Why Americans Started Tipping in the First Place — And Why People Hated It

Tipping in America began as an imported European custom and later became closely connected to service-worker pay. More than a century later, Americans are still debating who should ultimately pay workers. (Pexels).

Tipping in America can feel so deeply embedded in everyday life that it is easy to assume Americans have always done it. In reality, tipping arrived from Europe, faced fierce resistance, and eventually became tangled with the way American service workers were paid. Americans once denounced gratuities as classist, undemocratic, and fundamentally at odds with the idea that workers deserved straightforward wages.

More than a century later, customers are again questioning why they are increasingly expected to help cover workers’ compensation directly. Understanding how tipping in America developed helps explain why the argument over that little line on the receipt has never really disappeared.