The word “gerrymander” has been in the news and as a result, its etymology has enjoyed some recent publicity. Here it is again. “Gerrymandering,” the process of redistricting a region for electoral purposes, is a portmanteau of early-19th-century Massachusetts governor Elbridge Gerry’s last name and the word “salamander,” whose sinuous form resembled the convoluted voting map for the state’s 1812 state senate elections.
Gerry's starkly partisan redistricting plan was not merely proposed, it was enacted, and not merely enacted, it was successful. Democratic-Republicans won 29 out of 40 seats in Massachusetts’ state senate elections that year despite the Federalists receiving more overall votes across the state. While Gerry himself did not design the map (and reportedly disapproved of it), by signing it into law he would give birth to a pejorative that would become better known to history than he would. Gerry would lose the next gubernatorial election largely due to the injury his reputation sustained over the issue, but his political career ended at very near the top of the United States’ political process when he died in office as James Madison’s vice president.
The Boston Gazette published the cartoon (see illustration) that popularized the word, but the specific editorial writer who coined “Gerrymander” is not definitively known. It’s possible the original cartoonist—Elkanah Tisdale—created the conflation, but it’s more likely that it bubbled up organically within an editorial brainstorming session and was run unattributed (I like to think it was some kid from the mail room). I know, I know, it looks more like a dragon than a salamander, but perhaps in the estimation of the editorial board, “gerrydragon” lacked the implication of slipperiness inherent in “gerrymander.”
