This past April, LHF had the privilege of hosting a master Spencerian penman, Mr. Michael Sull of Mission, Kansas. We are deeply grateful to the Atlantic Bottling Company for their generous grant making Michael’s visit to LHF possible. Michael Sull is one of the few remaining links to the grand pen masters of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Sull travels all over the world to teach Spencerian writing and hosts a venerated writing retreat in Ohio every year.
A long time calligrapher, Michael discovered Spencerian writing when he met an elderly master penman, then in his nineties. This gentleman was one of the last living men trained at an actual Spencerian penmanship school. Michael’s work with this gentleman gave him the ability to preserve and pass on the Spencerian writing technique.
Spencerian handwriting is a beautiful cursive writing style popular in the mid-19th century. It was developed by Platt Rogers Spencer in 1848 and was the first truly American writing style. Up to the 1840s, Americans took their writing style from English Copperplate. Copperplate was used in business especially and had no tolerance for self-expression. Every penman strove to look just like every other penman. Spencer felt Americans needed to break with this formal writing. Inspired by the Great Lakes in his native area of Ohio, Spencer took his cues from the curves found in nature. He observed that nothing in nature is truly straight. Everything has curves, from ripples in water to fluttering leaves in the wind. He incorporated this concept into cursive writing. He felt handwriting should flow and be an expression of an individual, just as nature does not create two exact copies of anything, writing should not be rigid and exact. Spencer designed his handwriting style to make writing easy and elegant. His students adapted the basic principles and created elaborate art pieces by flourishing and extending the curves.
Spencer spent his life traveling and teaching his style of handwriting. His sons published the Spencerian Key to Practical Penmanship in 1866. The Coca-Cola logo is written in this style of script. The Spencerian style was popular into the early twentieth century. At that time, Austin Palmer, one of Spencer’s students, made changes to the Spencerian style and published his own book. This “Palmer Method” became the standard for handwriting education in elementary schools.
Mr. Sull’s visit provided LHF staff an opportunity to learn about this vanishing art form. Michael began with a presentation about the history of Spencerian writing to 24 of LHF's staff and volunteers. Through slides and actual artifacts, Mr. Sull shared the story of how Spencerian writing came to be, flourished, changed, and survived.
Sull was willing to share his truly amazing collection of period writing examples, including many given to him by families of the venerated penmen—even some pieces done by Spencer himself. Following the evening presentation, Sull taught a two-day workshop attended by 19 members of LHF's staff.
We learned the basics of Spencerian philosophy, each of the letters, and how to do flourishes—an ornamental drawing form based on the Spencerian technique. We definitely came to respect the practice needed to create this beautiful handwriting. The first day was spent on how to properly hold the pen, angle the paper, dip in the ink, the basic curves, and the lower case letters. Day two was then spent on the upper case letters (many of which have more than one possible way to write them) and flourishes.
By the end of the workshop each staff member felt a sense of accomplishment and also had a very nice example of their name written by Mr. Sull for them. In the 19th century, master penmen would leave a sample for their student, typically their name, to look at and practice. Mr. Sull left each of us our name in fine script to marvel at and practice. It was fascinating to watch Michael write.
He didn’t seem to have any preplanning in his designs and effortlessly we watched our names, birds, quill pens, wheat shafts and flowers appear on the page like magic. Only at LHF can you watch a man write a Spencerian flourished letter “M” on a board and hear an entire room of people gasp in amazement.
We felt so fortunate to learn the real style from a real master. Many sites are planning on incorporating the Spencerian practices into their site activity, especially at the School house, Flynn Home and 1900 Farm. The letters and writing of the past has been missed at our historic sites and we are very excited about adding it back in.
As much as we appreciated him, Michael Sull actually wrote a thank you letter to LHF, in Spencerian of course, expressing his appreciation for the opportunity to come and work with us. He feels that "Living History Farms is a marvelous, magical place- it seems that the past comes alive because the past never left- time has stood still and 'the past' is still the present." He also says, "Please continue your daily (yes! - daily) practice."
--- Written by Janet & Melinda
