when writing was based on rhythmic motions...

for the past year or so, i've been collecting multiples of a 1967 pinback button for a small project that will happen sometime next year. the pin is not incredibly rare, and i've found close to 30 of them on ebay over the past year or so. i usually find the pin alone, but once in awhile i'll have to buy a little bag of pins to get the one i want. usually the rest of the pins go into the goodwill box or the trash. on monday a package arrived in the mail containing a dozen or so pinbacks, including the one i've been collecting, as well as the "palmer method" pinback pictured above.

one of the great things about collecting old objects, is that you never know what kind of random, yet interesting, information might be revealed to you through an object and/or its history. when i pulled this palmer method pin out of the small plastic sandwich bag of junk, i certainly fell in love with the graphic quality. i then went online to see what i could find out about it...and lo and behold, wikipedia had an entry on "the palmer method".

it seems that around 1888, austin palmer developed a "uniform style of cursive writing with rhythmic motion". by 1912, over a million copies of palmer's manual - the palmer guide to business writing were sold, and palmer received a gold medal at the panama pacific exposition in san francisco, california, in 1915, and at the sesquicentennial exposition in philadelphia, pennsylvania, in 1926 for his writing method.

at some point educators felt that teaching "manuscript" writing earlier than cursive could shift the early focus on writing from visual form to more important ideas surrounding vocabulary and written expression. thus palmer's method fell out of favor.

the pinback pictured above was given to students as a reward for "satisfactorily finishing the first 25 drills" and is probably from around 1910 or 1920. you can read more about the palmer method here

there is also an incredibly beautiful facsimile of a 1935 version of one of palmer's books here, and i would HIGHLY recommend you clicking on one of the three images of classrooms with writing students, as the drawings are pretty incredible (and a bit like henry darger...).

to bring things full circle, a few years ago i was visiting a friend who teaches at harvard and we spent some time going through one of the libraries dedicated to children's and educational books. one of the books that fascinated me was a book on handwriting, and i took photographs of a couple of pages on writing, and in particular one that had the word "moon" written on a piece of paper in four different directions... of course, looking at the 1935 version of palmer's guide, i now realize the book that i was so interested in was an early version of the "palmer method"...

when writing looks like weather...

this is one of those photos where the text on the back seems totally connected to the image on the front. the style of handwriting seems so much like little dust balls bouncing in the wind on this barren landscape. it also seems a kind of notation of wind. it's almost as if the writing could be super imposed upon the surface of the photo (a kind of montage) that would somehow feel right. the swirling movements of the writing clearly indicating weather.

the words found within these scrambling wavy lines are also nice: "drop me a card any way and tell me what you are doing. am all alone and the wind is blowing 2:40 snowed this PM and everything looks and feels wintry. but i have lots of coal and it is inside. have 14 of the finest pupils you ever saw. they are so mannerly and nice i really have been blessed to get this quarter and school at home. you will have to come out to this dark land some time. i weigh 103 most i have ever weighed and feel fine.every organ works perfect for i guess i never know i have any".

the photo of the duet is also quite stunning. it is difficult to see in the scan, but they are really playing together, the mandolin player's head cocked as if completely lost in the listening. there's a ton of detail in the barn and its beautiful parallel lines of various widths...