Table Of ContentVISIBLE NUMBERS:
ESSAYS ON THE HISTORY OF
STATISTICAL GRAPHICS
ashgate studies in
technical communication,
rhetoric, and culture
Series Editor: Miles A. Kimball, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, USA
this series promotes innovative, interdisciplinary research in the theory and
practice of technical communication, broadly conceived as including business,
scientific, and health communication. Technical communication has an extensive
impact on our world and our lives, yet the venues for long-format research in
the field are few. This series serves as an outlet for scholars engaged with the
theoretical, practical, rhetorical, and cultural implications of the field.
Also published in the series
Computer Games and Technical Communication
Critical Methods and Applications at the Intersection
Edited by Jennifer deWinter and Ryan M. Moeller
Visible Numbers:
essays on the history of
statistical Graphics
Edited by
MilEs A. KiMbAll
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, USA
ChARlEs KosTElniCK
Iowa State University, USA
Published 2016 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© Miles A. Kimball and Charles Kostelnick 2016
All rights reserved. no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
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Miles A. Kimball and Charles Kostelnick have asserted their right under the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the editors of this work.
Notice:
Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the british library.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:
Visible numbers : essays on the history of statistical graphics / edited by Miles A. Kimball
and Charles Kostelnick.
pages cm. -- (Ashgate studies in technical communication, rhetoric, and culture)
includes bibliographical references and index.
isb7.n2 978-1-4094-4875-4 (hardcover) 1. Mathematical statistics--Graphic methods. 2.
statistics--Graphic methods. 3. Charts, diagrams, etc. 4. Visualization--Technique. 5. in-
formation visualization. i. Kimball, Miles A., editor. ii. Kostelnick, Charles, editor.
QA276.3.V57 2016
519.5--dc23
2015024492
isb7.n2 9781409448754 (hbk)
contents
List of Figures vii
List of Tables xv
Acknowledgments xvii
Notes on Contributors xix
introduction 1
Charles Kostelnick and Miles Kimball
ParT I VIsuaLIzIng BoDIes: HeaLTDHI, DIsease, eVoLuTIon
1 Visualizing Evolution and Development: The Rise of
Geometric morphometrics 19
Alan G. Gross
2 Florence nightingale’s statistical Table for hospitals: A Work of
Utility and Art 43
Lee E. Brasseur
3 Visualizing Public health Risks: Graphical Representations
of smallpox in the seventeenth, Eighteenth, and
nineteenth Centuries 61
Candice A. Welhausen and Rebecca E. Burnett
ParT II VIsuaLIzIng naTIons: MoraLITy, War,
naTIonaLIsM
4 Joseph Fletcher, Thematic Maps, slavery, and the Worst Places to
live in the U.K. and the U.s. 83
Robert Cook and Howard Wainer
5 7lin.2novation and inertia in Atmospheric and Census Cartography in
nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century America 107
Mark Monmonier
6 Mountains of Wealth, Rivers of Commerce: Michael G. Mulhall’s
Graphics and the imperial Gaze 127
Miles A. Kimball
vi Visible Numbers: Essays on the History of Statistical Graphics
7 “a scheme of cross-roads, orderly and mad”: british trench maps
of the First World War 153
Marguerite Helmers
ParT III exxaaMInIng VIsIBLe nuMBers: ForMs,
MeTHoDs, HIsTorIograPHIes
8 7m.2osaics, culture, and rhetorical resiliency: the convoluted
Genealogy of a Data Display Genre 177
Charles Kostelnick
9 t7.h2e twentieth-century computer Graphics revolution
in statistics 207
Dianne Cook
10 The Milestones Project: A Database for the history of
Data Visualization 219
Michael Friendly, Matthew Sigal, and Derek Harnanansingh
11 7a.2nnotated bibliography of scholarship on the history of
Data Graphics 235
Kevin Van Winkle
Works Cited 261
Index 285
list of figures
1.1 A Cartesian grid applied successively between Didion and
Orthagoriscus mola 21
1.2 Conjectural fossil horse’s heads in grids compared with
actual fossils 22
1.3 Dasyurus into Phalanger 24
1.4 Growth profile of the hermit crab. Growth-gradients along the
body of male and female hermit-crabs (Euparugus prideauxi
[Parugus prideaux leach 1815]). The male gradients are marked
by solid lines; the female, by diagonal filler. The numbers give
percentage increases of appendage length for a given percentage
increase of body length, marked as dotted line 25
1.5 Relative growth of the chela (claw) in the prawn Palaemon
malcomsoni [now Macrobrachium malcomsonii or monsoon river
prawn]. logorithmic plotting 27
1.6 Above: Golofa imperialis and Golofa caecum [the name of this
beetle is not present in contemporary taxonomies]. below: two
specimens of Golofa porteri 27
1.7 The effect of rate-genes on eye-pigmentation in Gammarus
chevreauxi 28
1.8 o7.r2dinates mark human chest-girths as a percentage of stature; the
abscissa gives the age in years 28
1.9 Full face of the british Museum Wax Death Mask fitted with the
facial outlines of the Wilkinson head 31
1.10 Profile of the british Museum Wax Death Mask fitted with the
profile and the average flesh allowance of the Wilkinson head 31
