Handwriting is serious business. Think of all of the time spent in school first learning to print the alphabet and later moving on to cursive writing. Did your teacher first write the letters on the chalkboard? Did you have workbooks for developing your handwriting skills? Do you remember hours spent practicing the stokes and forms of the letters in cursive script? Did you eventually have your own black and white hard-covered lined copybook?
If you were in school the mid-19th century, you likely would have used the “Payson, Dunton & Scribner’s National System of Penmanship.” This series of 12 workbooks was designed to teach the fundamentals of cursive writing in the Spencerian style. The perfectly slanted shapes of the letters were considered decorative yet easy to read. There were numerous revised and improved editions of the workbooks. A single workbook, number 6, from the 1870 publication, found its way to Meekins. In this booklet someone has carefully copied, among others, the axiom: “Never sign a writing without reading it” numerous times to perfect their stroke.
By 1890, the Spencerian cursive would be replaced by the simpler Palmer form of script, developed at the same time as the typewriter. It remained the standard form of cursive writing taught in schools for decades.
Why this single workbook survived is a mystery. There is no name in the volume. And these were seen as tools for learning and meant to be discarded when used up, so few have survived. Do you still have early examples of learning to write? Daria D’Arienzo, Meekins Archivist. #throwbackthursday; #tbt.
Posted to Facebook 10/20/2022
