Frequently Asked Questions — The Palmer Method of Business Writing This entire website is an adaptation of The Palmer Method Of Business Writing , a textbook originally published in 1915. The Palmer Method of penmanship instruction was developed and promoted by Austin Palmer in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It soon became the most popular handwriting system in the United States. Under it, students were taught to adopt a uniform system of cursive writing with rhythmic motions. Palmer’s method involved “muscle motion” in which the more proximal muscles of the arm were used for movement, rather than allowing the fingers to move in writing. In spite of opposition from the major textbook companies, the textbook enjoyed great success. Proponents of the Palmer Method emphasized its plainness and speed, that it was much faster than the laborious Spencerian Method, and allowed the writer to effectively compete with the typewriter. To educators, the Method’s advocates emphasized regimentation, and that the Method would thus be useful in schools to increase discipline and character, and could even reform delinquents.

Palmer’s style fell out of popularity and was replaced by a movement to teach children manuscript before teaching them cursive, in order to provide them with a means of written expression as soon as possible and thus develop writing skills. source: Wikipedia.org Seriously? Why bother? In the book Script and Scribble: The Rise and Fall of Handwriting , Kitty Burns Florey recounts how, in the 18th century, writing masters urged six to 12 hours a day of practice. But in 2006 only 15 per cent of students taking the SAT wrote out their essays in cursive script, with the other 85 per cent using block letters. Learning cursive takes up less time in classrooms these days, as “keyboarding” becomes the educator’s priority. source: The Globe and Mail, March 5, 2011: “What’s your typeface?” by Katrina Onstad Yet some people will proclaim (loudly): Good penmanship shows the world we are civilized. Many more still “cling to handwriting out of a romantic sense that script expresses identity,” argues Oberlin professor Anne Trubek . There is indeed a romantic feel to the idea of putting pen to paper.

With the proliferation of e-mail and texting, most of us can go days (weeks? months?) without hand writing a single sentence. The scarcity of the experience renders it desirable. Poor penmanship is not (and ought not to be) shameful; yet who doesn’t secretly crave perfect handwriting? On a practical note, the Palmer Method is experiencing renewed attention from those working in facilitated communication for the disabled. Because the Palmer method focuses on shoulder and arm movements, it’s said to be helpful for many with limited movement of the fingers. source: Wikipedia.org Regardless of your motivation for learning the Palmer Method, take these lessons with a grain of salt. Typewriting and keyboarding have liberated the less dexterous among us who struggled with handwriting – and this is undeniably a Very Good Thing. With tongue planted firmly in cheek, this website strives to preserve the original text’s emphasis on regimentation, discipline and character-building through good penmanship. Consider this a historical snapshot, if you will, of a pedagogical approach from a bygone era. Sign up for news and updates Please join our mailing list to receive news about new lessons, special offers, and more. Mailings are infrequent, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

First Name: The Ancestry Insider: Indexing Tips: The Palmer Method The Ancestry Insider The unofficial, unauthorized view of Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org. The Ancestry Insider reports on, defends, and constructively criticizes these two websites and associated topics. The author attempts to fairly and evenly support both. Tuesday, July 15, 2008 Indexing Tips: The Palmer Method To the young person attempting to read cursive handwriting for the very first time, or after only a brief study in school, indexing cursive documents can be difficult. In this and other articles, I present handwriting styles from different time periods. The Palmer Method was developed by Austin Norman Palmer around 1888 and was introduced in the 1894 book Palmer's Guide to Business Writing . The Palmer Method became the most popular handwriting system in the early 1900s. It continued its dominance until displaced by the movement to teach printing instead of cursive as the dominant handwriting style for students. Palmer's Guide to Business Writing Palmer's original 1894 work, Palmer's Guide to Business Writing , has been reproduced on the Library of Congress website.

I was disappointed that the book doesn't contain a concise presentation of Palmer's recommended letter forms. As it turns out, Palmer was more concerned with method, speed and being able to write without tiring. I had to create my own chart of the letter forms shown in Palmer's book, cutting and pasting extensively. I can't speak to scale or alignment. Note that Palmer's book gives several forms for some letters. While there isn't a Palmer's Hand per se, Palmer sometimes expressed preference for a particular letter form. Of the various forms of uppercase S shown, Palmer says, Nowithstanding [sic] the opposition of some of our good brethren, these angular strokes continue to be popular and are used by many excellent business writers. To be sure, an angular is slower than an oval turn, and, from a standpoint of speed, these letters are not as desirable as those made up of ovals. Of the second form of lowercase r shown, Palmer states, "here is a form of r favored by many good business writers. It can be easily made one-half faster than the preceding form...

If you like it, make it and stick to it." Of particular interest was the form Palmer called a "final t" which is the second lowercase t in the chart. It has a "point at top," but no vertical cross stroke. pp. 16-18 - Among other info, "errors to be avoided" gives examples of poorly written letters. pp. 18-29 - Upper & lowercase letters. pp. 29-32 - Connected capital letter drills. pp. 32-35 - Lesson 39 contains capitals A, B, C, D and E. Subsequent lessons start with successive capital letters. The last part of the book contains "a large variety of specimens of Business Writing by different penmen and business writers. These specimens represent the style of writing that is marketable in the commercial world." The writers don't necessarily stick to the "Palmer hand" in every regard. p. 38 - Specimen by A. R. Merrill p. 39 - Top specimen by A. N. Palmer, bottom by E. M. Huntinger p. 40 - H. D. Goshert, Henry Jones p. 41 - F. B.

Moore capitals, G. E. Nettleton capitals, E. M. Huntinger specimen p. 42 - E. H. Robins specimen, J. M. Peterson capitals p. 43 - W. I. Staley specimen p. 44 - August Fischer specimen p. 45 - Alice G. Browne specimen, E. C. Mills specimen p. 46 - Horton capitals, H. A. Price specimen p. 47 - C. D. Brown specimen, C. W. Ransom specimen p. 48 - A. R. Merrill specimen, E. F. Quintal specimen Sources: Palmer Method of Penmanship - Dead Media Archive Palmer Method of Penmanship Jump to: navigation , search Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination Developed by Austin Norman Palmer (1860-1927) in the 1870s, the Palmer method of penmanship was both a style of handwriting and a pedagogical method for teaching the practice of penmanship. The handwriting produced by this method was italic, cursive writing, which curtailed much of the ornamentation which marked earlier penmanship systems in eighteenth and nineteenth century America.

