I have read something interesting on this website: http://www.paperpenalia.com/history.html
It says that in the 'old' days every occupation had it each own distinctive handwriting. Here is a quote from the website (Thank you paperpenalia)
QUOTE
Clerks learned one writing style; engrossers another; aristocratic ladies still another, and gentlemen something different yet again. These styles were instantly recognizable to everyone who mattered, so that merely by looking at something a person had written, his/her social status, educational level, and relative importance in society were immediately known. It was a useful system for a class-based society, a society that was facing increasing depersonalization in communications brought on by the rise of the printing press. That society would have been aghast at the idea that merchants’ and gentry’s words should be given the equal weight that the printing press, with its uniform text, gave them.
Now I am looking for samples from each occupation. If someone has the book 'The Lost World of Colonial Handwriting' these samples can be scanned. I and I think also many other will be really happy to see them. Thanks in advanced.
