The birth of the Beast

Printed in March 1812, this political cartoon was made in reaction to the newly drawn state senate election district of South Essex created by the Massachusetts legislature to favor the Democratic-Republican Party. The caricature satirizes the bizarre shape of the district as a dragon-like monster, and Federalist newspaper editors and others at the time likened it to a salamander. But it came to be called the Gerrymander, after then-Gov. Elbridge Gerry, who supported the weird redistricting.