UNDER CONSTRUCTION
¦°±· they should be free to write in a
manner that was easy for them to put their thoughts on paper. Graphologists
did not think writing was simply an automatic physiological action, but
it allowed people to express themselves characterologically. This notion
eventually found its way into schools, but shortly after educators began
teaching manuscript writing to children, teachers simply used it as another
exercise to teach handwriting skills. By the third or fourth grades teachers
once again taught their students how to write cursive. The handwriting debate
in the early 1900s occurred within the context of whether handwriting was
characterological or physiological; it pitted individuality against conformity
and body against mind. Thornton contends that handwriting quality declined
after World War II and she partly blames machines (i.e. computers) for this
decline. But she also blames the permissiveness fostered by Progressive
educators in the early twentieth century that allowed people to lose some
of the regimentation of Victorian life that handwriting drills provided.
For Thornton, this issue goes beyond illegibility. She claims that the real
debate is about controlling modernization and maintaining set standards
so people will not become frightened by modernization and changing social
order. Her point is legitimate although somewhat elusive. It is difficult
for historians to prove that people are uneasy about societal changes because
these things are usually intangible and hard to document. Thornton adequately
demonstrates how handwriting changed in America and why those changes were
significant to the collective national psyche. She does not, however, always
define the characters in her narrative very well. Who were these scientists
that opposed graphology, and what type of people comprised the group she
labels as graphologists? Thornton should have identified more clearly who
consulted graphologists if it was such a booming business in the early twentieth
century, and she should have demonstrated just how lucrative this business
had become. Overall, she makes a compelling argument for the important role
handwriting plays in studying intellectual history in the United States,
and she places this obscure topic alongside the study of literacy, reading,
and print in American culture. Handwriting in America Outline Introduction
Thesis: Handwriting is an important part of American culture that reveals
an individual's sense of self. Larger historical and cultural context. Association
between script and self: how people conceptualize themselves through handwriting.
Relationship between self-conceptualization and changing social orders.
Handwriting as an expressive medium of self. Contexts for studying the meaning
and function of handwriting. Aesthetic and social implications of script.
How and why teachers taught penmanship. Emergence of graphology and autograph
collecting. Handwriting as legal evidence. Revival of calligraphy in late
20th century . M. T. Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record: England 1066-1307,
2d ed., (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1993, 1997). PAGE 3 PAGE 7 <<<<<§<§§<<<§<§§<</q