available online through the library catalog. Right now I’m on 1923, having started at 1914. Talk about a boat load of work! Each page must be scanned, cropped, resized, and then the whole lot plopped into a PDF. I make the work less monotonous by reading the little quotes or captions by the photos.

Here are a few, from 1922:

“In olden days people thought  a poet frail, unfit for strife, but now they write, both day and night, in every walk of life.”

“There are women who do not powder, do not paint their faces red, there are women who do not gossip, but these women are all dead!”

We don’t want to buy your dry goods,  We don’t like you anymore; You’ll be sorry when you see us going to some other store. You can’t sell us any sweaters, Four-in-hands, or any fads, We don’t want to trade in your store, if you don’t give us your “ads”.  [Preface to the advertisements in the back]