The history of tipping and why it exists

Every time you sign the bill and hesitate over how much to tip, you take part in a custom with centuries of history and more controversy than you might imagine. Tipping did not always exist, was not always seen well, and the reason it is practically mandatory in some countries today has roots few people know. It is worth understanding, especially if you run a business where tips are part of the picture.

From feudal lords to English houses

Tipping was born in medieval Europe, when wealthy lords gave extra money to people of lower classes for their services. The custom took shape in Tudor England: by the seventeenth century, guests staying in well-to-do homes left a few coins for the servants when they departed. That gratuity was called a vail, and from there it jumped to the coffeehouses and inns of London.

From the very start, then, tipping carried a class mark: it was the gesture of the haves toward those who serve, a small display of power as much as of gratitude.

How it crossed the ocean and stayed

Curiously, the United States adopted tipping relatively late. In the 1850s and 1860s, wealthy Americans traveling to Europe saw the custom and brought it back to feel refined, imitating the aristocracy of the old continent. The irony is enormous: just as Americans began tipping to seem European, in Europe the custom was beginning to fall out of use.

The uncomfortable chapter

Here the story gets hard. After the abolition of slavery, many American businesses hired newly freed people but, instead of paying them a wage, expected them to live solely on customers' tips. Some historians point out that this model of paying nothing and letting the customer cover the wage carries that legacy. Tipping, which in Europe had been an extra, in the United States became, for many people, the entire paycheck.

The relation of a man giving a tip and a man accepting it is as undemocratic as the relation of master and slave. — William Scott, The Itching Palm, 1916

The movement that tried to ban it

Not everyone accepted tipping without a fight. In the early twentieth century, a strong movement arose that considered it undemocratic and contrary to the country's values of equality. The journalist William Scott published an entire book against it in 1916, The Itching Palm. Six states even passed laws to ban tipping, beginning with Washington in 1909. But the laws were nearly impossible to enforce, and by 1926 all of them had been repealed.

• Tipping was born in medieval Europe and was formalized in Tudor England.
• The United States imported it in the 1850s and 1860s to imitate the aristocracy.
• After slavery, it was used to avoid paying wages to newly freed workers.
• Six states tried to ban it between 1909 and the 1920s, without success.
• In 1966, a federal law allowed paying tipped workers less than minimum wage.

Why it still exists

Tipping stuck around because it suited employers. In 1966, an amendment to U.S. federal labor law created the so-called tip credit: it allowed employers to pay tipped workers less than the minimum wage, assuming tips would make up the difference. Since 1991, that minimum cash wage for tipped workers has been frozen at $2.13 an hour at the federal level. That is why, across much of the United States, a tip is not an optional gesture: it is literally part of the paycheck of the person serving you.

Takeaway

Tipping began as an aristocratic European gesture, crossed the ocean out of pure snobbery, and took root in the United States for reasons we find uncomfortable today. Knowing its history will not tell you how much to leave, but it does explain why the custom carries so much weight. The next time you hesitate over the bill, remember that behind those coins lie centuries of class, debate, and laws that still shape how much the person who served you earns.

Sources

• Wikipedia: Gratuity — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gratuity
• TIME — https://time.com/5404475/history-tipping-american-restaurants-civil-war/
• Mental Floss — https://www.mentalfloss.com/history/tipping-culture-origins
• U.S. Department of Labor (Tipped Employees, FLSA) — https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/15-tipped-employees-flsa