A Digression on Left-Handedness
As I was reading about the teaching of plain sewing to Victorian girls, I wondered how much of an issue “handedness” was to them. The first drill these girls were taught was How to Thread a Needle: “Take up cotton between thumb and finger of right hand...” and it struck me that – as an “uncorrected” left-hander - I should have fallen at the first hurdle.
I decided I would like to find out whether, in the earlier part of the 20th century, children were made to change the dominant hand – and whether attitudes had relaxed as time went on. I belong to the University of the Third Age in Cambridge, and its office was kind enough to include in its Bulletin for several weeks in Lent Term 2013 the following item:
I should be interested to hear from any U3AC members who were originally left- handed, and who were made to change their dominant hand at school or home, or alternatively any (like me) who weren't. Anecdotes welcome, anonymity assured.
23 people responded to my request – 17 women and 6 men. Ages ranged from 52 to 90. I give a selection of their replies below – they were interesting and revealing.
11 people replied that no attempts had been made to change their dominant hand.
One respondent told how her father worked in Central America in her childhood, taking his family with him. In the absence of any suitable schools, she was taught by her mother
I had enormous good luck in that my sensible mother, a teacher, noticed my left- handedness, and made sure I was not corrected to the right.
Possibly countries other than the UK had a more relaxed attitude to left-handedness. One respondent, who grew up in South Africa, says:
I was never forced or encouraged not to use my left hand ... and did not think it was in any way out of the ordinary.
A similar response came from someone born in Canada.
One leftie is grateful to her grandmother:
My paternal grandmother was left-handed and, as neither of my parents were, I guess I inherited it from her...She was insistent that I wasn't corrected, which I think had been her experience – it was an attempt anyhow, because as an adult she was left-handed. Thank you, Granny!
Another owes his "uncorrected” state to his parents:
I was born in 1952 and was always left-handed. I believe it was through some intervention by my parents that I was in the early days of children not being forced to become “normal” (ie right-handed).
[Researcher's note: I was born in 1934, and was not “corrected.” I attribute this to the fact that I started school in the week that World War 2 began, and for the first years of my schooling the teachers had other things on their mind.]
6 people stated that they had changed their dominant hand because they were forced to.
“Rulers on knuckles” were mentioned by several. One wrote:
In 1934, when I was six years old, I attended a junior school in Birmingham. Every morning we had a short handwriting lesson which, being left-handed, I came to fear because the teacher walked up and down the aisles rapping the knuckles of any unfortunate left-handers. It took me many painful hours before I submitted...
One respondent who spent her early years in Holland explains how she wrote to her brother using mirror script (ie. writing everything back-to-front):
The [nursery] school recommended that the simplest way to change that was to encourage me to write with my right hand. Apparently I did that without complaint – I have no recollection of it.
6 people indicated that school or home “tried but failed.”
A respondent in her 70s tells how she started school in Derby when she was five:
In my first class the teacher tried in vain to make me write with my right hand...She would walk by my table, take the pencil out of my left hand and place it firmly in my right hand, with appropriate words of admonition...After a few weeks she gave up.
Another, at primary school in the 1940s, in a small Lincolnshire town, describes how she was “corrected,” but the process was traumatic, so her mother intervened.
A third (in her eighties) remembers a similar experience:
I was made to use my right hand and my parents thinking school must be right did the same at home. I began stuttering..so my mother...took me to see the family doctor...He said I was in a very nervous state to which my mother replied that that she thought starting school had made me very anxious. He then asked if school were making me use my right hand and said, “Stop that instantly!” – and I was back to square one in a very short time!!
A respondent who grew up in the United Stated reports a very different attitude:
Although it was commonly noted that I was left-handed, I don't remember that it was considered a handicap. The attitude seemed to be that it was more convenient to be right-handed.
She goes on to mention a young male cousin coming to her home to teach her to write right-handed; but this was not successful, and she says she has “no negative memories about this.”
Respondents revealed the impact of left-handedness on their development:
How lefties describe themselves – or are described by other people:
Kack-handed; clumsy; maladroit; ambi-sinistrous (as opposed to ambidextrous)..