Conceived at the same historical moment as the typewriter, Palmer was responding to what he perceived as the need for an efficient handwriting style adapted the quickening pace of business in America. Comparing the process to a "writing machine," his system emphasized four qualities he saw as essential to good writing (Figure above). Palmer’s system largely displaced the earlier Spencerian system by the 1910s, gaining nationwide popularity, which it held until its eclipse by other methods in the 1950s. Contents Fig. 2 Spencerian Script Palmer's method of penmanship was a remediation of and a reaction to the Spencerian system; the leading method used for the fifty years prior to the Palmer Method's mainstream inclusion. Spencerian script was developed by Platt Rogers Spencer in the 1840s and was an earlier attempt to standardize penmanship. (Thornton 1996: 47) A Victorian writing master, Spencerian script did not represent handwriting elements as simply the formation of letters, choosing instead to model his method on natural forms. (Fig. 2) Spencer's script maintained the ornateness of past American scripts, such as the American Round-Hand system.

The elegance of his script was seen by Palmer as being too feminine, and The Palmer Method was in part an attempt to reinsert masculinity into penmanship. (Thornton 1996: 67) The Palmer Method should also be examined in the context of the typewriter, developed concurrently. The Palmer Method maintained the analogue function of cursive writing, occasionally using discrete forms for practice of letters and isolated motions for the training of the muscular system. Fig. 1 Palmer Method simple lines and circles. Consisting of a series of lessons, the method begins with the proper positioning of the body, and then a series of exercises designed to strengthen the muscles. The instruction manuals consist of a series of images and text that the student attempts to emulate; Palmer argued against the use of blackboards for models, as they can be "seen at many different angles, and at different distances, and do not give correct mental impressions." (Palmer 1935:4) At the end of the program, students complete an examination which is sent to the A.N. Palmer to be examined and judged.

The Palmer method maintained arbitrary functions such as writing left to right, however often used words and forms that were nonsensical in that they provided no semiotic content, simply lines and circles or arbitrary words to reproduce. (Fig. 1) The focus of this program is to train the muscles to lead to an "automatic style embodying legibility, rapidity, ease and endurance." (Palmer 1935: 4) The style of penmanship produced by this program is comparitively minimalist to previous styles which emphasized aesthetics over functionality. Automatic Writing and the Body The Palmer method was intended to make the act of writing automatic and redefined this as a physiological process. Writing became the result of the "unconscious functioning of the brain and consequent behavior of the human organism." (Thornton 145) Lisa Gitelman argues the term "automatic" in the late nineteenth century was not a function only of the machine, but a resolving of the "organic and mechanical of human forms and functions built into machinery." (Gitelman, 189) Akin to Foucault's conception of the docile body, the Palmer Method put a military-like emphasis on the posture, position, and muscle control of the pupil's body.

Exercises and drills were to be taught and practiced regularly, and teachers were instructed to monitor and correct the students' positions. These drills programmed the body by building muscle memory so the mind need no longer think -- the body simply performs mechanically and efficiently, just as would a typewriter. In this sense, Palmer's method embodies a cake-mix effect: after mastering the method on a conscious level, the writing system becomes reflexive and mechanized on an unconscious level. Though the student is the one making the inscription, it is their programmed body, shaped by the instruction, that is performing the task of writing, conjuring up images of Isis. The conscious self becomes secondary to the process, however involved in the production of messages and languages the method always requires the conscious self and others as messengers of Hermes needed to decode what is produced. Regulating Fatigue and Attention in Industrial Education Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination A schoolboy demonstrating correct position of the body for penmanship. The Palmer Method made use of existing research in physiology and the emerging industrial view of the body as machine.

Palmer's method is an attempt to extend the capabilities of human productivity in the act of writing, to maintain a border between capacity and incapacity in training the muscular activity of the student for both writing and relaxation needed between writing exercises. (Johannisson 7; Palmer 9) The Palmer Method's stringent requirements as to words per minute indicate that The A.N. Palmer Company thought they had found an ideal threshold between fatigue and productivity through seeing the body in terms of its physiological capabilities, while ignoring (although not discounting as in behaviourism) mental qualities which were thought to interfere with the machine. The emphasis placed by Palmer on maintaining a particular visuality in the practice of handwriting can be seen through the relationship he places between the student and the individual text. Denouncing blackboards as a pedagogical tool because they, "are seen at many different angles and at different distances and do not give correct mental impressions," it is clear that Palmer was attempting to promote a uniform objectivity in teaching handwriting while acknowledging models of subjective vision.

(Palmer 4) Internalization and Simulation of the Machine If, as Kittler suggests (198), the typewriter "tears writing from the essential realm of the hand," and the hand is the "essence of man," Palmer's mechanical method can be interpreted as an attempt to reunite the two without losing the desireable aspects of the typewriter (ie. speed, legibility, efficiency). Alternatively, this metaphorical reunion might appear to be an internalization of the typewriter technology into the body. To take the analogy of the human typewriter further, consider Flusser's essay entitled The Lever Strikes Back, in which he says, "we have been moving our arms as though they were levers since we have had levers. We simulate what we have simulated" (Flusser, 53). Not only did the Palmer method train the body to simmulate the typewriter in speed and legibility, the method also instructed students to use their left arm to cover other drills and push the paper up as one progresses.

Thus, once again, the simulator is simulated and the classroom suddenly becomes a factory, a "place in which human beings become less and less natural and more artificial" (Flusser, 44). The Unavoidable Traces of the Self Kittler argues that at the end of the nineteenth century, "something ceases not to write itself." (Kittler 1999:3) In this he is speaking of the modest mechanical apparatuses which were developed at/for the period which shattered the unity of the hand-driven form of writing, replacing it with an extension of the body in terms of a machine. The Palmer Method attempts to make the body into a "writing machine" through physiological training designed to promote automaticity. (Palmer 1935:*) The body becomes a machine, internalizing the habit of writing so that the person is fully occupied by the machine, ceasing to write one's self and beginning to write something else.

