Melissa Zupan | Show and Tell: Round Yellow DeLaurence Tarot Cards @melissazupan6026 | Uploaded March 2020 | Updated October 2024, 9 hours ago.
Watch me fawn ridiculously over my copy of DeLaurence's Tarot Cards, a copy of A.E. Waite and Pamela Colman Smith's deck published by William Rider and Son, Ltd. in 1910. My copy is a "round yellow" DeLaurence, which probably puts the publication window sometime between after 1943 (institution of single digit postal codes in US cities) and before 1954 (when the DeLaurence company moved from 179 N Michigan Ave to 225 N Wabash Ave). My personal estimation of the publication range is tighter: 1946 (end of WWII, the cessation of Rider's publication of their colored tarot, and the beginning of more discretionary spending) to maybe 1951 or 1952 (to account for the orange decks published at 179 N Michigan Ave). For more on the loose timeline of the DeLaurence Tarot Cards publications, check out Dusty White's website, waitesmith.org
The irony of me not caring for the plagiarized MandAlimited decks and me fawning over my DeLaurence in consecutive videos is not lost on me.
The short answer is that copyright laws they way they exist today (especially in America) are only about 40 years old, and America has a long history of stealing works from European authors and artists and either presenting them as their own original work (as did DeLaurence), or just making money off reproducing them. DeLaurence wasn't acting ethically by today's standards, but he was acting consistently with American publication culture in the early 1900s. There is no excuse of intellectual property theft today, but the world was a very different place a hundred years ago.
For more on the history of copyright in America and how it has bolstered and dampened creativity, check out Siva Vaidhyanathan's book "Copyrights and Copywrongs: The Rise of Intellectual Property and How it Threatens Creativity" (New York University Press, 2001). tinyurl.com/wy2uow5
Need more de Laurence in your life? Check out MoonBaby's walk through of his orange deck: youtu.be/HQfMQ2iuISk
Watch me fawn ridiculously over my copy of DeLaurence's Tarot Cards, a copy of A.E. Waite and Pamela Colman Smith's deck published by William Rider and Son, Ltd. in 1910. My copy is a "round yellow" DeLaurence, which probably puts the publication window sometime between after 1943 (institution of single digit postal codes in US cities) and before 1954 (when the DeLaurence company moved from 179 N Michigan Ave to 225 N Wabash Ave). My personal estimation of the publication range is tighter: 1946 (end of WWII, the cessation of Rider's publication of their colored tarot, and the beginning of more discretionary spending) to maybe 1951 or 1952 (to account for the orange decks published at 179 N Michigan Ave). For more on the loose timeline of the DeLaurence Tarot Cards publications, check out Dusty White's website, waitesmith.org
The irony of me not caring for the plagiarized MandAlimited decks and me fawning over my DeLaurence in consecutive videos is not lost on me.
The short answer is that copyright laws they way they exist today (especially in America) are only about 40 years old, and America has a long history of stealing works from European authors and artists and either presenting them as their own original work (as did DeLaurence), or just making money off reproducing them. DeLaurence wasn't acting ethically by today's standards, but he was acting consistently with American publication culture in the early 1900s. There is no excuse of intellectual property theft today, but the world was a very different place a hundred years ago.
For more on the history of copyright in America and how it has bolstered and dampened creativity, check out Siva Vaidhyanathan's book "Copyrights and Copywrongs: The Rise of Intellectual Property and How it Threatens Creativity" (New York University Press, 2001). tinyurl.com/wy2uow5
Need more de Laurence in your life? Check out MoonBaby's walk through of his orange deck: youtu.be/HQfMQ2iuISk
