Definition
A broadside is a large sheet of paper printed on one side, historically used for public proclamations, ballads, advertisements, or official notices. It was the dominant form of mass communication before newspapers, designed to be posted on walls or read aloud to illiterate audiences. In naval warfare, a “broadside” refers to the simultaneous firing of all cannons from one side of a warship—a devastating volley designed to cripple an enemy vessel. The term bridges the worlds of media history, military tactics, and literary culture: the broadside ballad was a foundational form of popular music, the political broadside was the weapon of revolutionaries, and the naval broadside was the engine of sea power for centuries.
Why It Matters
The broadside was the internet before the internet. From the 16th to the 19th centuries, broadside ballads—cheaply printed sheets with song lyrics and crude woodcut illustrations—were the primary means by which news, propaganda, folk songs, and scandal circulated among the English common people. They covered everything from battles and executions to crimes, miracles, and bawdy humor. The broadside democratized information: anyone could buy one for a penny, paste it to a tavern wall, or have it sung by a street performer. In the American Revolution, broadsides were weapons of propaganda: Thomas Paine’s Common Sense (1776) was originally published as a broadside pamphlet, and the Declaration of Independence was printed as a broadside for public distribution. In naval history, the broadside defined sea warfare from the 16th to the 19th centuries: the development of ships of the line—vessels designed to sail in formation and present their full gunnery broadside—created the modern battle fleet. The Battle of Trafalgar (1805), the Battle of Jutland (1916), and the naval battles of World War II all turned on the deployment of broadside fire. Even after battleships became obsolete, the term “broadside” persists in naval rhetoric and political metaphor: “firing a broadside” at an opponent means launching a concentrated, all-out verbal attack.
Example
The “Dying Speech of Captain Kidd” (1701) was a broadside ballad purporting to record the final words of the executed pirate William Kidd. It was almost entirely fictional, but it sold thousands of copies and cemented the legend of buried treasure. For a political example, the Boston Broadside of 1775—numerous printed sheets distributed after the Battles of Lexington and Concord—shaped public opinion by presenting the American militias as victims of British aggression. In naval history, the HMS Victory, Nelson’s flagship at Trafalgar, carried 104 guns and could fire a broadside of 1,100 pounds of iron shot. The shock of a full broadside could shatter a wooden hull, kill dozens of men instantly, and disable a ship before boarding. The modern equivalent is not the battleship—aircraft carriers and missiles have made broadside gunnery obsolete—but the term survives in political journalism: Broadside, a 20th-century left-wing magazine, and the metaphor of “firing a broadside” at a political opponent, meaning a concentrated attack from multiple angles simultaneously.
Internet Angle
The broadside is the ancestor of the internet meme, the viral tweet, and the algorithmic news feed. A cheap, quickly produced, widely distributed piece of information designed to provoke emotion—political outrage, sentimental tears, scandalous delight—describes both the 17th-century broadside ballad and the 21st-century TikTok. On Reddit’s r/history and r/AskHistorians, broadsides are a frequent subject: users share digital archives of ballad sheets, debate the accuracy of “dying speeches” that were clearly written by printers, and explore how the broadside economy shaped public literacy. The British Library’s Broadside Ballads archive and English Broadside Ballad Archive at UC Santa Barbara have made thousands of sheets freely accessible, allowing researchers and hobbyists to trace the spread of news, rumors, and songs across early modern England. The naval broadside persists in gaming: titles like Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, World of Warships, and Sea of Thieves feature broadside mechanics that approximate the physics of age-of-sail combat. In political discourse, the term “broadside” is still used in headlines: “Senator Fires Broadside at Administration Policy” is a standard journalistic framing that echoes the original meaning—a devastating, concentrated attack from one direction.
Related Terms
- Ballad — The narrative song form that dominated broadside printing, often set to popular tunes and sold by street vendors
- Pamphlet — The larger, multi-page printed form that succeeded the broadside as the primary vehicle for political argument
- Ship of the line — The naval warship designed to fight in formation, presenting its broadside as the primary weapon
- Street literature — The broader category of cheap, popular printed materials including broadsides, chapbooks, and ballads
- Woodcut — The relief printing technique used to illustrate broadsides, producing bold, crude images that were cheap to reproduce
Word count: ~520