The Palmer method: the school hand, 1900–1950

The plain, unshaded hand of American business colleges and schools, written with the whole arm for speed.

Taught
Business colleges, then schools, into the 1960s
Pen
Medium coarse pen, straight holder
Look
About 55° slant, even strokes, no shading
Where you meet it
School exercises and business writing

No specimen yet. A plate from a period copybook, or an openly licensed face that matches the hand, appears here once it passes our checks.

How to read it: the tells

  • O AA capital O should close with an upward stroke. Pulled downward, it looks like an A.
  • a oToo deep a curve in the joining stroke turns an o into something closer to an a.
  • r xWhen the joining strokes dip toward the base line, an r can look like an x.
  • 1 7A figure one started with an upward stroke looks like a seven. Check columns of figures twice.

History

Austin Norman Palmer was born on a farm at Fort Jackson, New York, on 22 December 1860.[^1] In 1884 he started a penmanship journal, the Western Penman,[^2] and a year later he became a partner in a business college, which he bought three years after that.[^3] His Guide to Business Writing was published at Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in 1894,[^4] a book of 48 pages.[^5] Its preface says what it means by practical: a plain and rapid style, adapted to business purposes.[^6]

The method moved the pen with the muscles of the arm, from the shoulder to the wrist.[^7] Writing with the fingers, Palmer held, would slow the writer down and leave the page heavy and uneven.[^8] What he promised in return was a hand with four essentials: legibility, rapidity, ease and endurance.[^9]

A New York schools superintendent took the method up at the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis.[^10] Palmer once estimated that 25 million people had learned it,[^11] and it was still used in schools well into the 1960s.[^12] He died in 1927, at 67, still president of the Cedar Rapids Business College.[^13]

Spencerian vs Palmer

Spencerian

Palmer method

Sources

  1. [1] A. N. Palmer (Zanerian, after Michael Sull)
  2. [2] Austin N. Palmer (The Gazette, history)
  3. [3] Cedar Rapids man created Palmer Method of handwriting (The Gazette)
  4. [4] Palmer's Guide to Business Writing (1894), Library of Congress item 11026563
  5. [5] Palmer's Guide to Business Writing (1894), Library of Congress item 11026563
  6. [6] Palmer's Guide to Business Writing (1894), preface, full text (Library of Congress)
  7. [7] The Palmer Method of Business Writing (1915), p. 12, full text
  8. [8] Palmer's Guide to Business Writing (1894), p. 9, full text (Library of Congress)
  9. [9] The Palmer Method of Business Writing (1915), p. 2, full text
  10. [10] Cedar Rapids man created Palmer Method of handwriting (The Gazette)
  11. [11] Cedar Rapids man created Palmer Method of handwriting (The Gazette)
  12. [12] Austin N. Palmer (The Gazette, history)
  13. [13] Cedar Rapids man created Palmer Method of handwriting (The Gazette)
  14. The Palmer Method of Business Writing (1915), p. 26 — the reading tells
  15. The Palmer Method of Business Writing (1915), p. 28 — the reading tells
  16. The Palmer Method of Business Writing (1915), p. 44 — the reading tells
  17. Palmer's Guide to Business Writing (1894), p. 35 — the reading tells
  18. The Palmer Method of Business Writing (1915), p. 5 — the fact table
  19. The Palmer Method of Business Writing (1915), p. 5 (paper and pen) — the fact table
  20. Freeman, Classification of handwriting systems (1912) — the fact table