Hello and happy Thursday to you!
First up, let me share a really interesting study with you. This came to my attention via my favourite Substack – The Backlash – by Alona Ferber. (Brilliant weekly read if you’re interested in gender equality stories from around the world). In their recent study, the Center for Global Development examined over 1200 textbooks from 34 anglophone countries, including the UK. And would you guess what they found? Yep, you nailed it – Women and girls are less present and, when they are included, they are associated with domestic roles, family and appearance. You can read a summary of the findings here, but we’ve talked about this so many times before. Clearly, this isn’t a history-specific problem, but I feel so strongly that history should take the lead here. History contributes massively to the longstanding and negative stereotyping of women. Surely, 2024 is the time we leave this behind and focus on presenting ACTUAL historical reality?
Tarot Women
Now, let’s settle in for the main event. So, I stumbled and fell into a rabbit hole on Saturday afternoon. I don’t remember where I started but I ended up learning so much about the life of Pamela Colman-Smith, and I couldn’t not share my findings with you.
If you’re not in the know, Colman-Smith is probably best remembered for her work on (arguably) the most famous and influential tarot deck of all time – the Rider-Waite. She was an artist, illustrator and writer, born in London in 1878. There’s a lot of speculation around her ancestry and it’s something I’d like to look at in a bit more depth. There are suggestions that Colman-Smith was mixed race – that her dad was Jamaican and her mum was white British. She definitely spent time in Jamaica as a child and went on to write two books about Jamaican folklore.
Whatever the case, she also spent a lot of time in New York. When she was 15, she enrolled at the city’s Pratt Institute where she studied art. The sudden death of her mum and some poor health caused her to leave without a degree, but she quickly found work as a book illustrator. One of these early projects was a book about the actress Ellen Terry, written by Bram Stoker. (Fun fact: Colman-Smith ended up becoming great friends with Ellen Terry who nicknamed her “Pixie”).
Let me skip forward a decade or so because this is where things get really interesting. Firstly, now back in England, Colman-Smith set up her own (women-majority) printing company called The Green Sheaf. Secondly – and perhaps around the same time – she joined the esoteric group, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, where she met Arthur Waite. In 1909, Waite commissioned Colman-Smith to illustrate a tarot deck.
It's difficult to express how unique Colman-Smith’s designs were. Let me start by quickly outlining tarot in case you’re not familiar. A deck is made up of 78 cards. 22 of these are Major Arcana cards. They deal with big themes and life lessons (hence the name ‘major’), like love, transformation and justice. The remaining 56 cards are the ‘Minor Arcana.’ These are split into four suits, and each suit has 10 cards plus four faces – a page, knight, queen and king.
So, Colman-Smith had a lot of work to do. With a well-established interest in the esoteric, we can assume some familiarity with existing decks. Don’t forget, though, that printing and selling tarot cards was illegal in Britain until 1951, so how freely they were distributed and available is hard to say.
I got my first tarot deck when I was 15 and I still work with it today. It was a gift from my witchy mum who lived and died by the old wives' tale that you can’t buy your first deck for yourself. It’s TERRIBLE luck, she told me. Thinking about Colman-Smith’s era, she was probably familiar with the then-very famous Marseille deck. Below are a few images from the Major Arcana:
Colman-Smith had probably also seen the oldest complete deck that we have in Europe – the Sola Busca. Created at the end of the Middle Ages in Italy:
You should be able to click on these images and study them more closely, btw. Now that you’ve seen these, let me show you a couple of Colman-Smith’s designs. I’m cherry-picking my favourites here, but I really want you to focus on her depiction of women (who take centre stage when compared with the Marseille and the Sola).
First up, the Empress. Compare this with Card III in the Sola and the Marseille’s Empress. What a difference, right?!
I also love the World. Colman-Smith’s 22nd design. Rich with symbolism and female nudity that feels celebratory, rather than sexualised:
Remember that context matters so much in women’s history (in all history, tbh). In case you were wondering if Colman-Smith had some feminist leanings, you’d be right. She was a member of the Suffrage Atelier, a women’s suffrage collective for artists and illustrators. They created many of the iconic suffrage posters that we still remember, like this one:
While Colman-Smith was working away on the tarot deck, British women were still some way from securing their access to the vote, which would, of course, be interrupted by the events we know as World War One.
Whether you’re into all things esoteric or not matters little. Colman-Smith’s groundbreaking designs remain *the* standard for tarot design today. And what I really love is that over the last couple of years, what we’ve always called the Rider-Waite deck is being reclaimed as the Rider-Waite-Smith deck.
I’m sad to say that despite her efforts, Colman-Smith was paid only once for her designs. Waite, on the other hand, did very well out of them. But it’s not all doom and gloom. Slowly, she’s getting the recognition she deserves. I just wonder how many people are using her designs every day without any knowledge of how they came to be. Some food for thought.
Until next time,
Kaye x
An interesting read as ever Kaye. My dull 'rational' mind tends to be dismissive of such things as tarot but the artistic and social aspects are of great interest.
I have no spiritual or religious beliefs. I think religious faith in an afterlife is just human arrogance - all other life forms just live and die so why should we be any different? I don't really engage with spiritualism on any level so consequently know nothing about it! Maybe it's my lack of imagination and creativity? I don't do original thinking!
My wife went to see a spiritualist last year. I couldn't take it seriously and I'm afraid I was quite dismissive. I can be quite arrogant at times.