Vintage View: The lost etiquette of the visiting card

Kya deLongchamps offers an introduction to the lost etiquette of the visiting card, a crucial grace in high society that could wither the sender. 

Calling was a delicate etiquette in the 18th and 19th centuries, and the calling card its central prop. The upper classes were (and still are), a self-policing club.

The traditions around the making of calls, were a systematic form of exclusion to effectively barricade the hoi polloi from the more intimate reaches and most importantly, the female company of the home.