Every once in a while, I take a ride through the links available through the Stumble Upon toolbar. Since I can specify exactly which kinds of links that I want to look at, I always find something interesting. Today's tour was no different, and it reminded me of a topic that has popped up a few times recently.
Last month I wrote about my thoughts on cursive handwriting. Conversation at a wedding reception that I attended on Saturday also turned to cursive and generally mirrored my thoughts there (yes, we were all nerds there). Finally, today I came across a link through Stumble Upon that took me to a page at the Library of Congress. The specific article that was presented to me detailed a change that Thomas Jefferson made while he was writing the American Declaration of Independence. The article detailed the change from "our fellow-subjects" to "our fellow-citizens", a change that symbolizes the change in thinking for the population of the American Colonies. But it struck me that he simply wrote the new word over the old word. It seemed to me that this might be one reason why it can be difficult to interpret handwriting sometimes. Well, it's at least something to keep in mind as I continue my research.
Showing posts with label handwriting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label handwriting. Show all posts
Cursive - a lost art?
Earlier this week, we watched a very well-known silent movie from 1936. Specifically, we watched the Charlie Chaplin film, Modern Times. At one point in the film, the warden of the local jail wrote a recommendation letter for Chaplin's character to help him find work after his release from jail. The letter is shown on the screen a couple times, and as someone who was schooled in the 1970s and 80s, I was able to read the cursive writing in the letter quite easily. But we had to read it aloud to my son who had resisted learning cursive in school.
Today there's a discussion on the radio program To The Best Of Our Knowledge about fonts, and as I type this, the segment I'm listening to is discussing cursive writing. The conversation in the show noted that cursive is not taught in elementary schools as much as keyboarding (I'll still consider it an intro to typing, even if they don't teach the home row, which is another loss that I've noticed, but not quite as severely). That got me thinking that any of these young students who are not learning cursive will have an exceptionally hard time when they start into genealogy research. When you go back far enough in researching from original documents, and this could just be one generation of research, you'll find cursive letters.
How long will it be before cursive basics becomes one of the most popular class topics at genealogy conferences? Time will tell.
Today there's a discussion on the radio program To The Best Of Our Knowledge about fonts, and as I type this, the segment I'm listening to is discussing cursive writing. The conversation in the show noted that cursive is not taught in elementary schools as much as keyboarding (I'll still consider it an intro to typing, even if they don't teach the home row, which is another loss that I've noticed, but not quite as severely). That got me thinking that any of these young students who are not learning cursive will have an exceptionally hard time when they start into genealogy research. When you go back far enough in researching from original documents, and this could just be one generation of research, you'll find cursive letters.
How long will it be before cursive basics becomes one of the most popular class topics at genealogy conferences? Time will tell.
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