Horace Woodbury Shaylor Jr., ca. 1880
Item 74179 info
Maine Historical Society
Though the Spencerian Script was an established penmanship technique, it was soon taken over by the Palmer method.
The Palmer method omitted the curls and swirls, focusing instead focused on legibility, rapidity, ease and
endurance.
Palmer introduced "muscle motion," which focused on writing with the proximal arm muscles, rather than finger muscles. In fact arm movement was so instrumental that the method suggests a penman cut off the right under sleeve of his shirt, as to not obstruct movement, therefore producing better results.
A. N. Palmer (1860-1927), like Spencer, had a mother who was widowed.
Palmer attended the Bryant and Stratton Business College. He later went on to work as a clerk and bookkeeper where he learned that speed was important in the world of business. Speed became a major part of Palmer's writing philosophy.
At 28 he founded a penmanship magazine, The Western Penman and published Palmer's Guide to Muscular Movement and Writing. The guide appealed to Catholic schools because of its emphasis on hard work and discipline.
In 1904 Palmer attended the St. Louis exposition where a New York City superintendent witnessed his writing methods. Four years later half the public schools in NYC were teaching the Palmer method.
Palmer had offices in New York, Chicago, Cedar Rapids and Maine. By his death 25 million people had been taught the method and it was continuing to be taught in three quarters of the schools in America.
Neither Spencer nor Palmer acknowledged left-handed writing.
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