Whisper-Thin Cursive from the Musty Corners of Antique Stores • Carolyn Porter

BY CAROLYN PORTER

I collect old handwriting specimens. They are impractical things to buy, but I would rather acquire a whisper-thin piece of paper filled with distinct cursive than buy a new pair of shoes, a new handbag, a new anything else. 

My collection isn’t limited to a specific kind of script. That is, I’m not exclusively drawn to Spencerian or Copperplate. The cards, letters, ledger pages, and envelopes I’ve rescued from musty corners of antique stores or found online aren’t tethered to a specific era either, though I often find myself drawn to handwriting from the late 1800s. The pages that catch my eye seem to hold hints of intriguing moments from lives long since passed. 

Sometimes the content doesn’t turn out to be compelling; a few acquisitions, however, have contained surprisingly provocative and emotional content. Here are ten of my favorite handwriting specimens from my collection, with a little information on each one.
 

Diary of Civil War veteran C.E. Treadwell, 1881

The loopy handwriting in this diary was appealing, but I purchased it largely because the detailed ledger pages that recorded Treadwell’s daily living expenses were fascinating: cigar 15¢, dinner $1.17, washing 65¢, neck tie 52¢. Most daily diary entries recorded the weather and mundane business tasks (from what I could gather, Treadwell sold maps), but it was a surprise to read the diary entry from Saturday, July 2, 1881: “President Garfield shot by an assassin...” The following weeks and months recorded improvements and setbacks in Garfield’s condition until his death on September 19.

Hartford County Jail, 1851

I do not know much about this ledger, but if I had to guess, I would say this page recorded the Hartford County Jail’s credit account at a local pharmacy or mercantile. The ledger records the purchase of various supplies and ingredients—ointment, camphor, bottle eye water, Epsom salts, adhesive, alum, soap—along with a few unexpected purchases: brandy, perfume and sarsaparilla.

Envelope addressed to DeMoulin Bros. & Co, Greenville, Ill., USA, 1918

It’s not uncommon to see wild calligraphic flourishes under signatures. 19th-century lawyers, in particular, had a propensity for boldly flourishing their name. This is one of the few times an envelope includes decorative flourishing. I also love the bright violet ink.

To the Overseers of the Poor, Bingham, Maine, 1843

While this may look like an envelope, it is actually a single piece of paper, folded into itself then sealed with red wax. The letter was written by a lawyer, denying the request to pay overdue expenses of Mehitable Fogg. Furthermore, the lawyer explained no one would come to claim her—an option the Overseers of the Poor apparently proposed the previous month in lieu of paying Mehitable’s expenses.

“Money is scarce...” 1843

“Dear Brother,” the letter begins. The paragraphs that follow seem to be a straight-forward accounting of life’s hardships, written, remarkably, without self-pity. Some lines are hard to decipher, though one particular phrase is unmistakable: “Money is scarce.”

Invoice “Passementerie pour Ameublements,” 1851

Similar to the letter written to the Overseers of the Poor, this is a single sheet of paper that was folded into itself then sealed shut. In this case, the letter is an invoice for “Passementerie pour Ameublements,” or Trimmings for Furniture. The thing that first caught my eye was the incredible delicacy of the handwriting. The scratchy curl on the “M” is only about a third as thick as a piece of sewing thread.

“Whatever worth doing at all is worth doing well,” 1862

What I find funny about this page is that the handwriting isn’t particularly good. It makes me wonder how the writer, a student possibly, felt about this handwriting assignment. I imagine the apathetic handwriting might be a direct reflection of the forced words promoting quality and craftsmanship.

Sepia practice pages, written in French, date unknown

In contrast to the previous specimen, this book, which is made of thirty or so oversize, tissue-thin pages, is filled with exacting cursive script. “Nous songions a rendre notre amitie eternelle en nous préparant nous mèmes a la bien heureuse immortalité et en nous détachant ie plus en plus de l’amour de la chose de la terre développemement interruption,” line after line reads, which translates to: “We were thinking of making our friendship eternal by preparing ourselves for the very happy immortality and by detaching ourselves more and more from the love of the earthly matter, which was in a state of discord.” This writing is remarkably large for nibbed pen writing; “développemement” measures a whopping 1.5” from the top of the “l” to the bottom of the “p.” 

A collection of poems by John Milton, 1826

The person who wrote this must have been a Milton fan, as the 17th-century Englishman’s poems have been transcribed onto these fragile papers. The original eBay listing showed full-page photos of the string-bound book. The day the specimen arrived, my heart sank. The pages seemed to be photocopied—a horizontal glitch in some words seemed to give that away. The writing was tiny, and it was impossible to examine the glitch without magnification. Filled with anger at the thought of being duped, I grabbed a loupe and gasped out loud when I realized the pages were original. And it wasn’t a glitch in the writing—it was decorative ornamentation in the middle of each letter! To give you a sense of the small scale of this writing, the letter “l” in “Milton” is a centimeter tall, which means the tiny ornaments are smaller than a millimeter. I’ve shown this specimen to a few type friends, and as they looked through the magnification loupe, they invariably gasped as well.

Letter by Marcel Heuzé, mailed from a German labor camp, 1943

Admittedly, I have a very different relationship with this piece of paper than any of the other specimens in this list. I found this letter at an antique store near my home in Minnesota, and designed a font based on Marcel Heuzé’s beautiful, rolling script. When I first saw this handwritten specimen, I was immediately enamored by the sweeping “M” and the sense these letters were special. And indeed they were. Marcel, a Frenchman, had mailed them from a Nazi labor camp in Berlin. The pages were filled with tender words of affection and longing for his wife and three young daughters combined with testimony of survival inside the camp. After having one letter translated into English, I embarked on an obsessive search for answers to the questions: Who was Marcel? Why had he been in Berlin? Why had his letters been for sale at an antique store in Minnesota? And the biggest question: Did he survive to be reunited with his beloved wife and daughters?

Carolyn Porter is a graphic designer and self-professed typography geek who designed P22 Marcel Script. Released in 2014, this font has garnered four international honors, including the prestigious Certificate for Typographic Excellence from the New York Type Director’s Club, typeface competitions by Communication Arts and Print magazines, and was a selection for the 2015 Project Passion exhibition. “Marcel’s Letters: A Font and the Search for One Man’s Fate” combines the story of the design of the font based on Marcel Heuzé’s beautiful handwriting with Porter’s obsessive search for answers. The book was released in June, 2017 by Skyhorse Publishing. Learn more at www.carolyn-porter.com.