Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Photoessay #2856 - Handwriting

My thoughts turn back to New Haven.  I've had such success there, I'm not done yet.  The inspiration for the next paper came just as I left there in October.  The realization that Maier Zunder kept his own scrapbooks.

I found a document in the Mishkan Israel files, a hand-written promissory note from 1888 where a number of men (including Paul Weil and Max Adler) likely member of the Mishkan Israel Board borrowed $720 from Maier Zunder at 5% interest.  The note is marked paid in 1890.  I don't know why this transaction took place.

I thought, Maier likely would have written the document.  He was the bank president and they were borrowing the money from him.  He would know how to write a promissory note.

To me, the handwriting looks just like the handwriting in the scrapbooks.  The handwriting disappears starting with the obituaries (he was good but not that good).

And who else might be compiling those scrapbooks?  His wife or child?.  The first articles are from 1872 with his first wife Regina's obituatries.  Isabelle was 20, Theodore was 17, Sophie was 12.  Conceivably one of them could be making the scrapbook.  It couldn't be Regina because she had died.  It couldn't be his second wife Mina who he didn't marry until 1879.  The articles run until 1899 and the handwriting is consistent.  So, as the oldest children soon married and had their own lives, it seems unlikely that they would be available to keep a scrapbook for their father.  The articles and ephemera from this early period are about Maier and his activities.  Later, the scrapbooks broaden in scope.

So Maier is the most likely candidate to keep a scrapbook.  To my naked eye, it matches.  And it makes sense.  There's nothing wrong with going with the most likely alternative.

Hmmm....I wonder what kind of case I will have to make about the handwriting match.  I guess I will have to figure that out.

I'm planning to return to New Haven with my brother and makes a comprehensive set of images from the scrapbooks right after MLK Day weather permitting.

Picture is one of four composite images pulling handwriting from the scrapbooks.

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