Evolution of Visualization Instruction in the Early 20th Century

Introduction

In taking in and reflecting upon readings and visualizations provided on the history of visualization, my attention was repeated drawn back to discussions of W. E. B. Du Bois’ “Arresting Modernist Visualizations” that he presented at World’s Fair of 1900. I had studied these visualizations as an undergraduate in college as part of my sociology-history double major, since, as Popova points out, the work put into aggregating and digesting nearly a decade of data about the lives of Black Americans went into “shaping” The Souls of Black Folks (1903) (and I daresay even Darkwater: Voices from within the Veil [1920]).

Borrowing from Popova:

“[Du Bois] enlisted some of his best students in rendering his statistics on four key dimensions of the black experience — “the history of the American Negro,” “his present condition,” “his education,” and “his literature” — into a series of hand-painted ink and watercolor charts, diagrams, and figures…conceived of and created entirely by African Americans:

“We have [made] an honest, straightforward exhibit of a small nation of people, picturing their life and development without apology or gloss, and above all made by themselves.” This they accomplished in very little time and with no funding.

Though I’d always admired Du Bois’ work for his visualizations ability to communicate solemnly and honestly about the social condition of Black Americans, approaching these works through the lens of the history of visualization demonstrated another aspect of the impressiveness of Du Bois’ work.

This timeline underscores how instruction in visualization and graphical design unfolded in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In doing so, the innovative nature of DuBois’ work comes into much sharper focus.

Materials

I used Timeline JS, KnightLab’s open source visualization tool that work with Google Sheets to create interactive, media-rich experiences for users, to create the following visualization

Methods, Steps

I primarily use Friendly & Denis’ behemoth of a timeline, “Milestones in the history of thematic cartography, statistical graphics, and data visualization” (2001), to identify milestones for this timeline. The milestone entries provided by the creators provided jumping-off points for understanding trends in the development and dissemination of knowledge surrounding visualization techniques.

Another critical step taken in searching for information about individuals or imprints was teasing out nuance around each milestone. I was interested in both the subject of certain landmark publications and graphical designs as well as the cultural and social identities ascribed to and attained by those who created these works. In drawing attention to these qualities of instruction, my goal is to shed light on the philosophies and fields of study that undergird the history of visualization. Giving name to the buttressing qualities of these developments demonstrates, if nothing else, that uniformity of identity and experience present in the history of visualization. My motivation to organize a timeline this is the hope that this visualization may inspire understanding of the embedded influence of white patriarchal philosophies the broader field of data analysis and visualization. Identifying this influence is an essential step to establishing a data feminist, intersectional field of data analysis and visualization.

Struck by Du Bois as well as several other scholars and graphical designers who allow their data to guide their visualizations in innovative direction, I included visualizations produced by these scholars wherever possible. Like Bowley’ rolling average, I found viewing these visualizations chronologically gently but clearly highlights changes in graphical practices over time.

Results

Click here to view timeline

Reflection

Curating this timeline was an invisible rollercoaster, a project where every hole in the information could be a rabbit hole. When trying to track down information about statisticians, their publications, etc., I found that marshalling essentially “equal” amounts of information about each milestone (for example, I could find graphs from one scholar’s publication but not another, I could find a biography of one scholar but not another, etc.). The inability to get “equal” amounts of information for each milestone is the main difference between the timeline I imagined and the timeline I was able to build, from the milestones themselves to the design choices I made. If I’d had enough timeline milestones, I could have accommodated for unequal access to information by grouping related milestones together, adding more era slides instead of title slides to highlight the (i.e., textbook publication, the introduction of graphical standards/rules, the development of statistical/graphical curriculum). If I were to approach this assignment again, I would be interested in seeing, understanding what a history of visualization separating out or otherwise excluding advances in visualization made by those who subscribed to oppressive or harmful politics, like E. P. Cubberley. I’d love to re-attempt this assignment specifically focusing on chronologically presenting the contributions of Black and other scholars of color, not just because awareness of their stories and contributions is underrepresented across the history of visualization, but also to observe the impact of their identities, experiences, on their visualization

Sources

American Economic Association (1918), New Books

American Railway Engineering Association (1921), Proceedings of the 22^nd Annual Convention of the American Railway held at the Congress Hotel, Chicago, Illinois, March 15, 16, 17, 1921, Volume 22

Ballantyne (2002), Chapter 3: American Schooling, Administrative Reform, And Individual Ability Testing: Assimilation and sorting before World War I.

Day (1920), Reviewed Work: Graphic Methods for Presenting Facts by Willard C. Brinton

Fontaine (1926), French Industry During the War

Funkhouser (1937), Historical Development of the Graphical Representation of Statistical Data

International Statistical Institute (1903), Bulletin de L’Institut International de Statistique

Iowa State University (1917), General Catalog: Announcements and Faculty List

Maldonado (2020), Eugenics on the Farm: Ellwood Cubberley

National Portrait Gallery (n.d.), Walery (active 1884-1898), Photographer

Providence Public Library (1919), Quarterly Bulletin of the Providence Public Library, Volumes 17-18