Ben Shoemate's Notebook

Received a wonderful link via reader Lonnie P. to this website that presents a historical reconstruction of W.E.B. DuBois's exhibit of the "American negro" at the 1900 Paris Expo. Amusingly, DuBois presented a large series of data graphics to educate the world on the state (plight) of blacks in America over a century ago.

You can really spend a whole afternoon examining these charts (and more); too bad the charts have poor resolution and it is often hard to make out the details.

***

Judging from this evidence, we must face up to the fact that data graphics have made little progress during these eleven decades. Ideas, good or bad, get reinvented. Disappointingly, we haven't learned from the worst ones.

Exhibit A 

 

(see discussion here)

Exhibit B

 (see discussion here)

Exhibit C 

 

(See discussion here.)

Exhibit D

 (see the Vampire chart here)

Exhibit E

(see the discussion here.)

Exhibit F

(see discussion here.)