Early American Handwriting
Purpose
Handwritten colonial documents provide a wealth of information. For colonists, the way a person wrote conveyed not only social status, but also revealed one's gender and occupation.
The goal of this game is to decode the explicit messages of handwritten documents. You will learn to recognize some commonly confused letters. When you are done with this game visit the Early Printing & Handwriting Collection to practice reading longer passages from colonial manuscripts and learn more about the implicit messages colonists were sending.
Instructions
To practice identifying individual letters, begin the game and then click a manuscript letter*. Next, click the print letter to which you believe it corresponds. To see the answers for all the letters click on ANSWERS at the top of the screen. Click START to begin!
* Manuscript letters used with permission from:
Reading early American handwriting, by Kip Sperry
Baltimore, Md. : Genealogical Pub. Co., c1998