And this historical nugget :
It may be of interest that in 1946 I applied for a place in one of the best Domestic Training Colleges in London, and on the bottom of the application form it stated “No left-handed worker need apply.”
(This young aspiring teacher trained herself to use her right hand in order to be accepted; and when she went on to become a teacher was able to demonstrate any technique whichever hand her student used, “much to their surprise.”)
In conclusion
The answer to the original question I asked myself: “Were you more likely to have your left-handedness “corrected” the older you were?” is “Yes,” to judge from this sample. The average age of those who had encountered no attempt to correct them was 68; and of those who either were made to change their dominant hand, or resisted being changed, 77. It's not statistically significant, of course, and not the most interesting or entertaining thing about the answers. What is fascinating is the information it offers about how people were educated, what the cultural norms were (are we less confident today that there is a right* way of doing things than we were in the past?); and whether being a member of this particular minority seemed important to the individuals concerned.
*Sorry about the pun!
As I was reading about the teaching of plain sewing to Victorian girls, I wondered how much of an issue “handedness” was to them. The first drill these girls were taught was How to Thread a Needle: “Take up cotton between thumb and finger of right hand...” and it struck me that – as an “uncorrected” left-hander - I should have fallen at the first hurdle.
I decided I would like to find out whether, in the earlier part of the 20th century, children were made to change the dominant hand – and whether attitudes had relaxed as time went on. I belong to the University of the Third Age in Cambridge, and its office was kind enough to include in its Bulletin for several weeks in Lent Term 2013 the following item:
I should be interested to hear from any U3AC members who were originally left- handed, and who were made to change their dominant hand at school or home, or alternatively any (like me) who weren't. Anecdotes welcome, anonymity assured.
23 people responded to my request – 17 women and 6 men. Ages ranged from 52 to 90. I give a selection of their replies below – they were interesting and revealing.
11 people replied that no attempts had been made to change their dominant hand.
One respondent told how her father worked in Central America in her childhood, taking his family with him. In the absence of any suitable schools, she was taught by her mother
I had enormous good luck in that my sensible mother, a teacher, noticed my left- handedness, and made sure I was not corrected to the right.
Possibly countries other than the UK had a more relaxed attitude to left-handedness. One respondent, who grew up in South Africa, says:
I was never forced or encouraged not to use my left hand ... and did not think it was in any way out of the ordinary.
A similar response came from someone born in Canada.
One leftie is grateful to her grandmother:
My paternal grandmother was left-handed and, as neither of my parents were, I guess I inherited it from her...She was insistent that I wasn't corrected, which I think had been her experience – it was an attempt anyhow, because as an adult she was left-handed. Thank you, Granny!
Another owes his "uncorrected” state to his parents:
I was born in 1952 and was always left-handed. I believe it was through some intervention by my parents that I was in the early days of children not being forced to become “normal” (ie right-handed).
[Researcher's note: I was born in 1934, and was not “corrected.” I attribute this to the fact that I started school in the week that World War 2 began, and for the first years of my schooling the teachers had other things on their mind.]
6 people stated that they had changed their dominant hand because they were forced to.
“Rulers on knuckles” were mentioned by several. One wrote:
In 1934, when I was six years old, I attended a junior school in Birmingham. Every morning we had a short handwriting lesson which, being left-handed, I came to fear because the teacher walked up and down the aisles rapping the knuckles of any unfortunate left-handers. It took me many painful hours before I submitted...
One respondent who spent her early years in Holland explains how she wrote to her brother using mirror script (ie. writing everything back-to-front):
The [nursery] school recommended that the simplest way to change that was to encourage me to write with my right hand. Apparently I did that without complaint – I have no recollection of it.
6 people indicated that school or home “tried but failed.”
A respondent in her 70s tells how she started school in Derby when she was five:
In my first class the teacher tried in vain to make me write with my right hand...She would walk by my table, take the pencil out of my left hand and place it firmly in my right hand, with appropriate words of admonition...After a few weeks she gave up.
Another, at primary school in the 1940s, in a small Lincolnshire town, describes how she was “corrected,” but the process was traumatic, so her mother intervened.
