Sometimes modest subjects resound loudly with psychological, moral, and cultural overtones. Judging from the response to prior posts, such is the case with the history of handwriting.

So first, a little background.

From Art to Industry

Penmanship masters of the early and mid-19th century, the tutors who celebrated a looping, elaborate, personalized calligraphy (think of the old-fashioned style of the original Coca Cola logo), laid claim to the moral virtues of handwriting. As the cultural historian Tamara Plakins Thornton notes, it was typically understood that before gentlemen could aspire to a handsome script, they first needed to conquer “base, physical appetites.” Learning this useful skill demanded self-mastery.

But by the later 19th century fancy handwriting gave way to fluent, simpler, less artful but more practical connected scripts. These techniques, taught at the flourishing primary schools of the day, catered to a growing, literate middle class and served the demands of a booming American economy. This innovation had staying-power. In the 20th century, American students still drilled with one of these techniques, the Palmer Method..

Alongside legibility and uniformity, new handwriting systems offered fluency. Because the new style connected one letter to the next, the scribe needed to lift his pen only between words. This saved time. Time was money. Artistry yielded to practicality. This “fast, mercantile hand,” Thornton calls it, flowed at speed in the production of urgent and voluminous business correspondence.

With the introduction of the typewriter in the later 19th century, women took the lead in commercial communication. Because writing by hand could not match the speedy machine, the........

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