The Development of Cursive Handwriting

Handwriting is almost as unique as a fingerprint. Who invented the swirls and curls of cursive script? Many American schools in the 21st century, stopped teaching cursive writing as keyboarding on computers and phones has become so ubiquitous. More recently, some schools have returned to teaching it.

Square capitals were used on inscriptions on buildings and monuments (some of which are still standing), but cursive (or script) was used for daily writing.

Egyptians and Romans used early forms of cursive to speed up writing on papyrus and parchment. Roman cursive (1st–3rd century BC) was used for everyday tasks and included early lowercase-like forms.

Carolingian script (8th century) and Anglicana (12th century) were transitional styles that began connecting letters more fluidly, laying the groundwork for cursive.

In the Renaissance, humanist scholars in the 15th century refined cursive into elegant scripts like italic and running hand, emphasizing beauty and efficiency.

By the 17th century, cursive became more standardized in Europe and the American colonies. 

The earliest form of cursive you would probably recognize is called Copperplate. Calligrapher Timothy Matlack penned Thomas Jefferson's words on the original copy of the Declaration of Independence using the Copperplate script. It is beautiful, but impractical for everyday writing.

A teacher named Platt Rogers Spencer developed a new form of penmanship around the mid-1800s with the awkward name of chirythmography (from the Greek words for "timed hand writing") The "Spencerian" method was taught in schools for the latter half of the 19th century.

Styles like Spencerian and Palmer Method emerged in the 18th and 19th centuries, focusing on speed and elegance for education and business use. But the Spencer cursive was still too time-consuming. Next came Austin Palmer and the Palmer method. Palmer's idea was to make cursive writing more practical and lose the fancy flourishes from the Renaissance days. This form of script was very popular in the early 20th century. 

Penmanship started to become big business because it was taught in grade schools, and adults entering the business world often took a course in penmanship. The Zaner-Bloser Company sold handwriting instruction material to schools and their cursive and the later D'Nealian cursive are the simple scripts that were taught in grade school during the second half of the 20th century.