(Kittler 1999: 14) "But once a hand took hold of a pen," Kittler notes, "something miraculous occured: the body which did not cease to not write itself, left strangely unavoidable traces." The traces Kittler speaks about are the pops and hisses of the writing system--the individual character of one's penmanship. Despite the best efforts of the Palmer Method to teach a standardized script, the characteristics of each person's unique handwriting were inevitable. Encoding/Decoding: Grading, Classifying and Comparison through Writing Fig. 3 Table comparing penmanship of 8th graders and office workers. Penmanship and its connection to the self can be seen through an examination of signatures and the practice of graphology. Gitelman argues the term "automatic," which is used frequently by Palmer in his manuals, highlighting prevailing cultural assumptions "regarding the act of insciption and the relation that inscribing bears to authorial agency and textual evidence." (Palmer 1935: 3; Gitelman 1999: 186) Experiments carried out by Gertrude Stein attempted to explore the relation between the her test subject's character and the markings they would create through automatic writing.

Stein maintained that her experiment resolved the "organic and mechanical - of human forms and functions built into machinery and of mechanical repsonses by human beings." (Gitelman 1999:189). Palmer's method of penmanship analysis treated the subject's automatic writing in the same vein by advocating practice drills to be evaluated by a teacher or a designate of the Palmer Company itself. Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination Fig.4 Certificate of Completion. Writing for drills divorces words on a page from any potential narrative, presenting itself as storage for data regarding a student's aptitude toward the mechanical project of penmanship. In bulletins for grading penmanship issued by each city's board of education, teachers were advised to regard penmanship as a skill needed to find employment after graduation of the eight grade. Through this method, the functional nonsense of texts written for drills allow for handwriting to become an object for scientific study, and a graphology emerges from the text. (Fig. 3) Teachers evaluated handwriting samples based on speed, consistency, and adhearance to the aesthetic standard, and scored the sample on a scale of 0 to 100-- cumulatively, and in each category.

Teachers could then compare a student's results to the median scores for practitioners of a number of occupations (NY Dept of Education: 1920, 45). The direct link between penmanship and aptitude for business is made explicit, just as Gertrude Stein's experiments with automatic writing had attempted to draw corellations between the hand and the subject's character. In this sense, discrete analysis of writing as scientific object enabled teachers to decode the examinations in an effort to encode them into a particular areas of aptitude. Such drills were exemplary of a specific trend in psychology of the late 19th century, where the goal was to employ new physiological methods to decode the narrative of the subject's psyche.

(Gitelman 1999: 195) Technology, Standardization, Modernism Palmer was a follower of the philosophy and psychology of William James (1842-1910), who cherished individuality and autonomy while emphasizing universality and constraint.(Embridge 327; Bredo 4) Likewise, Palmer in his writing system argued that "within certain well-defined boundaries I would not only permit, but would encourage pupils in catering to their individual tastes." (Embridge 2007: 327; Thornton 1996: 116) The expression of individuality within a common norm was a quandry representative of American social life at the period, and the Palmer Method was characteristic of this dynamic. The Palmer Method is especially representative of ideals of the progressive era of education at the turn of the century. In its design, Palmer set standards of uniformity to which all students were expected to adhere in order to succeed. This belief in unity through uniformity, while on one level providing an equal standard for all to meet according to their ability, on another level forced others into adopting a foreign identity.

In many cases, this was the aim: to impose a disciplining order on populations not well understood. The closeness of graphology to personal identity made a handwriting system particularly effective in this exercise of control. In setting a standard which the individual must conform to, Palmer's system imposes a kind of violence onto the individual. Similar to the typewriter's uniformly legible type, the individual was expected to develop a consistent penmanship style. In professional contexts in which the individual writes not for herself, a style legible for others, if not interchangeable, was increasingly important. Indeed, student writing was assessed based on its correspondence with that of professionals in particular fields. Pushing the individual towards this idealized standard is fundamentally to force her to siphon the index of her identity through what Lacan calls the regime of the symbolic, or what Kittler calls "the bottleneck of the signifier." (4) When the subject is the one to deploy discrete letterforms in analog continuity, the letterforms then become primary, the subject secondary. As Flusser writes, “in the case of the machine, it is the constant and the human being is the variable” (45).

The Problem of the Other: Women, Writing and Left-Handedness Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination Typists were most typically women. Gitelman argues this new found automaticity in writing was a site for "feminized labor." (Gitelman 1999: 193) In Palmer's system which attempts to automatize and standardize writing, the connections between authorship and writing become increasingly obscure; made more evident by his increasingly gendered view of the form of writing. Arguing that the Spencerian script was too feminized, Palmer sought to re-masculinize writing, doing away with the ornamentation resulting from the natural forms which Spencer attempts to emulate. Previous to this program handwriting and gender was distinctly intertwined; being excluded from mercantile activity, female penmanship focused upon embroidery and needlework whereas boys learned writing through the making of receipts and other commerce-related acts. However, nearing the end of the nineteenth century, economic and social changes began to take place in the world of business; emerging corporate and bureaucratic structures were found to be hostile to masculine autonomy in terms of the male clerk who was placed at the bottom of a hierarchical structure of labor.

(Thronton 1996: 69-70) Women began entering into the office in large numbers, as scribes, secretaries and bookeepers and took the role that male clerks previously had held. Their task was to take words as input - whether from speech or other documents - and to produce words as output on paper, that is, to become a passive linguistic conduit, a witness to the inscription executed by their bodies. Previously handwriting had been defined as a male activity connnected with the mercantile world, and with the inclusion of women handwriting became less exclusive. Palmer's emphasis on masculine scripts was an attempt to reclaim the pen as a male object; this new penmanship reasserted masculinity even though it was being done by women as well as men. (Thornton 1996: 70) It also had the effect of increasing the invisibility of the author as the writer's gender identity could no longer be determined through an examination of handwriting alone. Palmer Hand Positions Palmer viewed the entire Spencerian script as being too feminine in form, despite the fact that separate categories of writing existed to differentiate men and women in terms of both the form and function of writing.

