Two of the first smokeless revolver powders are still in use today, Bullseye and Unique. They were introduced in the 1898-1900 era and are certainly not bulky. You may be thinking of the long-gone Semi-smokeless powder, which was bulky. Both the .38 Special (1899) and the .44 Special (1908) were originally designed as black powder cartridges. This is well documented in authoritative works on the history of S&W, where these cartridges were designed and the original guns were manufactured for them.

Some confusion may arise from the fact that the smokeless and black powder eras overlapped and smokeless loads were available soon after the introduction of these cartridges. As I mentioned previously, S&W did not approve smokeless loads for their guns until 1909, so both of these cartridges must have been designed for black powder since S&W designed them well before 1909.