cover image Handwriting in America: A Cultural History

Handwriting in America: A Cultural History

Tamara Plakins Thornton. Yale University Press, $48 (264pp) ISBN 978-0-300-06477-3

This elegant study again proves that, in the right hands, a narrow topic is an excellent window into broad issues of social structure, education and popular culture. Historian Thornton (Cultivating Gentlemen) not only packs plenty of Americana into her history of handwriting but also relates trends in this country to European developments. In pre-revolutionary America, writing was an important skill for the elite: learned people knew five to eight handwriting styles, and hand-copied publications allowed antigovernment materials and pornography to escape censorship. The Victorian era saw penmanship classes conducted like military drills, the cult of autograph collecting and the rise of writing skills among women (""fair Scribblerinas,"" said one male scoffer). Idiosyncrasies in handwriting came to be seen not as deplorable but as a mark of individual uniqueness; people hired experts to analyze the handwriting of prospective employees, business partners and spouses; and a contest for the handwriting revealing the ""most interesting personality"" drew 300,000 entries. Crossing into the 20th century, we see the struggle of graphology to attain scientific respectability, the rise and fall of the Palmer instructional method and the recent revival of calligraphy as an art form. Thornton's high-quality scholarship will satisfy exacting academic audiences, and her graceful prose will charm and entertain the general reader. Illustrations. (Jan.)