The map that popularized the word ‘gerrymander’

It was an abomination to democracy,
critics said. The popular vote was nearly evenly split between the
two parties, yet one party won 29 of the 40 seats at stake. The
reason was a creative redrawing of electoral districts—what we now
know as gerrymandering.

The practice dates back to the earliest
days of the country—it’s even older than Congress^[1]—and it’s still alive and
well today. In June 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed for the
first time^[2] to hear a case involving
what’s alleged to be purely political gerrymandering^[3]
in Wisconsin. (The Court has previously heard gerrymandering cases
where race was a factor.) But the term itself originates with the
lopsided election described above, which took place in 1812 for the
state Senate in Massachusetts.

The year before, the state’s governor, Elbridge
Gerry^[4], had approved a
redrawing of the electoral districts to favor his
Democratic-Republican Party over the opposition, the Federalists.
The two parties had split the vote more or less evenly in recent
elections, and the Democrats clung to a slim majority in the state
legislature. The newly redrawn districts surgically removed
Federalist-leaning towns in Worcester, Hampshire, and Essex
counties to create new Democrat-friendly districts.

One of these new districts snaked its way around the outskirts
of Essex County in a shape that reminded some critics of a
salamander. A map published in the March 26, 1812 issue of The
Boston Gazette added wings, claws, and fearsome teeth, along
with a satirical “natural history” of the creature it called a
“Gerry-mander.” (The version above comes from a broadside published
around 1820 that reprinted the original Gazette article and
added a “political history” updated with recent events.)

The term became the thing that Gerry is best remembered for.
Never mind that he’d only signed the redistricting law reluctantly,
and had done a number of other notable things as well: signing the
Declaration of Independence, refusing to sign the Constitution
(because it didn’t originally include a Bill of Rights), and
serving as James Madison’s vice president. Or that his name was
pronounced with a hard “g”—more like “Gary” than “Jerry”—in
contrast to the pronunciation of “gerrymander.”

The political history included on the 1820 broadside (see below)
notes that a public backlash following the 1812 election led to
passage of a new districting law. It reports that the Gerry-mander
was dead. But it warns “that it was but an empty coffin that was
followed to the tomb.”

Indeed, more than two centuries later, the “horrid monster”
still lives.