1.11 Median saggital section of head showing bone, embalmed head,
ordinary flesh allowance 32
1.12 Final Comparison of the Wilkinson head with Masks and busts 33
1.13 Three views of a human hemi-mandible, age 1 year 36
1.14 7s.c2attergram comparing the development of the mandible in
humans and chimpanzees 37
1.15 The development of the chimpanzee mandible from gestation week
18 to dental stage (Ds) 2 39
1.16 s7.c2reenshot from video of the development of the human mandible,
front and side view 39
1.17 Thin-plate splines of the dolphin skull and the scattergrams on
which they are based. RW = relative warp analysis, a form of
viii Visible Numbers: Essays on the History of Statistical Graphics
principle component analysis “conducted in order to summarize
the variation in shape among the specimens in the sample”
(Amaral et al. 40). in each spline, landmarks are represented by
open circles 40
1.18 Phenogram of three dolphin species based on
geometric morphometrics 40
2.1 7h.o2spital General statistical Form designed by nightingale 45
2.2 Close-up, hospital General statistical Form designed
by nightingale 46
3.1 Mummified body of Ramses V, believed to have died from
smallpox in 1157 bc 63
3.2 7l.i2ne graph that appeared in the 1838 British Medical Almanack
that traces daily smallpox deaths over a 17-day period 71
3.3 Register of the small-pox in Chester, 1778 (haygarth (1801) 75
3.4 s7.m2allpox outbreak in 1893 in Muncie, indiana 76
3.5 s7.m2allpox outbreak in Western Australia 77
4.1 Joseph Fletcher’s “ignorance in England and Wales”
(“Moral,” 1849) 89
4.2 Joseph Fletcher’s “Crime in England and Wales” (“Moral,” 1849) 89
4.3 John snow’s 1855 map showing the location of each death during
the cholera epidemic that struck central london in september
of 1854. snow deduced the cause of the epidemic from their
proximity to the broad street water pump 92
4.4 A scatterplot of ignorance versus crime for the nineteenth-century
data vividly shows the positive relation that Fletcher discusses. it
also highlights the unusual character of the county of Middlesex
(home of greater london), as well as the similarity of the Celtic
counties (Monmouth, north and south Wales) 99
4.5 A scatterplot of ignorance versus crime using modern data
maintains the overall historical relationship between the variables,
though the relationship does not hold for most individual counties 99
4.6 A scatterplot of ignorance for the two time periods shows a
remarkable shift; the least ignorant counties in the nineteenth
century tend to be the most ignorant now and vice versa 101
4.7 A scatterplot of crime for the two time periods shows only a very
modest relationship between the level of criminality in a county
over the two time periods depicted. The principal exception to this
lack of trend is the county of Middlesex 101
4.8 7s.t2em-and-leaf plot of free and slave states’ ranking on Angoff and
Mencken “Worst American states” 102
List of Figures ix
4.9 setem-and-leaf plot of free and slave states’ ranking on updated
worst American states using modern data 102
4.10 secatterplot of relationship between 1850 proportion of population
that is slave and 2009 nAEP reading scores 104
4.11 secatterplot of relationship between 1850 proportion of population
that is slave and 2010 per capita income 104
4.12 escatterplot of relationship between 1850 proportion of population
that is slave and 2009 death rate 105
5.1 leithographed copy of the “Map of Virginia, showing the
distribution of its slave population from the census of 1860,”
published in Washington, DC, in 1861 by henry s. Graham 111
5.2 Joseph Fletcher’s 1849 choropleth map of the “Dispersion of
population in england & Wales” was one of several choropleth
maps accompanying his article “moral and educational statistics
of England and Wales” 112
5.3 Excerpt and key from Francis A. Walker’s 1874 “Map showing
the illiteracy of the adult white male population, compiled from
returns of population at the Ninth census of the
United states, 1870” 114
5.4 Walker’s Statistical Atlas included this centrographic map, devised
by James hilgard to describe the westward movement of the center
of U.s. population 114
5.5 Wilhelm Trabert’s 1905 reconstruction of the weather map
described by brandes in 1819 116
5.6 U.s. surgeon-General’s office, eastern half of the “hyetal or Rain
chart: mean Distribution of precipitation for the Winter” 117
5.7 sepecimen station model included with the daily weather
7.2
maps issued by the U.s. Weather bureau, later the national
Weather service 118
5.8 belack-and-white image of brewer and suchan’s magnitude map
of county populations, appropriately portrayed with graduated
squares 121
5.9 belack-and-white image of brewer and suchan’s choropleth map of
county populations 121
5.10 secatterplot matrix for exploring relationships among three
variables includes a map and a movable brush for selecting areas 123
5.11 An array of maps on noAA’s national snow Analyses
website serves as both a menu and a device for comparative
visual analysis 125
5.12 Three-month outlook map exemplifies the graphic simplicity
of longer-range forecast maps (national oceanic and
Atmospheric Agency) 125