A third (in her eighties) remembers a similar experience:
I was made to use my right hand and my parents thinking school must be right did the same at home. I began stuttering..so my mother...took me to see the family doctor...He said I was in a very nervous state to which my mother replied that that she thought starting school had made me very anxious. He then asked if school were making me use my right hand and said, “Stop that instantly!” – and I was back to square one in a very short time!!
A respondent who grew up in the United Stated reports a very different attitude:
Although it was commonly noted that I was left-handed, I don't remember that it was considered a handicap. The attitude seemed to be that it was more convenient to be right-handed.
She goes on to mention a young male cousin coming to her home to teach her to write right-handed; but this was not successful, and she says she has “no negative memories about this.”
Respondents revealed the impact of left-handedness on their development:
- One of the most difficult things to use is a pair of scissors. Mostly I use my right hand for fine movements – writing, using knife and fork, turning on a switch but if I am ill or very tired I find the left hand taking over.
- When I paint (as in decorate walls etc) I find I can use both hands so only have to move along the wall and move steps half as many times....
- I have found that I am actually ambidextrous because, in a right-handed world I played hockey and all sports with my right hand and used scissors too with my right. I now play table tennis with the U3A and can play equally well with either hand. As regards strength, my right hand/arm is actually stronger than my left.
- In sport I used to play tennis right-handedly; in cricket I bowled with my left hand, (but strangely batted right-handedly). I cut bread with my left hand, and so on.
- I have noticed something very odd in my head with keeping East/West and North/South although I am very good at map reading and navigating. I once spent a good half hour inside the M25 looking for a place that was just outside the M25, even knowing my problem and allowing for it my brain could not accept that I was going the wrong way.
- I began playing piano when I was seven years old and took up oboe a few years later. I continued playing as an adult. It is interesting that musical instruments require someone to be deft with both hands and “handedness” does not seem to be an issue.
- I do most things with my left hand but I can iron with my right!
- If I want my husband to do some DIY, I only have to pick up a hammer or screwdriver and pretend I am going to use it. No matter how tired he is or how late at night, he cannot stand me to do this left-handed and takes over...
- I had to fathom out from the diagram how to do embroidery stitches. Of course, this makes you slower than everyone else.
- Knitting was a great problem. Granny tried to teach me, she would start me off and I would turn the whole thing around the other way getting in an awful mess.
- I recall a neighbour lady who was helping me with some knitting said she found it difficult to teach someone who was left-handed. Either she or someone else watching me at some point noticed that I held the right knitting needle stationary against my abdomen while the left needle did all the work.
- Our handwriting teacher despaired of me because she tried to teach us to write with an Osmiroid pen with italic nib and of course they were designed for right-handers.
- My party piece is writing a page of script backwards with my left hand (mirror writing) and forwards with my right – though not necessarily at the same time.
- Teachers occasionally straightened my exercise books when I had them on a slant so that I could write more easily. But a very young teacher did dub me Sally Smudge when I was 9.
- I hold a pen between my middle and forefinger to write.
- Many lefties, such as Barack Obama and me, bring our left hands above the writing and curve round.
How lefties describe themselves – or are described by other people:
Kack-handed; clumsy; maladroit; ambi-sinistrous (as opposed to ambidextrous)..
And this historical nugget :
It may be of interest that in 1946 I applied for a place in one of the best Domestic Training Colleges in London, and on the bottom of the application form it stated “No left-handed worker need apply.”
(This young aspiring teacher trained herself to use her right hand in order to be accepted; and when she went on to become a teacher was able to demonstrate any technique whichever hand her student used, “much to their surprise.”)
In conclusion
The answer to the original question I asked myself: “Were you more likely to have your left-handedness “corrected” the older you were?” is “Yes,” to judge from this sample. The average age of those who had encountered no attempt to correct them was 68; and of those who either were made to change their dominant hand, or resisted being changed, 77. It's not statistically significant, of course, and not the most interesting or entertaining thing about the answers. What is fascinating is the information it offers about how people were educated, what the cultural norms were (are we less confident today that there is a right* way of doing things than we were in the past?); and whether being a member of this particular minority seemed important to the individuals concerned.
*Sorry about the pun!