These distinctions are lost in Palmer, however, his attempt to re-masculinize writing through a loss of ornamentation also had the result of increasing the invisibility of the author as the writer's gender identity could no longer be determined through an examination of handwriting alone. By adopting this masculine script, females who employed a pen were simultaneously written out of the act of penmanship. Similarly Palmer advocated to make left-handers conform and adopt a right-handed method, as he says in the Teachers' Guide to Palmer Method Penmanship in 1929, "it is a right handed world," although since left-handedness has long been associated in Christianity with evil, it was probably more indicative of cultural assumptions during the period. (Ramsey 1988: 504) The End of the Palmer Era Although alternative methods of handwriting existed concurrently, the Palmer Method enjoyed a large market share in both the business world and in the pedagogical method of primary schools. The method was eventually supplanted by the D'Nealiean method and the Zaner-Bloser method (which was an original competitor of the Palmer method, but remains a key player in handwriting pedagogy).

It is admittedly hard to pinpoint exactly when and how the Palmer Method disappeared as a mode of mediation; its demise is inferred by the fact that Palmer ceased publishing textbooks in the early 1980's, and the methods of learning advocated by both the D'Nealiean and Zaner-Bloser systems differ greatly than those endorsed by Palmer. Modern penmanship systems such as D'Nealiean and Zaner-Bloser differ from Palmer in two distinct ways: they privilege manuscript over cursive, and they further digitize the writing system by atomizing each letter into combinations of six basic strokes. (Alston, 56) The Palmer method as a mode of mediation exposed the 19th century preoccupation with economies of attention in psychology. As this trend gave way to behaviorism, the Palmer method was no longer suitable as a mode of mediation. The 1960s, 70s, and 80s saw the emergence of a brand of child psychology where individuality was encouraged— less emphasis was placed on enforcing discipline, and a comparative laxity and permissiveness in child-rearing became the norm.

Concurrently, teaching penmanship began with the mastery of manuscript, with the rationale that children should learn to write the characters they encounter in print. Cursive emerges later as an extension of the writing project: the new cursive is modeled after the already-mastered manuscript. "[M]anuscript that has been learned is not unlearned but, rather, built upon." (Alston, 57) References Alston, Jean and Jane Taylor. Handwriting: Theory, Research and Practice. Nichols Publishing Company, New York, 1987. Bredo, E. "The Darwinian Center to the Vision of William James" in William James and Education. (ed) Garrison, Podeschi and Bredo. Columbia University: New York. 2002. City of New York Board of Education. Grade Standards: New York Penmanship Scale. Bureau of Reference, Research and Statistics, 1920. Crary, Jonathan. Techniques of the Observer: On Vision and Modernity in the Nineteenth Century. The MIT Press. 1990. Embridge, D. 2007. “The Palmer Method: Penmanship and the Tenor of Our Time” in Southwest Review.

Platinum Periodicals: 92 (3): 327 - Flusser, Vilém. The Shape of Things: A Philosophy of Design. Reaction Books. 1999. Freeman, F. “Current Methods of Teaching Handwriting” in The Elementary School Teacher. University of Chicago Press: 13(1) 25-40.Freeman, F. 1912. “Current Methods of Teaching Handwriting” in The Elementary School Teacher. University of Chicago Press: 13(1) 25-40. Gitelman, Lisa. Scripts, Grooves, and Writing Machines. Stanford University Press, 1999. Henning, William and Melzer, Paul. An Elegant Hand: The Golden Age of American Penmanship and Calligraphy. Oak Knoll Press, 2002 Johannisson, Karin. Modern Fatigue: A Historical Perspective. A Multifaceted View of Stress. Ed. Dr. Bengt B. Arnetz, Prof. Rolf Ekman. Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, 2006 Kittler, Fredrich. Gramophone, Film, Typewriter.

Stanford University Press, 1999. Palmer, A.N. The Palmer Method of Business Writing. The A.N. Palmer Company: New York. 1935. Thornton, Tamara. Handwriting in America: A Cultural History. Yale University Press. 1996. Vismann, Cornelia. Files: Law and Media Technology. Stanford University Press. 2008. Wajda, S.T. 1999. “Inscribing the Self” in American Quarterly. The Johns Hopkins University Press: 51(2) 461-471. Palmer Taken with permission from Mike Sull's Spencerian Script and Ornamental Penmanship Volume I (out of print) AUSTIN NORMAN PALMER To be sure, there were many other penmen whose noteworthy careers and energetic personalities provide interesting fare to be retold and once again brought to light. Although an entire volume would be required to accommodate an all-inclusive list, there is a single penman whose contributions to the American system of writing were of such significance that he must be mentioned. His name was Austin Norman Palmer. A. N.

Palmer was born on a farm at Fort , St. Lawrence County, New York on December 22,1860 . His early youth was spent on the farm until the death of his father in 1873, when the family moved to Manchester young Austin entered public school and received his only instruction in writing from the copybooks that were to be his most frequent object of attack in later years. After completing the public school course, his mother advised him to enter the business college of famed penman George Gaskell. It was here that the young student first became aware that writing skills could reach such a degree of perfection, for Gaskell's office walls were lined with all forms of ornamental specimens. As so many had done before him, A. N. Palmer fell under the spell of the bounding stags, graceful birds, and other involved flourishes that were the pride of the master penman. At Gaskell's business college, Palmer became a friend of William E. Dennis, who was a fellow pupil.

Young Dennis possessed a natural talent for ornamental penmanship, and although Palmer was aware that he might never reach Dennis' expertise as a penman, he did attain a proficiency in ornamental writing, and upon his graduation, was awarded a flourished letter of recommendation from Gaskell himself. Palmer's formal education ended with a course at the Literary Institute in New Hampton, New Hampshire, after which he set out to organize classes in penmanship. He gradually worked his way west, teaching in Rockville , where he taught in a business college. Up to this time Palmer had not been forced to make any practical application of his handwriting skill. In 1880, he was offered a position in Cedar Rapids , Iowa , with the Iowa Railroad Land Company. Since the first practical typewriter was not yet perfected, all business records Were still kept by hand in the late 1800's. Clerks, bookkeepers, accountants, and other business-related professions had to do a vast amount of writing in the shortest period of time. There was no opportunity to demonstrate skill in flourished birds and shaded capitals.

