About Platt Rogers Spencer
Platt Rogers Spencer (also Platt R. Spencer) (November 7, 1800 – May 16, 1864) was the originator of Spencerian penmanship, a popular system of cursive handwriting. He was a teacher and active in the business school movement. == Early life == Spencer was born in East Fishkill, New York, on November 7, 1800. His father, Caleb, died in 1806, and the family moved to Jefferson, Ohio, in 1810. At the time, it was an unsettled area. Sencer became passionately fond of writing. Because paper was difficult to obtain at the time, the boy wrote on birch tree bark, sand, ice, snow, the fly-leaves of his mother's Bible and, by permission of a cobbler, the leather in his shop. == Career == In 1815, he taught his first writing class and, from 1816 to 1821, he was a clerk and a book keeper and, from 1821 to 1824, he studied in law, Latin, English literature and penmanship, taught in a common school and wrote up merchants' books. In 1824, he contemplated entering college with a view to preparing for the ministry, but, due to his alcoholism (aggravated by the prevalent drinking customs), he did not. Spencer taught in New York, where he founded the Spencer Seminary in Jericho, housed in a log cabin.
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