Spencerian Ladies Hand

[caliken]

http://i226.photobucket.com/albums/dd289/caliken_2007/LadiesHandtext4.jpg

http://i226.photobucket.com/albums/dd289/caliken_2007/600.jpg

This style, with minimal shading, was originally written with a straight penholder. As such, it is well suited to being written with a fountain pen with a moderately flexible nib. I wrote this, and the alphabet, with my Namiki Falcon.

The shading can follow the pattern of shading in Spencerian, or omitted altogether, or as in this example it can be used on all downstrokes, as in Roundhand aka Copperplate.

The most obvious characteristic is in the extended ascenders and descenders. This, combined with modest shading, gives the lettering a light, elegant look which no doubt accounts for the name 'Ladies Hand'. It can, of course, be written with as much pleasure, by either sex.

 

Others may have more detailed knowledge of the historical background to this beautiful script.

Edited July 27, 2012 by caliken

[Thrllskr]

Beautiful handwriting. Marvelous that you have shading with a straight pen. Thanks for sharing.

[pencils+pens]

 

The most obvious characteristic is in the extended ascenders and descenders. This, combined with modest shading, gives the lettering a light, elegant look which no doubt accounts for the name 'Ladies Hand'. It can, of course, be written with as much pleasure, by either sex.

 

Tamara Plakins Thornton in Handwriting in America: A Cultural History (page 28-29) gives a different explanation of the term Ladies' Hand.

 

"The link between the style of a script and the public, corporate character of the group for which it was reserved is even more clear in the case of scripts used by women. "Ladies' hand" were diminutive and ornamental, like the ladies themselves, lacking both power and utility. Often they required the penwoman to go back over her script and add decorative shading to her letters, suggesting her leisured status. Ladies' hands were also considered easy both to learn and execute; they symbolized female physical delicacy, intellectual inferiority, and constitutional flightiness."

 

"To some extent, the female scripts suggested the actual writing process as practiced by women, a process that was painstaking and therefore time consuming. Most of the female "effect" of these scripts, however, had to do with the aesthetics of the product. More than any other component of female self-preservation, penmanship thus resembled dress. Like clothing, it was an object in itself, easily disassociated from the person. It could be displayed and admired, even in the absence of the lady, as pleasingly feminine. Not so with the male hands. Here penmanship was understood as an aspect of physical carriage. Rather than focusing on the visual effect of the completed script, commentators noted the movement of the visual effect of the completed script."

 

Earlier in the book, Thornton makes the point that current readers of older scripts are missing an important historical context when reading old handwriting. Since Palmer, most students, if they are taught handwriting at all, are all taught the same method, at least in the same school. Girls and boys, high born and low, it does not matter everyone is taught the same.

 

That was not true prior to Palmer. Girls were taught the Ladies' Hand. Men, the only ones expected to work in a job that required writing, were taught different styles depending on their occupation. Legal hands were different from Clerk's Hands etc. The famous 3 Rs (reading, 'riting and 'rithmetic) were not taught much before the 1900s. Colonial and early American schools taught reading and 'rithmetic, but 'riting was rarely taught. Writing was picked up in business or professional schools after graduation. Palmer and others of his generation earned their reputations as penman in such schools before they went on to found their own. Women, who almost never attended such schools, learned penmanship at the their mother's knee, not in school. That all began to change in the early 1900s, especially when women began to join the workforce in what became known as 'pink collar' jobs.

 

One of Palmer's innovations and he is rarely credited with it was to make handwriting gender neutral. The cost of that was at the lose of the more elegant and ornamental hands.

[Najdorf]

Ken,

The hand and the execution is beautiful.

 

Btw

the Namiki nib is the original or modified?

[caliken]

the Namiki nib is the original or modified?

 

Thanks, Najdorf.

 

The Namiki SF nib is the original. As it was a rather expensive pen (for me) I rarely flex the nib in case I damage it, but as this style of lettering uses very slight shading, I felt safe in using it as an excellent, modern semi-flex.

The hairlines would have been finer with a dip nib, but I felt that it was a good opportunity to use a fountain pen.

 

Ken

Edited July 28, 2012 by caliken

[Najdorf]

This pen is in my wish list for too long...

[estie1948]

Beautiful! Thanks again, Ken.

 

-David.

[AD356]

Spencerian Ladies Hand is my favorite script. This is a wonderful example as well, so beautiful. I saw that this was a class at the IAMPETH Annual convention, another reason I wish I was going.

 

Thanks for Sharing again Ken.