As Palmer analyzed this circumstance, he soon discovered that there was more to his situation than merely the fact that he had been trained to flourish his writing. He observed that the more important factor seemed to be that where it was customary for the ornamental penman to flourish all capitals with a free-arm swing, with the arm completely off the desk, and to draw the small letters carefully with finger and wrist motion, the clerks used, instead, an entirely different movement to write. The most swift and tireless penmen he observed appeared to keep the arm on the desk at all times and formed their letters with little or no motion of the fingers. After he adapted this movement for his own writing, Palmer soon acquired a free, tireless style of penmanship for himself. The discovery of what he called "muscular movement" writing turned A. N. Palmer's thoughts back to teaching, for he soon resigned his position at a business office to work for the Cedar Rapids Business College at a lower salary. He began considering the educational possibilities of muscular movement writing, and decided that in order to promote the practical advantages of his style and at the same time offer instruction, he would need to advertise.

This was more challenging than it appears, for all the penmanship magazines of the day focused on whole-arm movement writing; Palmer's system was much different. The result was that in April, 1884, at 24 years of age, A. N. Palmer developed and introduced a new publication into the field of penmanship. Named The Western Penman because he hoped that the magazine would attract an audience in the mid-western states, this energetic owner/editor thus embarked upon a career that was destined to have the most far-reaching effects upon the teaching of penmanship in the United States since the days of Platt Rogers Spencer. From the time of the establishment of The Western Penman until 1900, a period of 16 years, A. N. Palmer kept busy teaching in various cities in the middle west, but he never ceased publication of the magazine. In 1888, he published the first edition of Palmer's Guide to Muscular Movement Writing, in which we find the first definition of ,'muscular movement" It is, as Mr.ï¿½ Palmer said in his introduction. ...

the movement of the muscles of the arm from the shoulder to the wrist, while keeping the fleshy portion of the arm just forward of the elbow [held] stationery on the desk. This movement should be used in all capitals and in all small letters, except the extended stem and loop, where a slight extension and contraction of the fingers holding the pen is permissible." This definition shows that as early as 1888 the teaching principles of the new method were pretty well formulated. The actual copies presented for practice, however, still showed the strong influence of the Spencerian forms. Letters are narrow, and loops are elongated, while moderate flourishes and slight shades characterize the capital forms.ï¿½ Quoting from Writing, Past and Present: Mr. Palmer's success with large classes of students in business colleges had by this time convinced him of the fact that anyone could learn to write a free, tireless hand with his new method.

In his desire to spread this knowledge and also to provide a self-teaching course he conceived the notion of preparing a course of lessons for publication in the Penman that would carry as instructions a stenographic report of his remarks before his class in the Cedar Rapids Business College The idea was carried out and over a period of six months he was given a daily transcribed report of every lesson. The course was published in the Penman beginning in the September, 1899 issue. "Not the least important thing the author has had in mind," said Mr. Palmer in his opening paragraph, "is that in hundreds of schools The Western Penman has been adopted as a textbook in writing, while in others it is used as an auxiliary, work being assigned for outside practice from its pages from time to time." *Writing Past and Present by Carroll Gard, 1937; A. N. Palmer Company New York . This published course of lessons did a great deal to impress school people with the practical nature of the handwriting instruction Mr.ï¿½ Palmer was advocating, and it led directly to classes will again convene in the afternoon atone o'clock and will continue with the four divisions until five o'clock .

Under this plan you will teach all the Sisters in divisions of fifty, two lessons a day, and they will spend all of their spare time between lessons practicing the drills you assign. That program was carried out, and Mr. Palmer explains that he put every drop of his mental and physical vitality into the work, and the Sisters worked just as hard as he did. At the close of Mr. Palmer's lessons, the Mother Superior asked for a conference and explained to him that while she could not adopt a monthly publication as a textbook in her schools, she would be glad to give an immediate order for enough copies of the lessons that had been printed in The Western Penman for all her schools, if such lessons were put into book form. Thus it happened that the first edition of the Palmer Method of Business Writing was printed for the Sisters of I.H.M., whose Mother House is at Monroe , as well as in other States. With such encouragement by the Sisters and with The Palmer Method of Business Writing now in the form of a textbook, the adoption of his instructions and advocated style grew at an astonishing rate beginning in 1900.

In the course of a few weeks, 30,000 copies were printed and sold; in 1901, 90,000 copies; and in 1912, 1,000,000 copies were sold throughout the country. In 1904 A. N. Palmer conducted a penmanship exhibit at the Louisiana Purchase Exhibition in St. Louis . His exhibition generated nation-wide attention from school authorities everywhere. In an early issue of Palmer Penmanship Pointers, he described the events: It was quite difficult to get a foot hold in the public schools. The big publishers seemed to control the situation and were selling copy-books everywhere. Results were not considered above preconceived notions and the influence of the agents of copy-book publishers was sufficient to keep me out of the public schools. I did, however, obtain adoptions in several small places and some good results followed, but there was not the enthusiasm among public school teachers that I found among the Catholic teachers. Some public school teachers were not willing to study, practice and master the progressive steps in advance of teaching them to their pupils But the work continued to spread. During the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, in St.

Louis , a very comprehensive exhibit of Palmer Method penmanship was made, nearly all of it being from Catholic schools. An Associate Superintendent of the City of New York saw the exhibit. He left word with the clerk in charge that he would like to know more about the Palmer Method, and would like to see Mr. Palmer when he visited New York . This resulted in the listing of the Palmer Method for use in the public schools of New York City . At first principals showed considerable timidity in making introductions. The results obtained in several schools, however, were of such a character as to attract the attention of many progressive principals who believed that something should be done to improve the penmanship of our schools. Since all those connected with the Palmer Method had no personal acquaintance among the officials of the public schools o f New York City , principals or teachers, the personal element had no direct or indirect bearing upon the introduction. It was merit alone that carried the Palmer Method in four years into schools representing probably more than half of the enrollment of the elementary schools in the city. The exact number of pupils supplied in those four years was 285,605. All this was accomplished in the face of the strongest opposition from the largest concerns publishing textbooks.

