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s the 2O16 elec- tion approaches, we're hearing a lot about "red states" and "blue states." That idiom has become so ingrained that \ we've almost forgotten where it ori.gi- nally came from: a . In the 2000 presidential election, \ the race between Al Gore and George \ W. Bush was so razor close that broad- casters pored over electora-l college maps-which they typically colored red and blue. What's more, they talked about those shadings. NBC's Tim Rus- sert wondered aloud how George Bush would "get those remaining 61 electoral red states, ifyou will," and that langrrage became Iodged in the popular imagina- tion. America became divided into two colors-data spun into pure metaphor. Now Americans even talk routinely HowData about "purple" states, a mental visual- ization of political information. We live in an age of data visualiza- tion. Go to any news website and you'll WontheWest graphics see charting support for the presidential candidates; open your iPhone and the Health app will gener- ate personalized graphs showing how active you've been this week, month or Early lives, year. Sites publish showinghow saved soldiers' the climate is changing, how schools debunked myths about slavery and are segregating, how much housework mothers do versus fathers. And news- helped Americans settle the frontier papers are increasingly flnding that readers iove "dataviz": In 2013, BY CLIVE THOMPSON illustration by Kotryna Zukauskaite the New York Times'most-read

July . August 2016 I sMrrHSoNrAN.coM 23 social issues with hard facts, if you ence, but Playfair seemed to intuit couldfind awayto analyze it," says Mi- some of its principles. He suspectedthe chaei Friendly, a professor ofpsychol- brain processed images more readily ogg at York Uni.versity who studies the than words: A picture really was worth history of data visualization. "The age a thousand words. "He said things that of data really began." sound almost like a 20th-century vi- story for the entire year was a visual- An early innovator was the Scot- sion researcher," Spence adds. Data, izal-io:n of regional accents across the tish inventor and economist wrote, should "speak to the United States. It makes sense. We live Playfair. As a teenager he apprenticed eyes"-because they were "the best in an age of Big Data. If we're going to to James Watt, the Scottish inventor judge ofproportion, being able to es- understand our complex world, one who perfected the steam engine. PIay- timate it with more quickness and ac- powerful way is to graph it. fair was tasked with drawing up pat- curacy than any other of our organs." But this isn't the fi.rst time we've dis- ents, which required him to develoP A reaily good data visualization, he covered the pleasures of making infor- exceilent draft ing and picture-drawing argued, "produces form and shape to mation into pictures. Over a hundred skills. A.fter he left Watt's lab, Play{air a number of separate ideas, which are years ago, scientists and thinkers found became interested in economics and otherwise abstract and unconnected." themselves drowning in their own flood convinced that he could use his facility Soon, intellectuals across Europe ofdata-and to help understand it, they for illustrationto make data come alive. were using datavisualization to gfapple invented the very idea ofinfographics. 'An average political economist with the travails of urbanization, such wouid have certainly been able to pro- as crime and disease. In France in the The idea of visualizing data is o1d: duce a table for publication, but not 1830s, a Iawyer named Andr6-Michel After all, that's what a map is-a rep- necessarily agraph," notes Ian Spence, Guerry created maps showing "moral resentation of geographic informa- a psychologist at the University of statistics." Hewas arnongtheflrstto use tion-and we've had maps for about Toronto who's writing a biography shadings to show data-darker where 8,000 years. But it was rare to graPh of Playfair. Plafair, who understood crime was worse or illiteracyhigher, for anything other than geography. Only both data and art, was perfectly posi- example. His maps were controversial, a few examples exist: Around the 11th tioned to create this new discipline. because they rebutted conventional century, a now-anonymous scribe cre- In one famous , he plotted the wisdom. French social critics believed that lower education ied to crime, but the maps suggested this wasn't true. ri i-r':ii,: i ; a'l i.:.i:i. "Clearly," Guerry wrote, "the relation- ship people talk about does not exist." 3 Data-based social science was born. i.. 1.. r.ir t:.1'" .i. :: i: i:..