[1] Platt Rogers Spencer, “Origin and Progress of the Art of Writing, or Chirography,” in Spencerian Key to Practical Penmanship, by The Spencerian Authors, (New York, Ivison, Phinney, Blakeman, & Co, 1866), 158.

[2] For an account of the Jericho Log Seminary, see Michael R. Sull, Spencerian Script and Ornamental Penmanship, Volume One, (Columbus, LDG Publishing, 1989), 113-114.

[3] Spencer, Origin and Progress, 165.

[4] Ibid., 166.

[5] Ibid., 162.

[6] Ibid., 167.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Sull, Spencerian Script, 20.

[9] Ibid.

[10] Spencer, Origin and Progress, 167.

[11] Ibid., 13.

[12] Charles Paxton Zaner, The Arm Movement Method of Rapid Writing, (Columbus, Zaner & Bloser, 1904), 3.

[13] Charles Paxton Zaner, Lessons in Ornamental Penmanship, (Columbus, Zaner & Bloser, 1909), 8.

[14] Ray Nash, American Penmanship 1800-1850: A History of Writing and a Bibliography of Copybooks from Jenkins to Spencer, (Worcester, American Antiquarian Society, 1969), 65.

[15] For more information on Foster’s early adherence and subsequent rejection of the Carstairian system, see Nash, American Penmanship, 30-31, 34, 63.

[16] Ibid., 30-31.

[17] Spencer, Origin and Progress, 158.

[18] see Sull, Spencerian Script, 110, 112; Ross Green, introduction to An Elegant Hand: The Golden Age of American Penmanship & Calligraphy, by William E. Henning (New Castle, Oak Knoll Press, 2002), 2; Henning, An Elegant Hand, 11.

[19] Spencer, Origin and Progress, 164-165.

[20] Green, introduction to An Elegant Hand, 3.

[21] Ibid., 3.

[22] The full title is The Flying Pen, or New and Universal Method for Teaching the Art of Writing, by a system of lines and angles.

[23] Green, intro to An Elegant Hand, 2.

[24] see James Henry Lewis, The Royal Lewisian System of Penmanship, (London, 1816), ix, xxiii-xxxi.

[25] Green, intro to An Elegant Hand, 4, note 6.

[26] Stanley Morison, American Copybooks: an Outline of their History from Colonial to Modern times, (Philadelphia, Wm. F. Fell Co. Printers, 1951), 28.

[27] “Positions and Movement While Writing.” Penman’s Art Journal 1, no. 1 (1877): 4.

[28] See Green, intro to An Elegant Hand, 2; Nash, American Penmanship, 30-32, 34.

[29] Sull, Spencerian Script, 112.

[30] Green, intro to An Elegant Hand, 3.

[31] quoted in Nash, American Penmanship, 56.

[32] Ibid., 59-60.

[33] Morison, American Copybooks, 32-35.

[34] Ibid., 32.

[35] For more information about the troubles within the Payson, Dunton, and Scribner firm, see Nash, American Penmanship, 60-61, note 45.

[36] Morison, American Copybooks, 39-40.

[37] Spencerian Authors, Spencerian Key, 9.

[38] Rathbun, George R. “Spencerian Penmanship.” Penman’s Art Journal 1, no. 7 (1877): 1.

[39] Morison, American Copybooks, 41.

[40] Sull, Spencerian Script, 152, footnote.