[Ads-l] Antedating of "Gerrymander"

[George Thompson]

The Boston Gazette is digitized in the "America's Historic Newspapers", a
spin-off from the "Early American Newspapers" collection on microprint and
microfilm.

I spend a good deal of time reading NYC newspapers (mostly) from the 1780s
to the 1820s.  Newspapers then were commonly 4 pages long, one sheet of
paper, printed on a flat-bed press.  One side of the sheet held pages 1 &
4.  It was printed first, while the contents of pages 2 & 3 were still
being edited and set in type, so pages 1 & 4 were mostly covered with
long-continuing advertisements.  Pages 2 & 3 were where the news was to be
found, and new advertisements.

The pages of the Gazette were ordinarily laid out in 5 columns.  The March
26  (Thursday) issue was not ordinary.  The Gerrymander cartoon was very
large -- deep and wide -- and in the upper left corner of the page.  The
space below it was printed in a single column, and the space to the right
was in 2 columns.  Page 1 carried the masthead spread across the top, and,
that day, there was some sort of political manifesto that filled the space
of columns 2 and 3, so on that day page 1 was in 4 columns.
The previous issue was Monday, March 23.  It wasn't typical, either, since
it included a supplement, a single sheet, printed in a single column, and
printed on only one side, with more political stuff.  It's stated that the
text is copied from a handbill.  So presumably this supplement is on a
piece of paper a quarter or fifth the size of a full page.  (All newspapers
then were sold by subscription, for home-delivery, or were bought over the
counter at the newspaper office.  There were no news-stands nor boys
hawking the papers on the street.  So there was no need to be concerned
that this little supplemental sheet would get lost.)

The following issue (Monday, March 30) wasn't typical, either.  It included
a 2-page sheet of advertisements, in 4 columns.  For some reason, when this
issue was microfilmed -- and digitization is done from the microfilm image
-- the top page -- the recto -- of the supplement was filmed first, then
page 1 of the newspaper, then the verso of the supplement, and then pages
2, 3 and 4 of the newspaper.

To conclude -- I have no doubt that the Gerrymander appeared on page 2.

GAT




On Wed, Mar 19, 2025 at 5:12 PM Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu> wrote:

> The OED is, among other things, an incredibly extensive record of
> word-coinages.  However, because of the enormity of research and editing
> necessary to fully document the coinages, there are well-known coinages
> that have gone for scores, even centuries without being fully covered by
> the OED.  For example, Herb Caen's well-known coinage of "beatnik" in 1958
> is not included in the Dictionary.  And then there is "gerrymander," which
> has been in OED since 1899 without encompassing the famous and colorful
> origination of that word.  Here is the antedating:
>
> gerrymander (OED 1812 [23 May])  1812 Boston Gazette 26 Mar. The
> Gerry-mander. A new species of Monster, which appeared in Essex South
> District in January last.
>
> Here is a link to the image of the original Boston Gazette page.
> Unfortunately, I do not know the page number.
>
>
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__historycambridge.org_articles_the-2Dgerry-2Dof-2Dgerrymandering-2Dwas-2Done-2Dof-2Dours-2Dco-2Dwriter-2Dof-2Dthe-2Dbill-2Dof-2Drights-2Dand-2Da-2Dvice-2Dpresident_&d=DwIFAw&c=slrrB7dE8n7gBJbeO0g-IQ&r=v2Wtu7DQZxSBMSJv-oEMNg&m=V0Z1S5XvcoJGrVHFTTKbhsg5Vx96Q6h6uQOyK-zqu8vLMN-Briy3DUrC_hk2y6t7&s=_Uwi0zlMsdZd8AZVX0z9EdFLTh_W0qQpcmmD7wGflJY&e=
>
> I want to give credit to the late Joel Berson, who, when I posted a 27
> Mar. 1812 citation for "gerrymander" about twenty years ago, pointed out
> that the word was printed one day earlier than that as a headline above the
> monstrous map.
>
> Fred Shapiro
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society -
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.americandialect.org&d=DwIFAw&c=slrrB7dE8n7gBJbeO0g-IQ&r=v2Wtu7DQZxSBMSJv-oEMNg&m=V0Z1S5XvcoJGrVHFTTKbhsg5Vx96Q6h6uQOyK-zqu8vLMN-Briy3DUrC_hk2y6t7&s=wRqCwX42LsVB50SRucqKEzVKsfyP_XvLYkR9FdGN3l0&e=
>


-- 
George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
Univ. Pr., 1998.

But when aroused at the Trump of Doom / Ye shall start, bold kings, from
your lowly tomb. . .
L. H. Sigourney, "Burial of Mazeen", Poems.  Boston, 1827, p. 112

The Trump of Doom -- also known as The Dunghill Toadstool.  (Here's a
picture of his great-grandfather.)

https://heritagecollections.parliament.uk/collections/getrecord/HOP_WOA_3851

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org