1882 drawing of the deadline at Andersonville prison camp, Georgia during the US Civil War
24 April 2023
Today, deadline is almost exclusively used to mean a time by which a task must be accomplished, but this sense of a time limit is a later development. Deadline started out with a variety of meanings, but all designating some kind of boundary or limit.
The term begins to appear in earnest in the middle of the nineteenth century. It is an Americanism, and the early uses often literally referred to death. For instance, there is this from the New York Observer of 21 February 1856 that uses the word to denote the line on a tree branch that marks living plant from dead wood:
When the first warm weather of early spring renders it necessary to cut back, before the sap begins to circulate, then do so, a little below the evident frost spark, or dead line. But if the peach trees are of good sorts, touch not the bodies too rashly, for they sometimes survive after the bark and wood show discolorations and slight disorganization, on cutting into them.
And there is this instance from nautical jargon that appeared in a report about a business meeting of the Boston, Massachusetts Board of Alderman on 11 January 1859. Exactly what the dead line here signifies isn’t clear, but it has to do with the lading of cargo onto ships:
The Ballast Inspectors during the last quarter inspected the dead line and light water marks of 406 vessels, the cargoes of which amounted to 22,763 tons, and the fees to $682 89.
But the most infamous use of deadline, the one that sparks widespread use of the term, was in the Confederate military prison camp at Andersonville, Georgia during the US Civil War. The camp became notorious for the horrific conditions under which Union prisoners of war were kept. Here is a portion of an account that appeared in Wisconsin’s Janesville Daily Gazette of 26 July 1864:
At the stockade there is an imaginary line, which if our men pass the rebel guard shoots; hence it is called the “dead line.” Many of the men’s sufferings become so intolerable that they voluntarily cross the line and are shot.
Accounts like this were printed in papers throughout the United States starting in 1864, and the term became notorious. Within a few years, deadline started appearing in other contexts, but often in the sense of an imaginary line that one literally risked death by crossing. In the latter half of the nineteenth century, one often sees the term in the context of range wars between cattlemen and sheep herders, where one side establishes such a boundary. It also often appears in the context of some accident where it is treacherous to approach the site.
But more metaphorical uses are also present. Deadline is frequently used in the context of refusal to hire older workers. (Ageism is nothing new.) The phrase deadline of fifty is frequently found in relation to the ministry. Here is an example from the Congregationalist and Boston Recorder of 24 June 1869:
We are invited to some very singular statements, which if true, are a reproach to our religion, viz: that the churches are so bewitched of young men for the sacred desk that the moment “gray hair”" being to develop, and the “dead line” of “fifty” is reached, off goes the minister’s head.
Another example of a metaphorical use comes from the world of newspaper publishing, but not in the sense of a time limit. Rather, this use that appeared in the Memphis, Tennessee Commercial Appeal of 6 September 1901 uses deadline to refer to boundary of silence surround negotiations for the settlement of a strike that reporters cannot penetrate:
The day was spent by the amalgamated advisory board in secret conference, behind doors guarded closer than ever before. The newspaper “deadline” was drawn most effectually. When adjournment for the day came, those who had been inside headquarters refused to talk.
Finally, by 1904 we get the sense referring to a time limit. This one appears in New Orleans’s Daily Picayune of 4 August 1904. It’s in a short story about a newspaper reporter, so clearly this sense of deadline was already a part of newspaper jargon by this date:
“To a phone, quick,” he whispered [sic] huskily. Then he twitched his watch from his pocket. “It’s 12:35,” he muttered, “and the deadline for the Bulldog edition is 1 o’clock. Twenty minutes to write the story, five minutes on the copy desk and we’ve got it. Hurry, Agnes—to a phone!”
Over time, this newspaper sense drove the other senses into obscurity. One still can find examples of deadline being used to refer to imaginary lines demarking territory, but the overwhelming number of uses are in the sense of a time limit.
Sources:
Bittinger, J.Q. “Gray Hairs and Fifty.” The Congregationalist and Boston Recorder, 24 June 1869, 194/3. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
“Board of Aldermen.” Boston Evening Transcript, 11 January 1859, 4/2. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
Lait, Jacquin Leonard. “Briggsie’s ‘Scoop.’” Daily Picayune (New Orleans), 4 August 1904, 7/5. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
“The Need of Troops.” Janesville Daily Gazette (Wisconsin), 26 July 1864, 2/1. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, 1989, s.v. dead-line, n.
“Peace Is in Sight.” Commercial Appeal (Memphis, Tennessee), 6 September 1901, 2/5. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
“Western Fruit Crop.” New York Observer (New York City), Religious Department, 21 February 1856, 64/1. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
Image credit: Urban, John W. Battle Field and Prison Pen. Philadelphia: Hubbard Brothers, 1882, 355. Archive.org. Public domain image.