Modern Handwriting Methods

Palmer Method: Invented by Austin Palmer in the early Twentieth Century, not copyrighted.

Zaner-Bloser Method:  Invented by Charles Paxton Zaner at about the same time as Palmer's method, but sold to Bloser and under continuous copyright since its invention.

D'Nealian Method:  Invented in the early '60s by Don Neal Thurber as a hybrid or transitional script between block manuscript and cursive manuscript letter forms.

        In the advertisement below, note the importance attached by the Palmer method to the positioning of the hand, the trunk of the body, and the feet.  The whole body was part of the handwriting.  Medieval illustrations of scribes (e.g., Drogin's Eadwine on p. 11) write on a nearly vertical page held on a lectern facing them, obviously indicating a far different bodily stance toward the text they were copying and reproducing.

        Some interesting, though also financially "interested,"  research sources on modern handwriting instruction are available from the Zaner-Bloser web site.   Bill Morelan's doctoral dissertation web site also ends in a short but useful bibliography of handwriting research.  Robert Hurford has scanned the complete text of Charles Paxton Zaner's The New Zanerian Alphabets: An Instructor in Roundhand, Engrossing, Designing, etc. (Columbus, Ohio: Zaner and Bloser, 1900), which illustrates a large number of Zaner's hands.