Reading Early American Handwriting

This book is designed to teach you how to read and understand the handwriting found in documents commonly used in genealogical research. It explains techniques for reading early American documents, provides samples of alphabets and letter forms, and defines terms and abbreviations commonly used in early American documents such as wills, deeds, and church records.

In this engaging history, the author demonstrates handwriting in America from colonial times to the present. Exploring such subjects as penmanship, pedagogy, handwriting analysis, autograph collecting, and calligraphy revivals, Thornton investigates the shifting functions and meanings of handwriting. 57 illustrations.

"In genealogical research it is all very well to locate original records, but to read them correctly is another matter altogether. Few people know this better than Harriet Stryker-Rodda who, after years of experience searching through colonial records, has developed a simple technique for reading colonial handwriting. In this handy little book, Mrs. Stryker-Rodda presents examples of colonial letter forms and script, showing the letter forms in the process of development and marking the ways in which they differ from later letter forms. She also provides a comparison of English and American handwriting and examples of name forms and signatures all to bear out her central thesis, that the reader must find meaning in a group of symbols without needing to see each letter of which the whole is composed. This excellent guidebook is indispensable in dealing with the problems of reading and interpretation"--Publisher website (August 2007).

How is American history written? Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alan Taylor answers this question in this collection of his essays from The New Republic, where he explores the writing of early American history.