In the above quotation, Mr. Palmer refers to one principle that was responsible for a large part of the success of his plan for teaching handwriting. He absolutely refused to be responsible for the writing in any school unless the teachers were first qualified as experts in the style of writing they were required to teach. He frequently said: "Teachers cannot teach what they do not know," and this was the key to his whole philosophy of the teaching of handwriting. His own enthusiasm, which was so evident in his own writing and teaching, was an energetic characteristic he sought to develop in his students. He tried to contact educational institutions in every direction of America in his efforts to reach the greatest number of people. The extent of his correspondence was enormous, and after the establishment of the Palmer Method Summer Schools, he made a habit of visiting each school, as well as many other institutions where special handwriting courses were being given. The result was that literally thousands of teachers were filled with his own enthusiasm, and from the ranks of these came the handwriting supervisors and specialists who were destined to carry the new method into every community throughout the land. Truly, this was not a short-lived trend of writing. In 1915 Mr.

Palmer's system received the Gold Medal at the Panama Pacific Exposition in San Francisco From the time of the adoption of the Palmer Method in New York City in 1905, the old Copy Book System which advocated whole-arm movement was doomed. A permanent office of the A. N. Palmer Company was opened in New York City that same year, and under the laws of his company's home state, Iowa , Mr. Palmer's business was formed as a corporation on February 25, 1905 . With increasing business interests throughout the years, A. N. Palmer remained essentially a teacher, never losing his touch with the classroom. He was an educator and publisher of uncommon energy. On November 16, 1927 , just one month prior to his 67th birthday, he died after a brief illness. At the time of his death, over 25 million Americans had learned writing from the Palmer Method of Penmanship. Palmer Method - Factbites Palmer Method - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The Palmer Method of penmanship instruction was developed and promoted by Austin Palmer in the early 1900's and soon became the most popular handwriting system in the United States.

The method garned awards, as well: in 1915, the Gold Medal at the Panama Pacific Exposition in San Francisco, California; and in 1926, the Gold Medal at the Sesquicentennial Exposition in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Palmer's style fell out of popularity and was replaced by a movement to teach children manuscript before teaching them cursive, in order to provide them with a means of written expression as soon as possible and thus develop writing skills. en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Palmer_Method (295 words) Chiropractic: The Palmer Method (1963) Needless to say, the special technique taught at the Palmer School for correcting misalignment of the atlas, and the introduction of patented devices designed to locate misaligned vertebrae and nerve interference, proved to be a boon for the Palmer School. To hear the arguments of Palmer, one would think the better-educated man is worse off for his education, and that all educated men are "brain-washed" -- none able to think for themselves and intelligently apply the principles of a broad education.

The Palmer School of Chiropractic, like the majority of chiropractic schools, does not teach the general use of physiotherapy but sticks primarily to the use of "treatment by hands only," which, as 'we noted earlier, is called "straight chiropractic." None of the chiropractic schools teach medical and surgical methods. /05RB/BCC/11a.html (1976 words) Palmer's five speech habits Harold E. Palmer, whose method is the source of Stinchfield's five speech habits, was a British educator who specialized in the teaching of English as a foreign language. Palmer preferred the use of an "oral method " in which language was taught through oral exercises and language immersion rather than through a "direct approach" involving "book-work and writing, with a minimum of oral work" (Palmer, 1926, The oral method p. Palmer, H. The oral method of teaching languages: A monograph on conversational methods together with a full description and abundant examples of fifty appropriate forms of work (Third impression ed.).

/~duchan/history_subpages/palmerhabits.html (609 words) Chiropractic: The Palmer Method (1963) Yet, in the writings of Carver, a method of treatment different from that used by Palmer is recommended for the cure of tuberculosis. And it is a clinical fact that in nearly all affections involving the structures of the head and face, such as the ear, eye, nose, and throat, subluxations exist, and that, moreover, adjustment of subluxated vertebrae is followed by a cure or improvement of such disease. Regardless of the proposed simplicity of the chiropractic method of diagnosis, it is important to remember that spinal nerves, emanating from segments of the spine, primarily supply the mechanical structures of the body (such as the muscles) and not the body's internal organs (such as the liver or kidneys). /05RB/BCC/11.html (2219 words) Palmer method handwriting (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-24) FYI, In the 1920's the Palmer method was introduced palmer method handwriting.

Spencerian handwriting became the dominant method of script in the late 19th century, palmer method handwriting. The Palmer method has obviously stood her in good stead palmer method handwriting. /palmer+method+handwriting.html (330 words) Tracing the roots of illegible handwriting (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-24) Palmer's method caught the fancy of an order of nuns, the Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, whose mother house is in Monroe, Mich. With his teachings in textbook form, the Palmer Method grew at an astonishing rate beginning in 1900. While Palmer had wide acceptance in Catholic schools, he had a harder time with the public schools, but did get a foothold in New York City. Tamara Plakins Thornton, author of "Handwriting in America: A Cultural History," views the proliferation of the Palmer Method in the early 20th century as a way to develop well-behaved citizens and help immigrants assimilate.

/pg/06103/681741-294.stm (1420 words) Massage Therapy Schools - The Palmer Institute of Massage & Bodywork - Metrowest Massachusetts, MA The Palmer Institute of Massage & Bodywork is a member of the Associated Bodywork and Massage Professionals (ABMP), the American Massage Therapy Association (AMTA), National Certification Board for Therapeutic Massage & Bodywork (NCBTMB), and is Licensed by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Department of Education. She is the author of “The Palmer Method of Massage”, a step by step guide to Massage Therapy. When she is not teaching at the Palmer Institute, she spends much of her time in the woods, or traveling in the developing world. /visit_the_school.htm (1545 words) Is Blair a 'Palmer method'? I am pretty sure this is pure Palmer school grad chauvinism - a way for Palmer alumni to publicly pretend that going to Palmer is superior to going to other chiro schools - which I think is pure bunk - but I didn't go to Palmer - so I am biased - LOL.

