What does handwriting have to do with historical research?

In this activity, students will look at a page from The West India Trading Company, Copenhagen Branch Ship's register for "St. Thomas" and attempt to transcribe letters/words from the ship’s register. They will discuss how writing instruments have changed and how writing instruments affect writing. They will write a sentence in gothic script and their current writing and compare them, including how the sentence might be written differently if they were texting it. They will consider whether they are able to read the 200+ year old document related to St. Thomas, and whether people in the future will be able to read what they write today.

Activity Type
Written Document
Historical Period:
Danish West Indies
Keywords
Changes in Technology

About

Many historical documents from past centuries are handwritten. How we write differs by country, and in general it has changed over time. We have come from using an ornate script to not using script writing, or handwriting, much at all. Today we use keyboarding to write. A historian or researcher must however read the old script writing if they hope to use the material to tell the stories of the past. Reading the script and re-writing in letters we are familiar with today, like typed letters, is called transcription. Transcription is an activity that many museums and archives are using today to help make historical documents accessible to a wider audience.

Primary Sources in this Activity

Item:
The West India Trading Company, Copenhagen Branch Ship's register for "St. Thomas" (1783-1785)
Author / Artist:
Government
Source:
Danish National Archives
View Primary Source

Suggested Teaching Instructions

Analyze the Primary Source

The purpose of this activity is to examine and discuss changes in handwriting and its relatedness to historical research, so analyzing the actual document is not necessary for this activity.

Class Discussion

Project Ideas

Comparing Handwriting Exercise: Load the German Kurrentschrift Handwriting Letter Sheet on a smart board or computer; or print the page to distribute to students.

Have each student handwrite the answer to the following questions using complete sentences. What is your name? How are you feeling today? They will first use the gothic script letters from the letter sheet to write those sentences. Next, they can handwrite the same sentences the way they would normally write today. Have students compare the handwriting styles and note similarities and differences. Next, ask students whether the two sentences they wrote would look any different if they were texting the answers to someone? What emoticon would they use to express how they are doing today?

Essay: Have students write a short essay answering the following questions: What does writing do for humankind? What does writing do for you? How will you make your (written) mark? Will future generations be able to read it?

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