What does the phrase "A picture is worth ten thousand words" mean to you? Is it more or less meaningful to know that it was written by an advertising executive, to attract clients to his firm?
Various misattributions and misquotations of the phrase are in wide circulation. This page traces the history of this quotation, created by Frederick R. Barnard, National Advertising Manager for the Street Railways Advertising Company (offices then in New York, Chicago, and San Francisco). The maxim which is popular today was first known as "One look is worth a thousand words", and appeared in a 1921 ad by Barnard. He chose to modify the saying for a 1927 ad, where it took on its famous form.
The confusion between whether a picture is worth one thousand or ten thousand words may stem from a 1948 dictionary entry, which otherwise seems to be very correct.
If you have more information about the origins of this quotation (or the stories which surround it), please send me e-mail and I will update this page accordingly.
For their help with the present version of the page, I thank Dona Bubelis of the Seattle Public Library, Ellen Chamberlain of the University of South Carolina, and Dr. Paul Lester of California State University Fullerton (A Picture's Worth a Thousand Words?).
Daryl Hepting
March, 1999
(this presentation of material copyright Daryl Hepting)