* :-. :! :'::.. i i ii { By the middle of the 19th century, :;1..t' i':i1:i:ri-:: i +ir;'+a :: 1','1.. I "moral statistics" were booming and n scientists were using data visualiza- ! ated a chart ofhow the planets moved price of wheat in the United Kingdom tion to quash epidemics. When cholera through the sky. By the l8th century, against the cost of labor. People of- ravaged London in 1854, the physician scientists were warming to the idea ten complained about the high cost of John Snow mapped out incidences, and of arranging knowledge visually. The wheat and thought wages were driving noticed a large cluster around the wa- British poiymath Joseph Priestley the price up. Plafair's chart showed this ter pump on Broad Street. The skeptical produced a "Chart ofBiography," plot- wasn't true: Wages were rising much city council closed the pump, the epi- ting the lives ofabout 2,000 historical more slowlythanthe cost ofthe product. demic subsided, and Snow's map helped fi.gures on a timeline. A picture, he ar- "He wanted to discover," Spence nudge forward a cr-ucial idea: that dis- g-ued, conveyed the information "with notes. "He wanted to find regularities eases could be causedbycontactwith a:r more exactness,,and in much less time, or points of change." Playfair's illus- as-yet-unknown contagion-bacteria. than it [would take] by reading." trations often look amazingly modern: Still, data visualization was rare In one, he drew pie charts-his inven- ln mid-l9th-centuryAmerica, otie 1Q because data was rare. That began to tion, too-and lines that compared the oI the Drggest socral lssues *r, Y change rapidly in the early 19th cen- size of various country's populations tury, because countries began to col- against their tax revenues. Once again, lect*and publish-reams of informa- the chart produced a new, crisp analy- tion about their weather, economic sis: The British paid far higher taxes activity and population. "For the first than citizens ofother nations. time, you could deal with important Neurology was not yet a robust sci-

24 sMlrHSoNlAN.cOM I July. August 2O16 Lincoln was fascinated by this map, J6 consulting it so frequently during the ml Civil War that it showed "the marks nuf of much service," as an official por- fltr|l traitist, Francis Bicknell Carpenter, :1ffi Iater recalled. One day Carpenter had lt slavery. Arld it was slavery that propelled paratively slave-free. This suggested borrowed the map to examine it, when il some of the country's most remarkable that the west would care less about Lincoln came into the room. Trrdr data visualizations: "slave maps." fighting to preserve slavery; indeed, it "You have appropriated my map, M When Southern states began to se- might even switch sides and join the have you?" said Lincoln. "I have been @ cede in 1860 and 1861, Union forces Unionists. The map was a deeply po- looking all around for it." The president fl{ invaded Virginia to try to beat back Iitical data visualization, points out put on his spectacles, "and sitting down xm the secessionists. But where should Susan Schulten, a historian at the Uni- upon a trunk began to pore over it very f,il they concentrate their forces? In the versity of Denver and author of Map- earnestly," as Carpenter later wrote. I& midst of the flghting in June 1861, the ping the Natiorc. It was trying to show Lincoln pointed to the position where l federal government's Coast Survey that only a relative minority ofVirgin- Judson Kilpatrick's cavalry division m department produced a fascinating ians supported-and beneflted from- of the Army was now fi,ghting Con- ,!L map of Virginia that suggested a strat- slavery. It suggested military strategli, federate troops. "It is just as I thought d ery. Using data from the latest census, too: Try to pit the west against the east. it was," he said. "He is close upon qrii the map showed the concentration of "Itwas abreakthrough map," Schui- County, where slaves are thickest. Now- rmfr slaves in each county of Virginia: The ten notes. "It was an attempt to influ- we ought to get a 'heap' of them, when mi darker the county, the higher the per- ence how the government saw the he returns." Much as with the Virginia Ell centage of the population enslaved. nation, and how the military under- map, Lincoln used the map to under- One trend immediately jumped out: stood it. It drove Lincoln's attention to stand the country in a new way-to see ir eastern Virginia was the hotspot of where slavery was weakest." where Southerners would be most, and im slavery. The western region was com- Soon after, the U.S. Coast Survey least, eager to fight the North. m produced yet another map charting rd - i:;':+: ::::+ i4:1.t1;+.iei$iEl::'r:i "E =riij: rEgi:41t'iiri'i=" {x :rl:;:i-'i'ii #ir';!1.i18 ;i':r:iJ {ilfi+.li+1+: it}L:a!}. ij!'::t slave density, except this one covered By the late l9th century, data visual- -+r::=-t:tJir: { ii}+i *i-:{j +:;i1+l ::::r*g*+ i F-+E;tr,:i.'1. all the Southern states. President ization had created a new type ofcit- J :E t';,iri :,$iili rii' Ii$Ii'l'.li1 lT). 2. ljl.'itr,ii,\Il or {'.\i 1. aPBP_]!,,{ 1{J;6 r( rilr ARMY :l* lllt- [,{ S T . 4PltlL .111,'r4 ro M.LRClf 1,855 lf {IRCI{ :E :I! "q s0 * _'uL" ,l**' I :$ q *r ! iiE , z '/-a\ q s f'/: \ 2 ri .T ti. r, := I \rarJ--r p ni ru lt" I .-._-j,..-} ../ "t :' .' g 4bti \f- $ s.:ar \:j' , *rjt d \-/"\__ ffi n4vrtxv" -.'-1' ;l ", - - ot fi 4l -$' fi

