mammybearsbooks Blog Broadsides 20210304

The historical type of broadsides, designed to be plastered onto walls as a form of street literature, were ephemera, i.e. temporary documents created for a specific purpose and intended to be thrown away. They were one of the most common forms of printed material between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. They were often advertisements

Broadsides were a very popular medium for printing topical ballads and were usually printed on the cheapest type of paper available. Initially, this was cloth paper, but later it became common to use sheets of thinner, cheaper paper.

Many Broadsides were of a political nature, usually pouring scorn on the opposition. My collection contains quite a few of said lambasts, many of which are highly amusing. The material dates fronm 1826 and hails from Northumberland, England.

Some of this information was gleaned form Wikipedia