President Abraham Lincoln’s 1864 Cursive Handwriting – A Sample

Abraham Lincoln's Letter of 15 February 1864

I came across this interesting letter of Abraham Lincoln’s, which is currently being auctioned off at Sotheby’s.  It is currently valued at between U.S. $250,000 and $350,000.  I really enjoyed seeing it!

Since  I teach cursive writing, I’m always interested in looking at handwriting samples.  I showed this lettter to my daughter to see if she could read it.  She could read some of it.  However,  some certain specific flaws, paticularly with proportion of letters, make certain bit hard to read (especially if you’re not used to deciphering handwriting, as most teachers are used to doing).

Here are some examples of problems in Lincoln’s cursive writing.  Most d‘’s are missing their tall stems (for example, look at the words understand and husband’s, both in the second line of the body of the letter).  His y’s at the end of words look almost like u’s with a scratchy tail (see the word enemy in the fourth line of the body).  Most of his l’s are no taller than his other small letters (see the word helped at the end of the third line of the body, where the l should be as tall as the h, but intead, barely surpasses the e in height).

Lincoln’s slant, however, is good (correct amount of forward slant).

This particular sample of cursive writing would not pass my third-grade class.  However, it might not be his “best” writing–few of us use our “best” writing on a daily basis, as it’s too time-consuming.

The reason I’m so particular in teaching handwriting (I’m sure some of you are wondering) is that in our American school, the teachers often change from year-to-year.  Sometimes we never know who we’ll get until almost the last minute, or even what country they will be from.  (We’ve had teachers from English-speaking counries all around the world.)  Often the teachers from other countries don’t even know cursive (much less American cursive), and sometimes the younger teachers now arriving from America don’t know cursive either!  So of course they don’t give their classes any instruction in it, nor do they use it on the board.  So whatever cursive my kids get in Grade 3 is often all they will get, ever.  That’s why I teach them well in Grade 3, and get them to a standard that will serve them the rest of their lives before they leave my class.

Eileen

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