A. N. Palmer

A. N. Palmer (1860–1927), Austin Norman Palmer, was an American teacher of penmanship. Working at a business college in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in the 1880s, he developed a style of rapid, plain handwriting driven by the muscles of the arm rather than the fingers, in contrast to the ornate Spencerian script then taught. He promoted it through his journal, The American Penman, and through textbooks culminating in The Palmer Method of Business Writing. Adopted by school systems across the country, the Palmer Method became the standard way American children learned to write by hand for much of the twentieth century.