History of Reading News. Vol.XXI No.2 (1998:Spring)
by Konstantin Dierks

Handwriting in America: A Cultural History, by Tamara Plakins Thornton. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996. Pp. xiv, 248. Illustrations. $30.00.

Tamara Plakins Thornton offers a thoughtful and stimulating cultural study of handwriting in America from the colonial period through the 20th century. Thornton argues that handwriting is worthy of study because it "mattered to people in the past, in ways deeply embedded in their cultures," and above all because it "embodied, regulated, and generated notions of the self" (p. x). Scholars have heretofore devoted their attention primarily to the history of literacy, reading, the book, and print. Thornton resourcefully applies their parallel insights to give handwriting a distinct history. Her book traces changing pedagogies of penmanship across three centuries, as well as the development of handwriting analysis, autograph collecting and other popular fascination with penmanship.

At the heart of Thornton's investigation are shifting cultural assumptions about the relationship between handwriting and selfhood. With the steady ascendancy of print culture beginning in the 18th century, Americans endowed handwriting with greater symbolic meaning. If print was defined as an impersonal medium, a way to conceal the self, then handwriting was increasingly seen as a personal medium, a way to reveal the self, whether willfully or not. Selfhood is the leading motif of Thornton's book, and renders her book useful far beyond its treatment of handwriting. Indeed, given its chronological span and ambitious scope, Thornton's book would profit scholars concerned with American cultural life in either the 18th, 19th, or 20th century. The book is organized chronologically so that scholars committed to a particular time period may mine a stimulating chapter or two, while scholars interested in longer trajectories of cultural change would find the entire book rewarding.

Chapter one covers the colonial period when the ability to write was supposed to reflect one's social position, and style of script was supposed to match one's social identity. The skill of writing was entirely withheld from certain groups like black slaves and non-elite women, for whom it was deemed useless, and was most encouraged for learned or commercial white men, for whom it was deemed essential. Handwriting was compartmentalized into an array of scripts, each one intended to match one's gender and status.

Chapter two covers the Victorian period when writing literacy approached 100% among white Americans. By the 1830s, handwriting was no longer treated as an advanced skill primarily for boys, but became an elementary skill taught at common schools for both sexes, although girls and boys were taught different scripts. Whereas 18th-century pedagogues had concentrated on passive imitation, 19th century pedagogues focused on active control. Men like Platt Rogers Spencer advocated the regimentation of script style, under the assumption that handwriting could only be mas-tered by exerting conscious will. Later in the century, faced with the invention of the typewriter, Austin Palmer advocat-ed the regimentation of arm movement, under the assump-tion that handwriting could only be mastered by developing unconscious habits. Palmer sought to remasculinize the "muscular" skill of writing, even as women usurped the clerical profession from men.

Chapters three through five move away from penmanship pedagogy and toward the development of handwriting analysis, or graphology, which became increasingly popular after the Civil War and into the twentieth century. Earlier in the nineteenth century, graphology had appealed to Romantic literary figures like Edgar Allan Poe who celebrated the unique handwriting of supposed geniuses. In the 1870s, however, handwriting analysis began to appeal to ordinary people seeking to expose tricksters. Rather than measuring one's ability to conform to cultural standards, or to conjure up genius, handwriting became a measure of widespread individuality, of one's true self lurking beneath a deceptive exterior. At the same time, autograph collecting became increasingly popular with the American public, another reflection of rising interest in individuality. By the early 20th century, graphology had become such a fixture in popular culture that Americans could buy cheap paperbacks helping them to appraise prospective romantic partners via handwriting analysis. While American pedagogues continued to emphasize standardized penmanship deemed suitable for an increasingly corporate economy, and necessary for an increasingly pluralistic society, ordinary Americans hungered instead for signs of individuality, whether via handwriting analysis, or autograph collecting, or fancy calligraphy.

Such a broad overview cannot capture the many nuances of evidence and argument found throughout Thornton's book. Minor objections can be raised. Thornton's research strategy provides considerably more insight into the preferences of pedagogues than the choices of ordinary Americans. Indeed, we meet many more authors than ordinary people in the book. Thornton's argument tends toward the instrumentalism characteristic of much new cultural history, where authors of prescriptive and popular literature seem to know precisely what would advance the interests of dominant social groups. For instance, we meet pedagogues who use standardized handwriting to neutralize the urban Catholic poor, but we do not encounter the corollary perspective of such marginal social groups. Thornton's book captures the dominant pedagogical and popular representation of handwriting, rather than its diverse social practice. Ultimately, these theoretical quibbles do not obscure the ambitious scope, the broad-ranging usefulness, and the careful nuance of Thornton's impressive study.

Konstantin Dierks, a graduate student in the Department of History at Brown University, Providence, RI, is completing a dissertation on letter writing in America, 1750-1800.