From Broadside to Infographic
An Attention Grabbing History of Information
For more than three centuries, the broadside has been a popular piece of American culture. Popular in the sense that you have seen them, not in the sense that you knew they were called broadsides. The Declaration of Independence is one of many famous broadsides.
The broadside is a simple concept, it is an over-sized paper with a bunch of useful information on it. It was posted around town to inform the public about coming events, major, edicts, or other things that needed to be broadcast.
For those who may be wondering, the printed broadside predated the naval version by a century or more. The term is originally English, but in many ways it was America that gave the broadside its place in history.
The example at left is an announcement for an Independence day base ball match. In 1879, broadside had just become a compound word, but obviously base ball still was not. By the look of things, it was not even an official athletic sport…
Diverging Paths
So broadsides are posters, or at least that is what they have become. Sporting events, movies, theatre, and more would all embrace broadsides as a way of local broadcasting and generating word of mouth. Soon new technologies like radio and television captured much of that market. Their reach was broader and their medium was more dynamic. Posters became more visual, more focused, more promotional and focused less on detail.
Technology and history each have a way of repeating themselves. The broadside would get another day in the sun, this time in the form of infographics. Long before dynamic websites and interactive business intelligence, infographics arrived with glossy photos and the new “visual” craze. It was a new form of broadside for a new age of multimedia.
Publishers like Dorling Kindersley would popularize the marriage of information and visualization. New audiences were engaged and educate with stunning visuals. This quickly spread to sports like baseball, which we feature in our Baseball Visualization Challenge. As the computer age bloomed, infographics followed. Soon they were found across the web.
Today, platforms like Pinterest and Instagram have given new meaning to a centuries old term. We may not realize it, but the broadside is alive and well. A medium that was once included in the obscure phrase ephemora is now even more so in our increasingly virtual world. These phrases may never become mainstream again, but they are still as much a part of American culture as Baseball and the 4th of July.
John Dunlap’s Broadside is available digitally via this link. The infographic pictured is available for sale here and is not affiliated with Corsair’s Publishing.
Baseball Visualization Challenge is a concept created by Corsair’s Institute. Neither this competition nor Corsair’s Institute is not associated with the MLB in any way. Our visualization expertise is second to none. Our softball team loses in games where the other team forfeits.
