Abstract
This article explores early twentieth-century visual and textual representations of fortune telling in Blackpool, England. It does so to investigate the Romani presence at, and centrality to, this seaside resort in order to query the shared and contested space(s) emergent during the development of what was at the time an inherently modern and innovative touristic place. Starting the discussion with a well-known 1930s Mass Observation image of a palmist’s booth, the article then explores earlier photographs and postcards from the turn of the century depicting fortune-telling tents on Blackpool’s South Shore sandhills. Here three interlinked strands of enquiry are addressed. Firstly, the shared histories and development of Romani fortune tellers and their families and the rise of the touristic offer of Blackpool; secondly, the dichotomy of the marketing and representation of fortune telling as an integral part of this touristic offer and the precarity and criminalization of the fortune tellers’ lives and activities; and thirdly, the often overlooked ways in which fortune tellers utilized visual representations themselves as a way of creating and self-marketing a space of authenticity and place-based belonging. To do this the article draws upon contemporaneous ethnographic reports, professional and family photographs, newspaper reports and magazine articles.
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