Etiquette books taught public conduct most intensely when early industrial cities were most confusing.
Evidence
A casual purview of such books from 1881 to 1962 reveals both a concentration on explicit instructions for public behavior during the period when the early industrial city in the United States was at its most confusing, and a gradually decreasing concern with these matters as the modern city came into its own. — Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order and Action in…, 673
Categorization
Category: Causal Relationships
- XREF: Directly parallels the civil-inattention thesis from Lofland’s own book and Simmel’s blasé attitude — explicit urban instruction rises when anonymity peaks, then recedes as norms internalize.
- SEED: Angle: etiquette books as a paper trail for when urban anomie peaked — a quantitative history of social anxiety measurable through advice literature publication.
Related
- Explicit public-behavior instruction peaked when the early industrial city was most confusing (similarity 0.93)
- Etiquette-book instruction waned as the modern city stabilized. (similarity 0.90)
- Etiquette books’ public-space content diminished as the modern city matured (similarity 0.89)
- Books taught conduct to newly urban literate classes (similarity 0.80)