BJ's son - DD's grandson - the late David Daniel Palmer, DC - was the Palmer College president who resurrected his grandfather's (DD's) ideas after his dad (BJ) died.. Anyway, Blair Upper Cervical Technique might be considered (by some) to be part of "the Palmer method." And BTW, Palmer alumni who promote "the Palmer method" - and who promote Palmer as the alumni association - were recently disowned by Vicki Palmer and the Palmer Board of Trustees. /message350276.html (2183 words) Peak Performance Chiropractic Method: The Gentle Art of NUCCA NUCCA has evolved from the work of chiropractic pioneers like B.J. Palmer, famous for the “Palmer Method.” He sought to revolutionize health care with a new perspective: that health comes from within, and that a lack of normal nerve function results in a lack of health that is expressed as disease. The NUCCA method frees the nervous system of interference for optimal communication using the least amount of force possible. The NUCCA method holds that the brainstem and atlas vertebra are key to the balance of the entire spine.

/method/index.html (258 words) [No title] In the text, "dialectic method" is a translation Hiro found of a phrase used to describe the essential teaching method Naganuma learned from Palmer. Among other projects, he founded a school in Tokyo where Japanese is taught using the "Naganuma Method" to this day. method was like, with me as the teacher and him as the student. /~smore/naganuma.html (1657 words) eBay - palmer method, Pens Writing Instruments, Pinbacks, Nodders, Lunchboxes items on eBay.com (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-24) Palmer Method Cursive Writing - Transition or Grade 3 ( PALMER'S CLASS METHOD OF THE RUDIMENTS OF MUSIC 1896 Vintage Palmer Method Handwriting 6 th Grade Schoolbook search-desc.ebay.com /search/search.dll?query=palmer+method&newu=1&... (369 words) Palmer - new and used books PALMER'S INDEX TO THE TIMES NEWSPAPER 1932: WINTER QUARTER - JANUARY 1 TO MARCH 31.

Palmer, A. Catalogue of an exhibition of drawings, etchings & woodcuts by Samuel Palmer and other disciples of William Blake. Palmer, A. - Catalogue of an exhibition of drawings, etchings & woodcuts by Samuel Palmer and other disciples of William Blake. /A-palmer (503 words) The Norman Transcript - Lefty gets left behind The other facet of this "problem" is few public schools teach handwriting by way of the Palmer Method, which fell out of favor because it involved drill. The Palmer Method, in combination with high expectations, worked for everyone (save those children who were destined to become physicians). If you can't afford a tutor, and feel competent to do the teaching yourself (It's not rocket science!!!), buy a Palmer Method workbook, some ruled primary penmanship pads, and a set of the Palmer Method cards. normantranscript.com /features/local_story_104003945?keyword=topstory (733 words) Professional Football Researchers Association- Pro Football History Expressing the method in an adjusted yards per attempt notation would have all the improvements over the old systems that the present system has.

In other cases, like at the end of a half, the interception could cost nothing at all, so a better rating could be achieved by taking each individual interception (or touchdown) into account. However, given simply overall data, I believe the proposed method more accurately measures passing ability than one currently being used. /articles/frpage.cfm?topic=palmmeth (750 words) sci.med: Re: Is Blair a 'Palmer method'? (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-24) In reply to: Todd Gastaldo: "Is Blair a 'Palmer method'?" Next in thread: Happy Dog: "Re: Is Blair a 'Palmer method'?" Reply: Todd Gastaldo: "Re: Is Blair a 'Palmer method'?" sci.tech-archive.net /Archive/sci.med/2005-03/2044.html (341 words) The Palmer Method of Homebrewing - Beer and Brewing Is there a mad scientist brewing in your soul? Do you have the creative, artistic spirit of the sculptor, Rodin? Welcome to the world of homebrewing! Hops are used for bittering, flavoring and finishing.

There are two comprehensive tables of hops varieties — one for Bittering Hops, and one for Aroma Hops. Characteristics of each are notated. For those of us who like to taste our characteristics, he gives examples of beers that use each type. Here’s the best part: Palmer gives you a crash course to release you at the starting gate with engines roaring. Then, while you are waiting 2 weeks for your magical brew to “condition”, you can wade through all the technical information. By then, you will be totally infected with Brew Master-ology! Welcome to Zymurgy! /ArticlesP/art26589.asp (236 words) Jeff Duntemann's ContraPositive Diary Marie Bernard was having a good one on me. Back in sixth grade in 1963, this elderly, sardonic nun had drilled us mercilessly in something called The Palmer Method of Business Handwriting, expressed in a bright red landscape-format workbook that looked like it had come out of the 1930s. It was actually 1912.) The Palmer Method was not just instruction in the shapes of cursive letters.

The gist of the Method was that you rested your writing arm on the pad of muscle halfway between your wrist and your elbow, and used motions of your arm and shoulder to form the characters, without moving your hand at all. /august2005.htm (11978 words) University of South Carolina Libraries - Rare Books and Special Collections "Born to Please": The Art of Handwriting Instruction The Spencerian and Palmer Methods H. C. (Henry Caleb) Spencer. Spencerian Key to Practical Penmanship. Prepared for the “Spencerian Authors” by H. C. Spencer. New York and Chicago: Ivison, Blakeman, Taylor & Co., 1866. William Savage Textbook Collection. – Platt R. Spencer developed his “Spencerian” method while teaching handwriting in the early nineteenth century. Instead of teaching penmanship as a series of stylized, memorized letters, Spencer broke down letters into common elements based on natural forms, which could then be combined to form individual letters. His first published work was in 1848, and after his death, his family continued in the business, which essentially dominated penmanship instruction in America after the Civil War.

Books such as this 1866 edition were successfully marketed by members of the Spencer family to schools across the country. A. N. (Austin Norman) Palmer, 1859-1927. The Palmer Method of Business Writing: A Series of Self-Teaching in Rapid, Plain, Unshaded, Coarse-Pen, Muscular Movement Writing For Use in all Schools, Public or Private, Where an Easy and Legible Handwriting is the Object Sought; Also for the Home Learner. Cedar Rapids: A. N. Palmer Co., 1915. Gift of Elizabeth Newton. – The Palmer Method was the second major handwriting technique popularized in the late nineteenth century, fully displacing Spencerian handwriting by the 1890s. Palmer found the Spencerian method too slow, ornamental, and inefficient, especially in the way it required lifting the pen off the page. If one tried to write too rapidly using a Spencerian script, clarity quickly deteriorated. To compensate, Palmer developed a quicker, simplified and more pragmatic script more attuned to business writing than creating “pretty” letterforms.

