Historical Handwriting Archive And Commentary

April 1, 2015

This is a thread in which I'm going to post many pictures of historical handwriting examples and attempt to explain elements of the writing. In the past few years I have studied hundreds of writing samples, and just want to share some styles of writing that I think might be something worth talking about. In almost all cases the examples will be from the 1950's or before. The majority of examples will be coming from the internet and I will cite where I am getting the examples from. Please feel free to post any cool writing examples that you have or find on the web.

Edited April 1, 2015 by SuperNib44

April 1, 2015

These first two examples come from family letters. This page was written by my relative stationed in France during WWI. I really like the backwards slant, he was left handed. He crosses his "t's" in an interesting way for short words- by looping around from the word's finishing stroke He has a nice even letter size and words remain legible without being too consistent on his letter forms. To me this is a very good example of handwriting in the 1910's.

Edited April 1, 2015 by SuperNib44

April 1, 2015

This letter was written to a relative of mine in around 1920. In person the bright blue ink is still very striking. This letter was likely written with a dip pen because of the amount of line variation in some words. On the envelop the address is written with a huge amount of line variation. He uses a nice upright style and crosses his "t's" at the end of words at a slant opposite to "t's" in the middle of the word. Very legible although the capital R in "remember" (near the bottom of the page) is very close to his lowercase "k" in the signature. Also the "e" in "Emma" in line 4 is hard to distinguish. A very unique and professional looking style overall.

April 1, 2015

It'd be cool if you could scan at a higher resolution.

April 1, 2015

Web. 1 Apr. 2015. .http://media.liveauctiongroup.net/i/8165/9617075_1.jpg?v=8CCE2C67A532A70

This writing sample is from Hemingway. To me this style looks very masculine- with the upright letters but downwards slant and the "t's" crossing so high up on the stems. Not as legible as the previous 2 examples (I had to look twice to be sure it was in English ), this style would probably leave the reader guessing on some words, which can be part of the fun. The thick descenders stop abruptly without looping around and the smears at the bottom going right to left makes it look like the letter was hurriedly written.

Edited April 1, 2015 by SuperNib44

April 1, 2015

It'd be cool if you could scan at a higher resolution.

Those will be the only 2 scans I think, the quality looks better on the photo viewer on my computer, I'm not sure why they are fuzzy here.

April 1, 2015

Web. 1 Apr 2015. http://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/blogs/the_vault/2014/03/12/TwainLetterFinal1.jpg.CROP.original-original.jpg

Mark Twain wrote a lot throughout his life- at one point more averaging 2,000 words a day on his manuscripts. Before being solidified as one of the most famous authors in the world his handwriting was more deliberate and measured. This letter was written when his handwriting was kind of between stages. There is still many of the Spencerian element of his 1860's handwriting but it is becoming more spread out and a little more illegible. Look at his "y" in "properly" it is almost just a squigle! I like his backwards "g's" though. A few decades after this Twain uses a much thicker nibbed pen and develops a rushed style.

Edited April 1, 2015 by SuperNib44

April 1, 2015

http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/files/2011/06/civilwarscreenshot.jpg

A Civil War example. It is interesting to me that the long "s" is still being used here (Miss. on the heading) . Pretty average, hurried writing I think. There's a nice start to the first "W" and a funny looking ampersand (&) at the end of the first line. He uses dashes instead of commas, something I like and frequently use in my writing. The third to last line the "a in "I took a ride looks a little caterwumpy and the "r" in ride almost looks like an "s".

May 9, 2015

Interesting thread. Will you be posting more?

Since you encouraged other contributors, here's a sample of Thomas Hardy's handwriting, from a manuscript of a poem that was published in 1912 (source: http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/british/brit-6.html#obj27).

http://i.imgur.com/Y1pFQmy.jpg

It's briskly written with a slight forward slant, but legible and neat. Several words are linked together in the writer's haste and the cross strokes of the lower case "t"s sometimes miss their mark or disappear altogether, making Hardy's "the"s look a little underdeveloped. I like the simple elegance of his backward-curling "d"s which end on an upstroke and are rarely linked to the next letter.

May 18, 2015

Very nice quickly written piece. Written with iron gall ink and without using much flex, this writing was the norm mid-nineteenth century. If you notice the majuscule "L" is written much like a capital "S" as was common in before the Palmer Method came around. Many of the letterforms remaining from the copperplate era while having the rapidity and ease of monoline Spencerian (notice the lack of flex). A great everyday writing that would still be a great hand to learn.

Edited May 18, 2015 by SuperNib44