I recently saw some envelopes from the 1800’s. The handwriting was a work of art.
My Wife and I have been working on our ancestry.... It's very interesting to see the hand writing on the US census.... It seems the writing in the 40's is not as flowing (flamboyant?) as it was in the 1800's... And I feel it's, in a lot of cases, not as legible....
But that's just my opinion.....