Creator: Shirley Smith, Book Jacket Designer and Lettering Artist

 

March is Women’s History Month.

Letterform Archive posted an excellent article, on June 12, 2023, by Anne Galperin who wrote “The Women of Photo-Lettering”. One of the ten women was Shirley Smith who designed the Photo-Lettering Inc. (PLINC) typeface Gothica. I believe she was the same Shirley Smith, a book jacket designer, whose best-known work was the art and lettering for Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird (1960). Two pieces of information helped find Smith: her occupation in the 1950 United States Census and husband’s surname which appeared on a jacket design credit.

Shirley Smith was born on January 5, 1929 in Brooklyn, New York according to her Social Security application (transcribed at Ancestry.com). Her parents were Morris Smith and Lena Matloff, both Russian immigrants.

The 1930 United States Census counted Smith (line 41), the youngest of three siblings, her parents and paternal grandmother. They were Brooklyn residents at 724 DeKalb Avenue. Her father was a men’s clothing operator.

In 1939, Smith may have been a contributor to Aunt Jean’s Column in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle.

In the 1940 census, the Smith family (lines 1 to 4) lived in Brooklyn at 192 Richmond Street. Her father (counted on the previous sheet) was the proprietor of a retail stationery store.

 

In June 1946, Smith filed her Social Security application.

Smith studied at Cooper Union and graduated in 1949. The influence of her instructor, George Salter, can be seen in her work.

Cable yearbook

If you need anything from a pin to eraser to

scissors, band-aids, aspirin or rubber cement

it is sure to be found in Shirley’s purse.

A quiet girl and a sincere worker she should

be successful in any undertaking.

According to the 1950 census, Smith (line 24) lived with her parents and sister at the same address. She was an artist for a book publisher. Smith completed three years of college (see questions in supplemental section).

Here are some of Smith’s book jackets and covers found at the Internet Archive and Google.

1953
Ideas and Places
Tolstoy: A Life of My Father

1954
The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book
I Protest

1955
Great Folktales of Wit and Humor

 

1957
Eclipse of God
Flight Into Morning
The Individual and His Religion

 

1958
Mary of Nazareth
Prayer That Prevails
The Story of Healing: The Divine Art

 

1959
How to Design Your Own Dress Patterns
The Irish Writers 1880–1940
The Last of the Provincials
Out of Our Past: The Forces That Shaped Modern America
Road to Revolution
The Winston Affair

1960
Basic Economics
The Bean Eaters
The Dark Road to Triumph
Jesus and the Origins of Christianity
To Kill a Mockingbird
Lovers, Mates, and Strange Bedfellows: Old-World Folktales
Now and at the Hour: A Novel
One World, One Mission
Walk Egypt

 

1961
Ancient Egyptian Religion
Angry Harvest
Decisions of Destiny
The Erotic in Literature

1962
Church Dogmatics
God Made Little Apples
Journey Into Darkness
Ministries of Mercy
Reorganizing the High School Curriculum
The Road from the Monument
A Short History of English Poetry, 1340–1940
Thomas Beecham: An Independent Biography
The World of Short Fiction: An International Collection

 

1963
European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages
Georgie Winthrop

1964
The Freedom-of-Thought Struggle in the Old South
Money to Grow On
This Was America

 

1965
The Heart of the Matter
The Love of Anxiety and Other Essays
Mining Camps, A Study in American Frontier Government
The Negro in Mississippi 1865–1890
Principium Sapientiae
Tennessee Williams: Rebellious Puritan

 

1967
A Flight of Steps

 

 

The jacket design credit was “Shirley Smith Scholl”. In 1962, Smith and Cornelius Scholl married in Manhattan. He graduated Pratt Institute in 1951.

Prattonia yearbook

1981
Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Nearly all of Smith’s covers were hand-lettered. I believe she designed, in 1956, the typeface Smith Gothica for PLINC. Her typeface was promoted in Art Direction, January 1957. She was the second woman, after Daisy Alcock, to contribute an alphabet. Third was Jeanyee Wong whose Genie was announced in Art Direction, July 1958. Margaret Yakovenko’s Picnic alphabet was promoted in Art Direction, April 1959.

 

In 1960, Alphabet Thesaurus Nine Thousand was published by Photo-Lettering Inc. The women letterers included Alcock (page 229), Smith (page 249), Wong (pages 226, 551) and Yakovenko (page 525). Page one listed their names with their signatures on the opposite page.

The Alphabet Thesaurus Volume 2 (1965; 1970 second printing) included the aforementioned women plus Deborah Ann Bristow (page 397), Betti B. Haft (page 233) and Connie Rechel (page 85).

Three more women were added to the Alphabet Thesaurus Volume 3 (1971): Claudette Caccuciolo (page 107), Marie Frederick (page 380) and Hedda S. Johnson (page 458).

Smith Gothica, Photo-Lettering’s One Line Manual of Styles (1971)

Smith passed away on October 5, 2003 and was laid to rest at Beth Moses Cemetery. The Social Security Death Index said her last residence was Huntington Station, New York. Smith’s husband, Cornelius, passed away in 2023.


Related Posts
A Few Details About George Salter, Calligrapher, Designer and Teacher
Miriam Woods, Lettering Artist and Book Jacket Designer

 

(Next post on Monday: Margaret Yakovenko, a Package Designer, Illustrator and Typeface Designer)