taught in schools Civil War era

Teaching methods and history

Books used in North America

Platt Rogers Spencer is known as the "Father of American Penmanship". His writing system was first published in 1848, in his book Spencer and Rice's System of Business and Ladies' Penmanship. The most popular Spencerian manual was The Spencerian Key to Practical Penmanship, published by his sons in 1866. This "Spencerian Method" was taught in American schools until the mid 1920s, and has seen a resurgence in recent years through charter schools and home schooling using revised Spencerian books and methods produced by former IAMPETH president Michael Sull (* 1946).

George A. Gaskell (1845–1886), a student of Spencer, authored two popular books on penmanship, Gaskell's Complete Compendium of Elegant Writing and The Penman's Hand-Book (1883).

The dominant copybooks in North America at the start of the 20th century included those produced by A. N. Palmer, a student of Gaskell, who developed the Palmer Method, as reflected in his Palmer's Guide to Business Writing, published in 1894. Also popular was Zaner-Bloser Script, introduced by Charles Paxton Zaner (15 February 1864 – 1 December 1918) and Elmer Ward Bloser (6 November 1865 – 1929) of the Zanerian Business College. The A. N. Palmer Company folded in the early 1980s. Zaner-Bloser continues, and accounts for roughly 40% of handwriting textbook sales in the USA.

Later styles include D'Nealian Script and Getty-Dubay — both published in 1976. D'Nealian (named after its designer, Donald Neal Thurber) is a derivative of the Palmer Method and uses a slanted, serifed manuscript form followed by an entirely joined and looped cursive of the typical American variety. Getty-Dubay (named after its designers, Barbara Getty and Inga Dubay) is an Italic hand and uses a slightly slanted, optionally serifed Italic manuscript followed by a partially joined, unlooped Italic cursive with letter-forms similar to those of Italic manuscript. D'Nealian accounts for 40% of American handwriting textbook sales; Getty-Dubay, which accounted for less than 1% of American handwriting textbook sales in 1995, by 2003 had come to account for 7% of American handwriting textbook sales.

Other copybook styles comprise more than 200 published textbook curricula, many differing from these and from each other in a variety of ways.