How did people flirt in the nineteenth century?
Before you hooked up with your valentine at the Noordermarkt on Saturday afternoon or wandered the grounds of Lowlands, well-to-do Amsterdammers strolled flirtatiously along the Keizersgracht and through the Vondelpark. “Every sidelong glance is a plea for attention.”
A saunter step, a playful glance aside at that handsome guy and then a seductive conversation; the Keizersgracht around noon was the place to score a partner in 1844. “Thou seest by her mischievous glances, that they stroll there to make themselves admired,” observes a character in Physiologie van Amsterdam (Physiology of Amsterdam).
An unknown author’s nineteenth-century book Physiologie van Amsterdam, about the city during that period, devotes a chapter to the “Pantoffelparade” (slipper parade). That parade on expensive slipper shoes - the name of a hip mule - was basically a stroll of wealthy Amsterdam men and women down the Keizersgracht to hook up with a good party. To “by that ogling and lagging win the hearts of you and me.”
Meddling mothers
On the expensive Keizersgracht, the widest and quietest canal in nineteenth-century Amsterdam, “a crowd” could be found on Sundays. If a woman there had become a mischievous glance at a passer-by, the eager single men were there like chickens. “The young dandies were bold enough to engage in sweet discourse with the adored.” They had to take into account the stern mothers of the ladies: “The stately mothers would from time to time let a sideways glance go, closely keeping an eye on what was being traded between the youngsters.”
As Amsterdam’s elite, you then had to walk on the right side: “The side of the canal; we now walk on the side of the houses, and that looks very common.” After all, the houseside was meant for the working class: to study the chic Amsterdammers.
Some contemporaries, however, abhorred that seeing and being seen, argued former UvA history student Rebel Rijper in 2020. Rijper notices in her master’s thesis on nineteenth-century strolling culture in Amsterdam that contemporary sources ‘mocked’ the parade. A Deltefenaar from the nineteenth century states: “The slipper parade is a display of worldly vanity, an exhibition of everything that outwardly glitters and shimmers. Silk and satin, velvet and lace, gold and jewels, flowers and feathers, real wavy locks and imitation ditties, ribbons and bows - here you see them displayed, as in a market.”
Decorating in Vondelpark
The slipper parade moved away from the busy canal in the late nineteenth century as a beautiful new park was built: from 1865, people flitted about in the Vondelpark. UvA historian Laura van Hasselt wrote a book about founder of the brand new park, the wealthy Amsterdammer Christiaan Piet van Eeghen. “Every somewhat chic city, like Paris, London, but also The Hague had a city park.” And so in 1864, a peat bog was purchased by Van Eeghen and co. That became a park to be accessible to every Amsterdammer.
“Walking in a park is a lot more fun than walking along the same canal every Sunday,” according to Van Hasselt Amsterdam’s elite must also have thought. “Only later did ordinary Amsterdammers cautiously dare to enter the park too.” They saw Amsterdam’s neat rich not just walking around there, but mostly moving around via carriage. “So you could be admired by outsiders, in your carriage, just on foot or often on your own horse.”
Imperceptible elbow touches
Being seen thus remained the foundation of Amsterdam’s promenade. “You only stepped out when you saw a known and interesting person,” Van Hasselt argues. Then you could certainly hit on each other, but with the many other booths in the park, people did not flirt. “If someone did not have the right dress or coat, you would at most look, but definitely not talk.”
Such a flirtation will not have involved many compliments or innuendos, Van Hasselt suspects. There were secret codes for wooing someone, though. “How you waved a fan, for example, said something about your secret interest in the man.”
Rijper also calls the codes “very sophisticated” in her thesis. A source she cites describes: “Every bow of the body, every sideways glance, every almost imperceptible elbow touch, every cough and ‘Hm! Hm!’ Is a telegraphic signal of secret, previously discussed allusion or a plea for attention.”
Although founder Van Eeghen will not have foreseen the park as also a place to hooking up, according to Van Hasselt, the wealthy Amsterdammer was proud of the park. However, he did not flirt on the boulevards himself; one found a partner within one’s own circles. “The really rich actually all went to their country houses in the summer.”
