First appearance of 'gerrymander' in the Boston Gazette
- When
- 26 March 1812
- Where
- Boston Gazette, Boston, Massachusetts
The word gerrymander first appeared in the Boston Gazette on 26 March 1812, coined in reaction to redistricting under Governor Elbridge Gerry.
The word gerrymander, originally written Gerry-mander, was used for the first time in the Boston Gazette on 26 March 1812 in Boston, Massachusetts. It was a portmanteau of the name Gerry and the animal salamander, created in reaction to a redrawing of Massachusetts Senate election districts under Governor Elbridge Gerry, who as governor in 1812 had signed a bill creating a partisanly drawn district in the Boston area thought to resemble the shape of a salamander. The shape of one state senate district in Essex County had been compared to a salamander by a local Federalist newspaper in a political cartoon.
Sources
- Gerrymandering Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-21
- Elbridge Gerry Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-23
Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.