(*Portrait
and bio taken with permission from Michael Sull’s Spencerian Script and
Ornamental Penmanship, VolumeI.)
Henry W. Flickinger
1845-1925
Henry W.
Flickinger was born August 30, 1845 in Ickesburg, Pennsylvania. At age nineteen
he enlisted in a drum corps during the Civil War. When the war ended he entered
Eastman's Business College in Poughkeepsie, New York where he received training
in lettering, penmanship, and flourishing. He became Professor of the Pen
Drawing Department of this College in 1866. During this time he was able to
obtain some specimens of offhand flourishing by the great John D. Williams,
which inspired Flickinger to master his own hand at this art. The next year he
taught penmanship at the Crittenden Business College in Philadelphia.
The year
1870 became a significant milestone in this penman's career, as he joined
brothers Henry C. and Lyman P. Spencer in Washington, D. C. Lyman was considered
the finest living penman at that time, and while Flickinger assisted the two
men in the revision of the Spencerian Copy books, his own penmanship improved
to such a degree that it equaled Lyman's. The following year he went back to
Philadelphia to teach, and for several years afterwards Flickinger's penwork
was in great demand by societies for engrossed resolutions and by numerous
business colleges wanting exhibition pieces for display In 1875 he again went
to Washington to assist the Spencers in the preparation of several large pieces
for display at the Centennial Exhibition to be held in Philadelphia the
following year. Of these pieces was one that became known as the finest example
of script and pen drawing in the world: a copy of the Declaration of
Independence. It was penned by both Flickinger and Lyman Spencer. During the
ensuing years, Henry W. Flickinger prepared revisions for three other sets of
copybooks, and was recalled by the Spencers yet again for a special project
preparing to publish the New Spencerian Compendium of Penmanship. Flickinger
and Lyman Spencer wrote all the models for the numerous plates for this
historic manual.
For many
years afterwards, Flickinger did much engrossing work and also taught at a
number of business colleges in Pennsylvania. His conception of form and skill
in execution were widely respected by his peers, and among those master penmen
whose works became legendary, it was said that in the pure Spencerian,
characterized by its chaste and elegant forms, grace, and proportions, Henry W.
Flickinger and Lyman Spencer each displayed a skill that was probably never
attained by any other penman. Louis Madarasz considered Flickinger to be the
best penman of the 19th century.
