The Varieties and Complexities of American Handwriting and Penmanship: Library Hand

Thomas Edison's Early Vertical Style

Here we see a style that Edison taught himself, through trial and error. After abandoning the writing style of the time, he experimented until he created a fast and legible style suited for copying material as a telegraph clerk.

http://davidkaminski.org/wiki/Thomas_Alva_Edison,_Letter_to_John_Clark_Van_Duzer,_page_1,_1868

While Edison's style remains unacknowledged as a vertical style in books on the history of penmanship, it clearly is upright, unlike the style of the time. However, it is fair to say that he neither authored a book on penmanship nor taught it in any institutions, and so he cannot be seen as among those who influenced the nation's youth nor its clerks. His style was imitated by other telegraph clerks, though, and news of his efforts also reach Melvil Dewey, who is perhaps inspired by Edison and then later introduces "library hand," itself a vertical style, as the official style to be used by all librarians.

http://davidkaminski.org/wiki/Melvil_Dewey_(attributed_to)_and_Thomas_Edison_(whom_Dewey_references),_Library_handwriting,_also_know_as_library_hand,_1887