Palmer allied his philosophy with the muscular Christianity movement of the late nineteenth century, and his business empire of correspondence schools, pads and copybooks, manuals and training materials grew quickly to be the dominant tradition in American handwriting instruction from the 1890s through the Progressive era. Palmer Method Cursive Writing: Grade 5. Centennial Edition. Schaumberg IL: A. N. Palmer Co, 1984. William Savage Textbook Collection. – Proof to the longevity and influence of A. N. Palmer’s methods, the company which bears his name existed into the 1980s. By the mid-twentieth century, the Palmer method lost favor in the schools. Handwriting instruction moved to first teaching manuscript hand, or block printing, at an early age, followed by teaching cursive writing once printing has been mastered. The Palmer company – here in its Centenntial edition – attempted to adapt its methodology to changing pedagogical needs in creating new copybooks such as this one. A Reaction to the Palmer Method Mary Monica Waterhouse Bridges. A New Handwriting for Teachers. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1899.

– In this elaborately-produced edition with lithographs and copperplate engravings, Bridges makes a case for revisiting the great sixteenth and seventeenth century Italian letterforms and incorporating them into a new hand to be taught in the schools. “It is certainly desirable that there should be more good models for slow writing, as there is abundant occasion for its use….It would be a good thing if reproductions of these…were hung in schools, not only to give to children the history of their own Alphabet, but also to show them how lovely a thing handwriting can be.” Emily Dickinson – Spencerian? P. J. Croft., ed. Autograph Poetry in the English Language. Facsimiles of Original Manuscripts from the Fourteenth Century to the Twentieth Century. Volume II. London: Cassell, 1973. – Dickinson’s very distinctive oblique, looping script, shown here in two 1861 manuscripts addressed to her sister-in-law, illustrate several problems with which her posthumous publishers and scholarly editors have had to contend.

As she never intended her verse for a wide audience (the vast majority was collected and published only after her death), her capitalization and especially her punctuation style remains ideosyncratic, and heavily influences how one reads the poems. Thomas Cooper Library owns one manuscript letter of Dickinson’s, part of the William R. Bailey Collection of American Literature. “Very large capital letters are in bad taste for ladies” Mrs. Manners (Cornelia Holroyd Bradley Richards, 1822-1892). At Home and Abroad; Or, How to Behave. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1869. – This antebellum etiquette manual (the first edition appeared in 1854) was intended for both young ladies and gentlemen, in an era when many, if not most, similar texts were divided along gender lines. Mrs. Manners here gives detailed, prescriptive advice on behavior in most social situations, and devotes several chapters to the writing of letters and their forms.

She expresses strong opinions on ink (blue black, not red black or brown black), paper (white, not blue), and letterforms (“gentlemen are generally, now, avoiding the huge capitals and great flourishes, which were once esteemed to be so admirable”). This copy is one of three known copies of this edition. The Palmer Method of Business Writing book by A N Palmer | 6 available editions | Alibris Books Business & Economics This vintage text contains a comprehensive guide to the 'Palmer' method of business writing, being a series of self-teaching lessons in rapid, plain, unshaded, coarse-pen writing. 'The Palmer Method' was developed by Austin Palmer in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It was primarily designed to be a simplified version of the 'Spencerian Method', the major standardized system of handwriting since the mid-nineteenth century, and quickly became the most popular handwriting system in America. This text will ... Read More This vintage text contains a comprehensive guide to the 'Palmer' method of business writing, being a series of self-teaching lessons in rapid, plain, unshaded, coarse-pen writing. 'The Palmer Method' was developed by Austin Palmer in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

It was primarily designed to be a simplified version of the 'Spencerian Method', the major standardized system of handwriting since the mid-nineteenth century, and quickly became the most popular handwriting system in America. This text will appeal to those with a keen interest in the history and development of penmanship, and it is a book not to be missed by the discerning collector. Many antiquarian books such as this are increasingly rare and expensive, and it is with this in mind that we are republishing this vintage book now in an affordable, modern edition complete with a new prefatory biography of the author. Read Less High Rated Sellers Only (Above 4 stars) Highest Rated Sellers Only (5 stars only) Shipping Attribute Palmer Method : Wikis (The Full Wiki) The Full Wiki More info on Palmer Method Wikis Note: Many of our articles have direct quotes from sources you can cite, within the Wikipedia article! This article doesn't yet, but we're working on it! See more info or our list of citable articles . Encyclopedia From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The Palmer Method of penmanship instruction was developed and promoted by Austin Palmer in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

It soon became the most popular handwriting system in the United States . Under it, students were taught to adopt a uniform system of cursive writing with rhythmic motions. Left-handers were usually made to use their right hands. The method developed around 1888 and was introduced in his 1894 book Palmer's Guide to Business Writing . Palmer's method involved 'muscle motion' in which the more proximal muscles of the arm were used for movement, rather than allowing the fingers to move in writing. In spite of opposition from the major textbook companies, this textbook enjoyed great success: in 1912, 1,000,000 copies were sold throughout the country. The method garnered awards, including the Gold Medal at the Panama Pacific Exposition in San Francisco , California , in 1915, and the Gold Medal at the Sesquicentennial Exposition in Philadelphia , Pennsylvania , in 1926. Palmer's style fell out of popularity and was replaced by a movement to teach children manuscript before teaching them cursive , in order to provide them with a means of written expression as soon as possible and thus develop writing skills.

This effectively reduced the emphasis on handwriting in elementary school and is sometimes popularly said by some in the general public to have been responsible for a decrease in the overall legibility of modern American handwriting. The style is now experiencing renewed attention, from those working in facilitated communication for the disabled . Because the Palmer method has a focus on shoulder and arm movements, it is helpful for many with limited movement of the fingers. References Thornton, Tamara Plakins. Handwriting in America. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996. ISBN 0-300-06477-2 Gard, Caroll. Writing Past and Present. New York: A. N. Palmer Company, 1937 ISBN none

Question: The ‘Palmer Method’, developed by Austin Palmer, is a system used in what?
Answer: Handwriting