S, the American cursive letter s
S is the 19th letter of the English alphabet. It is drawn here in American school cursive, with the copperplate form beside it.
capital · p. 74
small · p. 51
long s · p. 57capital · p. 74small · p. 51long s · p. 57In words
Sunday ·
sister ·
History
S, named “ess”, is the 19th of the 26 letters of the English alphabet. American letters, ledgers and census sheets of 1850 to 1950 were written in one of three taught hands: the older copperplate, Spencer's method and Palmer's.
The large pair is school cursive, cut from Playwrite US Trad. Beside it is the same letter in copperplate, cut from Pinyon Script.
Capital S and L are built on the same loop. Read the word, not the letter: the capital that starts a name is usually settled by the name.
Copperplate-era documents also use the long s (ſ). It fell out of use in the United States around 1820,[1] and in a document from before the mid-1800s a letter that looks like a lowercase f is an s.[2]
Sources
- [1] The long s (HistoryofInformation.com) (accessed 2026-09-29)
- [2] Transcription tips (U.S. National Archives, Citizen Archivist) (accessed 2026-09-29)