It’s often said that a picture is worth a thousand words.
Pictures can be more memorable than words and even more memorable than numbers. In support of this, a Nielsen study found that the brain processes images 60X faster in comparison to words.
There will be times in your academic or professional career where you will need to answer a question for yourself or others that is hard to answer with words alone. Creativity is often valuable for answering the hardest questions, including scientific ones. And visualization of concepts and data can be an important creative tool for formulating and answering questions. Because science and most professions involve collective undertakings, you will also need to communicate your ideas and analysis to others. Visualizations can again be a powerful creative tool towards this end. Cascades of mind numbing data will often lose your audience and collaborators.
Recent scholarship (Conwell and Loughren 2024; Itzigsohn and Brown 2020; Morris 2017) and social media initiatives (Starks 2022) have recentered Black sociologist W. E. B. Du Bois’s foundational contributions to social scientific and statistical methods at the turn of the 20th century. DuBois was among the first professors in the nation to train students in empirical methodologies. He involved his students in field work, including large scale quantitative surveys, wherein they collected and analyzed data on the Black community and race relations. Because these students were taught to think scientifically and engage in data analysis, the most advanced of the group became valuable collaborators (Morris 2018; Battle-Baptiste and Rusert 2018). Du Bois used rigorous yet accessible methods, including data visualization, to empirically challenge the false claims of eugenics and scientific racism.
Du Bois notably used innovative data visualizations to tell data stories about Black Americans for broad audiences to chronicle the educational and economic success of Black Americans following emancipation from slavery (Battle-Baptiste and Rusert 2018). Du Bois relied on infographics and artistic media (see architecture scholar Mabel O. Wilson). More than 50 of Du Bois data visualization posters were featured at the 1900 Paris Exposition world’s fair and are now preserved in the Library of Congress. The unified narrative of Black empowerment that Du Bois crafted with the poster series prefigured subsequent research findings regarding the importance of visualization and storytelling in STEM education (Friendly and Wainer 2021; Hill and Grinnell 2014).
Du Bois and his collaborators made some of the other earliest known deployments of statistical methods in social science, including: Categorical data analysis and visualization, including clustered bar chart presentations of partial tables to control for confounding factors. Du Bois used the method to disprove racist myths about Black family structure by showing higher marriage rates among Blacks than among Germans after controlling for age, showcasing this technique sixty years before it became state of the art (Treiman 2014). Cartographical visualization of geosocial data. Triangulation of qualitative and quantitative data
Du Bois’ collaborators included women, such as social worker Jane Addams and sociologist Isabel Eaton. The two women contributed to the expansion of survey research and advancement of statistical methods around the turn of the 20th century (Morris 2018; Williams and MacLean 2015).
Our module design is guided by Du Bois’s insistence that science be built on careful, empirical research (Morris 2015) but most go further to garner notice beyond narrow circles of academics. As noted above, Du Bois and his Atlanta University team produced modern graphs, charts, maps, photographs and other items that appeared to sparkle for the 1900 Paris Exposition (Morris 2018; Battle-Baptiste and Rusert 2018). As Morris has noted, the intent was to convey weighty social scientific ideas in a fashion far more attractive than dispassionate arguments and dense statistical tables.
Please take a moment to browse a [subset of Du Bois’ visualizations here:] (https://github.com/ajstarks/dubois-data-portraits/blob/master/dubois-stem/README.md)
Note that the plate numbers referenced below are from [W. E. B. Du Bois's Data Portraits: Visualizing Black America] (https://papress.com/products/w-e-b-du-boiss-data-portraits-visualizing-black-america)
One of the rare line charts in the collection, the comparative population growth of white and Black Americans from 1790-1890, is annotated with relevant events like "Suppression of Slave Trade", Immigration" and "Emancipation".
With the green waters of Freedom plunging down a waterfall set on the dark base of slavery, "Proportion of Freeman and Slaves Among American Negroes" shows number of enslaved and free from 1790 to 1870.
Figure 3: Percentage Bar Graph of Dichotomous Variable Status(literacy) By Select Categories (National / Racial Community)
Comparing the state of Black Americans with the larger world, "Illiteracy of American Negroes compared with that of other nations" shows Black American's illiteracy in red, in the middle of a sea of green, higher than countries like France, but better than others like Russia.
A choropleth outlining the population of Black Americans, by state. Note the concentration in the South, with Georgia leading (750,000 or more).
The fan chart compares Black and white population's occupations, using color and area to faciliate comparisons.
"The Georgia Negro, A Social Study" shows the transatlantic slave trade, with routes from Europe, Africa, the Americas and the Caribbean, highlighting Georgia. This visual contains Du Bois' famous assertion: "The problem of the 20th century is the problem of the color line"
Figure 7: Multivariate stacked bar graph by continuous covariate brackets, with photographic and other data element details
The horizontal stacked bar charts show how various economic groups spend their income among these categories: Rent, Food, Clothes, Taxes, and other expenses and giving. This visual is distinct in that it includes photographs along with the chart.
Figure 8: Partial Table Bar Graph – i.e. Bivariate Categorical Relationship (Marriage Status by Racial / National Group) Broken Control Variable (Age)
The "Conjugal Condition" visual compares three groups (single, married, widowed and divorced), divided by age: (15-40, 40-80, and over 80) within two populations: Black Americans and the country of Germany. The data is shown clearly using six proportional bar graphs in the red, yellow and green color scheme.
Figure 9: Bar/Spiral chart Uses color and contrasting lengths to highlight quantitative demographic differences.
"Acres of Land Owned by Negroes in Georgia" is a conventional bar chart with a twist. The chart shows the increase of land owned between 1874(338,769 acres) and 1899 (1,023,741), with the red shape of the data echoing the map of Georgia.
Figure 11: County-level Choropleth Echoing the previous chart, this map shows land owned by the formally enslaved over three decades post-emancipation.
"Assessed Value of Household and Kitchen Furniture Owned by Georgia Negroes" uses the spiral form to emphasize the gains in material goods over a quarter century.
[Du Bois Visualization Style Guide] (https://github.com/ajstarks/dubois-data-portraits/blob/master/style/dubois-style.pdf) stem.md Displaying stem.md.