John Jenkins (penmanship)

John Jenkins (1755–1822) was an American schoolteacher who wrote the first entirely American book on penmanship, The Art of Writing, Reduced to a Plain and Easy System, first printed in 1791 by Isaiah Thomas.^[1] It consisted of 32 pages of text, four plates of engraved writing samples and a frontispiece.^[2] It was recommended by John Adams,^[2] Benjamin Franklin and John Hancock.^[1] Jenkins' system became the standard in America,^[2] and a revised second edition was published in 1813 by Flagg & Gould.^[3]