What are broadside ballads?
Broadside ballads were popular songs, printed on one side of single sheet of paper, which sold for a penny or half-penny in Britain between the sixteenth and the twentieth centuries Until recording technology allowed sound itself to be marketed, these cheap but lively prints provided the means for families at home or groups of people in taverns to amuse themselves with traditional, humorous, tragic, or political songs, sung to familiar tunes. Ephemeral printed objects like broadside ballads would not have survived without the efforts of collectors who treasured what other people considered merely momentary diversions. The earliest ballad broadsides, from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, contained a single song, but by the nineteenth century sheets bearing two songs were common, while larger sheets containing dozens of songs were sold either complete or as “slips”, cut by the vendor according to the price paid. The ballad sellers on the street corners of towns or the pedlars who
