Digital Resources: The “Carreño Memories: Manners, Society, History” Project

Across the Spanish-speaking world, the term “Carreño” has become a cultural shorthand for good manners and refined behavior, used to frame television chat show discussions about courtesy and admonish alleged etiquette infractions. The “Carreño” in question was Venezuelan Manuel Antonio Carreño (1813–1874) who published a conduct and etiquette guide, El manual de urbanidad y buenas maneras, in 1853. This text became an almost instant bestseller across the Spanish-speaking world and a publishing phenomenon that has remained in print, in original and updated versions, into the 21st century. Patience Schell has taught the Manual de urbanidad, finding that students engage more readily with issues like hierarchies, urbanization, and citizenship in Latin American when allowed to discuss sneezing, teeth brushing, the rudeness of snoring, and why men should always wear ties at home. Lively classroom discussions, prompted by the Manual, made Schell think that the text could be converted into a game. That idea became the seed of the “Carreño Memories: Manners, Society, History” website, based on Schell’s database of the many editions, reprints and adaptations of Carreño’s Manual. The bilingual site includes information on the text’s history, an interactive globe and timeline both displaying information about the texts, as well as a contribution page so that visitors can archive their own interactions with Carreño’s books and thus preserve this important aspect of the Manual’s history.