The Lost Art of Letter Writing
June 4, 2009 by Mary Emma Allen
Filed under Home & Living
When a friend received a hand written letter from me, she quickly responded by e-mail…“Mary, I didn’t know people sent letters by postal mail anymore!” She was so pleased to receive something in the mail besides bills and junk mail, she said.
Image: sxc.hu
I still try to send postcards with hand written notes as bits of inspiration. As the cost of postage gets higher, my communications more frequently result in postcards, but I still like to send and receive these. I recall the pleasure, too, when I found letters and cards my grandmother had saved, some dating back nearly 150 years ago.
These letters were the only means of communication between families in those days before telephones and electronic communication. I also found letters my grandmother’s close friend, who lived about five miles from her, wrote. Even though they lived not far from one another, it was considered quite a distance so they saw one another infrequently. Yet they could write one another.
These letters also are treasures in art. So many are written with the careful penmanship of those days, with scrolling letters and a fine hand. Even when one wasn’t schooled in correct English, they wrote as distinctly and as carefully as they could.
Will our descendants have these treasures from us? Or will our present and future communications consist of text messages and e-mails?
I discussed with some teachers, when I was substitute teaching recently, whether letter writing would become a lost art. With text messaging, e-mail, and other modes of electronic communication, very few people put words on paper by pen or pencil any more. Also, the creative spelling that has developed, as all ages try to communicate more quickly, almost instantly, bears no resemblance to what we learn in English class.
Do you think we’re losing something as letter writing decreases?
I love letter writing, and think it really gives us something to hold on to years from now. How much I cherish seeing my grandmother’s handwriting on cards or letters! I say: more letters everyone!
I think we have given up a good deal by losing the art of not just letter writing, but writing in general. My husband’s hand writing skills are comparable to our three year old’s. I have a very legible letter he wrote me when we were dating about a decade ago, but it was about that time he began only using the computer to write. Even his grocery list are typed (he reads them through his blackberry at the store).
Today, I went to a power point presentation done by 3rd graders. It was amazing! However, none of the children at that school will ever know how to write in cursive unless taught at home. They are at a turning point in their scholastic career when the pencil is put down and little hands begin moving swiftly at the keyboard. I realize that power point is something they will need to know to succeed in today’s word and to make time to learn this and other skills needed to be competent in the world today some skills have to go to make room for the new. I also realize that cursive writing isn’t a valued skill in the current work place. But it seems sad that to make time for the new most of these children will never be able to look at historical documents or old family letters and read those items for themselves.
One the flip side… Today’s technology allows quick, easy, cheep access to tons of information that many would have never been privileged to other wise. There are many many more blogs and journals that will be saved from this generation than from generations past. The new complete with pictures, favorite music, and links to other blogs that contain information on similar events.
There are still pockets of letter writing hobbyists, so all is not lost. You might enjoy passionforletters.com.
Here’s something scary. Even if letter writing is still practiced, the letters may not ever reach their destination.
I was on a banquet committee for our high school track and field team, and we were trying to mail banquet invitations to each family with a track team member. So, we gave out envelopes to each student and asked them to write their family’s name and address on the envelope. Easy enough, right? Then all we needed to do was collect the envelopes, stuff them and stamp them.
75% of those envelopes’ addresses were so badly mangled that they would have been undeliverable. It was shocking to us that high school students did not know how to address an envelope. We had to re-write most of them or no one would have attended this banquet!
As I said…shocking.