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26 sMrTHSoNrAN.cov I July . August 2016 I izen. Educated individuals in the U.S. Donald, a professor emeritus at the The age of data, it seems, has even a newjob: the datajournalist, E or Europe were increasingly comfort- University of Guelph in Ontario and created not only making i: abie thinking statistically. "The two editor of The Collected Works of Flor- who's comfortable dominant words of our time," wrote ence Nightingale. phone calls and writing stories, but Oliver Wendell Holmes in 1860, "are Visualization even governed how writing code and crunching data. For j ManY the "Biue Feed, Red Feed" storY, Kee- L law and average." the U.S. territory expanded. One true believer was the British Americans wanted to move westward, gan analyzed a large academic data nurse Florence Nightingale. As a chiid but elites were uncertain whether set of Facebook postings. Thanks she was so bewitched by math that she the interior was suitable for farming. to programming languages like R or E journalists can r- organized information about her gar- Some believed it was a "Great Amer- Python, today's data dening in tables. Statistics, she said, iean Desert"; Joseph Henry. a scien- make a data visualization on a daily = were a tool to know "the thought of tist and Secretary of the Smithsonian deadline. "It didn't used to be even ten years a God"; when weary, a glance at a table Institution, regarded the West as "a of numbers was "perfectly reviving." barrenwaste . . . unfitfor agriculture," ago that we could build a soPhisti- During the Crimean War she got a and he produced maps analyzing Army cated data analysis at the same speed that someone can write a story," saYS !f, chance to wield her dat/skills. While rainfall datato support his contention. own data Scott Klein, a data journalist with E- in the field, Nightingale became aP- Others fi.red back with their k palled at the squalid conditions of visualizations arguing the opposite: ProPub1ica. 'And now we can." News army hospitals and soldier barracks, Rainfall patterns in the West were cy- outlets now often publish entire data- bases with a search interface, because or which were mired with feces and ver- clical, they argued, so the land there poking the min. She persuaded Queen Victoria to could certainly support grazing ani- readers enjoy around in big L let her studythe issue, and Nightingal.e mals. The expansionists eventually river of data themselves. "We rely on alevel of dataliter- r- teamed up with her friend William won out. The vision of Manifest Des- can not just with speeches, acy that we couldn't rely on 100 years H: Farr, the country's leading statistician, tiny was built to analyze army mortality rates. They butwith infographics. ago, or even 40 years ago," Klein adds. people chart the uncovered a stunning fact: Most of the Everyday have tools to soldiers in the Crimean War hadn't This spring, lhe Wall Street Journal info oftheirlives. Google, for example, died in combat. They'd died of "pre- produced a fascinating data visualiza- recently upgraded its online spread- ventable diseases"-precisely the sort caused by terrible hygiene. Clean up "E.-',tsrtt.".il the hygiene and you'd save lives. +=..g,,1s 1;1r1i;'4;Otnu it. E;+e,l.:*.;+tr;, f lli, r+ *:"iif+it-+ i;if',,{,.-t#t.}i;i: i:q Nightingale adroitly realized that jr}i:r: d.::1{l}l'i"E{-t:'lri-tl.+?..ii;.: tr1+,..+ i.i|tt+ ';t,:.;*:l;+'.,i+.:,+.tt',u.;*.tl+'ii:, 'rrY,f'+-t;:*i*:: tables of numbers and text would be . ." . . .i ..i too hard to parse. They needed, she ili;;it.'4.*:1;ir, il::itfti !.1i'p'!t ii';.i1. ,1.: {':t Ii-i .1., i i;'.: ;.: ii'iii+B;li=i:d t.F. {.ti}'tiflA" said, a data visualization-"to affect thro' the Eyes what we fail to convey to the public through theirword-proof tiontitled "Blue Feed, RedFeed." Onthe sheets application so that its users can ears." Her invention was the eleBant Journal's website, "visual correspon- automatically generate visualizations put "polar area chart," a new variant ofthe denf' Jon Keegan created an interactive from any data they inside. : Each slice of the pie showed page that shows what Facebook looks The next step? Virtual reality. AJ- deaths for one month of the war, Iike for users who were "very liberal" berto Cairo, a journalism professor at growing larger ifthe deaths increased, or "very conservative." Because Face- the UniversiW ofMiami, imagines put- and color-coded to show the causes book's newsfeed emphasizes stories ting on a VR headset to read a report ofdeath. Fans called it the "rose dia- friends are "liking" people with lots of or watch TV and watching visualiza- gram," because it looked like a flower. liberal friends tend to get shown lots of tions swim around in front of him in The queen and Parliament could see Ieft-wing news, and vice versa. Keegan 3-D. "How can you superimpose a data he at a glance the importance ofhygiene; wantedtohelp readers seejusthowloud image over a real image?" wonders. question they quickly set up a sanitary commis- itwas insidethe echo chamber. That'Il be the for the William sion to improve conditions, and death The results were stark: When you Playfairs of this century. o -= rates fell. Nightinga"ie became one of Iooked at the "blue feed," it showed the flrst people to successfully use data photos of a strong, resolute-Iookin$ visualization for persuasion-to infl u- Hillary Clinton. The "red feed" showed ence public policy. a post about "Hillary's toxic plans for =: _' "She was an activist and she wanted the Second Amendment" with the cap- *,1 to make a difference," saYs LYnn Mc- tion "downright evil."

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