(C) Common Dreams
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The American Enlightenment [1]
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Date: 2016-05-02 13:00:51-07:00
The most famous signature in American history belongs to John Hancock, who as president of the Second Continental Congress was the first person to sign the Declaration of Independence in 1776. Hancock’s iconic signature had not always been so flamboyant, as these two books reveal.
A teenaged John Hancock signed this dictionary twice inside the front cover and once at the top of the title page. These youthful signatures are simple and round—note the squat J and the loops at the top of the capital H—and bear little resemblance to Hancock’s famous signature on the Declaration.
By the time he signed the title page of London and Its Environs Described, which he probably owned starting in his mid-twenties, Hancock had developed the familiar, flamboyant John Hancock, with the elongated J balanced by the adventurous curl of the k.
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[1] Url:
https://exhibits.stanford.edu/american-enlightenment/feature/signed-by-john-hancock
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