Thomas Edison’s to-do list, 1888
Among Edison’s “things doing and to be done,”:
Cotton picker, new standard phonograph, deaf apparatus, electrical piano, artificial silk, marine telegraphy. chalk battery, ink for blind.
Marie Curie's notebooks, which must be kept in a lead-lined box as they are STILL RADIOACTIVE - and will remain so for another 1,500 years. Curie was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize; and the first person & only woman to win twice. #FOTD
First up is this manuscript in Elizabeth I’s own hand. It is a draft of a speech given in 1563 to Parliament, responding to their pressure to marry. Elizabeth carefully selected her words as seen in the numerous corrections here.
Da Vinci's to do list
Calculate the measurement of Milan and Suburbs, discover the measurement of Corte Vecchio, get the master of arithmetic to show you how to square a triangle, draw Milan.
Some handwriting seems to be as creative as the illustrations it shares the page with. Margaret Fountaine's (1862-1940) notebooks are good examples. This is an example of her watercolour drawings of Lepidoptera larvae and pupae with food plant
Mozart’s handwriting how you thought it would be? He recorded his compositions in this thematic catalogue, which acted as a musical diary. Intriguingly, some entries are for works that have since been lost.