In the Facebook Gregg Shorthand group, someone posted a graphic with some words that didn’t make any sense. One of the members tracked down the source, and it turned out to be a sentence from the Pre-Anniversary manual that had been cut in half and put back together with part of the text missing, so the result isn’t an understandable sentence.
I looked at the sentence in the copies of the pre-Anniversary manual I have, and discovered that the 1902 and 1916 editions are not the same. I’m attaching the two different versions. The penmanship is clearly different, and the words “as though” are written as a phrase in one and not the other, for example.
Has anyone ever done an analysis of the evolution in the pre-Anniversary version and the different printed editions?
Lee
The 1902 and the 1916 manuals are different.
The 1902 manual is called the Revised Edition (18 lessons), because it revised the 1898 edition (which was the last one with the name “Gregg’s Shorthand”, the Seventh American Edition and Eleventh English Edition, containing 12 lessons). The 1898 edition was printed and revised until 1902 (hathitrust has a few of these books, including the 42d edition). Starting around 1906, the 1902 Revised Edition manual was frequently being updated by changing some miscellaneous principles and words at the suggestion of court reporters that wanted speed expedients similar to those found in Pitman. The changes would also appear in the Gregg Writer. These changes culminated in the release of the 1916 New and Revised Edition, with 20 lessons. Later on, the 1916 manual had a minor revision in 1919.
Because of the differences in these manuals, I stay away from the term “pre-anniversary” when referring to a specific manual, as there are many variations.
Lastly, I believe the plates of the 1902 manual were written by Pearl Power while the ones from the 1916 manual I’m not sure if it was Alice Rinné Hagar. Winifred Kenna at the time was in charge of the OGA section of the Gregg Writer.
I agree that “Pre-Anniversary Gregg” isn’t a single version, but it describes the whole group of editions that existed prior to Anniversary.
It strikes me as funny that 1902 was the “Revised Edition”, and 1916 and 1919 were the “New and Revised Edition”.
None of the copies I have identify the plate writer.
(I’m 71, and my grandmother was a Gregg writer. I have her textbook, the 1908 copy of the “Revised Edition” that she used at Moathart Business College in Farmington, MO 1911-1912.)
Lee