A History of Penmanship

Penmanship has existed in one form or another for thousands of years, so forgive me if this is a very brief overview!  Do note that this, like the project, is focusing very specifically on Western Europe and the United States.

 While people who could write have been writing since about the invention of writing (for our purposes, we have extant letters of everyday people from the very beginning of our timeline), handwriting did not become an "accomplishment" as such until the late 17th century with the standardization of non-Gothic fonts for copperplate engraving.  Before that, it was mostly for professional document calligraphers who created the illuminated Gothic scripts with which most of us are familiar.

Psalter in Gothic calligraphy and illumination, c. 1400-1424.

One of the Paston Letters, c. 1467, displaying the typical handwriting style of the period.  While calligraphy remained Gothic in style, this was the script used for most everyday (and later, even most formal) documents until the widespread influence of the invention of copperplate engraving.

While penmanship as a profession was mainly male until a few exceptions, mainly in 19th and 20th century America, and handwriting was not taught in schools until the late 19th/early 20th century, penmanship as a skill was taught at home to every lady worth her salt from the very beginning of copybooks circulating in England.  Ladies were expected to keep diaries, keep up correspondence, and often make their own calling cards.  In a period when letters were treated almost like currency (ladies would often, upon receipt of a letter, read it, black out personal or intimate parts, and trade them with acquaintances for news as we might use magazines), your handwriting was just as much a statement of your character as what you wore.  Because of this, handwriting was a part of every well-bred child's education from a very young age.

Sign written by an eight year old child, c. 1840.

I had the pleasure to be given a couple reproduction penmanship manuals when I was at Victorian ladies' finishing school four years ago,  and manuals like these abounded, not just to do with what to write in letters, but how to write:

Very generally speaking, 18th century handwriting styles are called round-hand or Copperplate, and from the about the second quarter of the 19th century handwriting becomes what is known as the Spencerian style, which leads into Ornamental Handwriting.

IAMPETH (the International Associatio of Master Penmen, Engrossers, and Teachers of Handwriting) has an excellent video presented by Dr. Joseph Vitolo on the "Golden Age" of Handwriting, which will be my main focus with this project.  This focuses on American handwriting, but round-hand is brought to the States from England, and Spencerian doesn't take very long to go the other way.

Enjoy!