I am following up on this thread which is now five years old.
My questions include: How big a deal is this, really? Is cursive in historical documents now basically unreadable to modern undergraduates? Is cursive-reading fluency now taught or tested in history programs? Are there any other consequences to the study of history that flow from the discontinuation of cursive in modern society?
For example: is the original format of the Declaration of Independence really now illegible to most college freshmen?
Handwriting varies over time and also over geographical space. Learning to read any particular era's modes of handwriting is simply another skill for the historian who wants to do primary source research in that time period. It's mostly a matter of concentration and practice, lots of practice. (Some fonts, called "hands" if written and "typeface" if printed, have additional quirks that you also must learn.)
Heck, the study of handwriting has its own name--paleography!
