THATCamp SEAData Visualization for Early Americanists

Lauren F. KleinGeorgia Institute of Technology

lauren.klein@lmc.gatech.edu

Data Visualization for Early Americanists

• An (abridged) history of data visualization• Some uses of data visualization• Some uses of data visualization for early Americanists• Some easy data visualization tools• Workshop!

Joseph Priestley, A New Chart of History (1769).

Thomas Jefferys, A Chart of Universal History (1753).

Nicolas Lenglet du Fresnoy, Tables chronologiques de l’histoire universelle (1729).

Joseph Priestley, A New Chart of History (1769).

“If the reader carry his eye vertically, he will see the contemporary state of all the empires subsisting in the world, at any particular time. He may observe which were then rising, which were flourishing, and which were upon the decline. Casting his eye a little on each side of the vertical line, he will see what empires had lately gone off the stage, and which were about to come on.”

Visualization as “Cognitive Enhancement”

• Increased memory / processing resources• Reduced search time• Enhanced pattern recognition• Perceptual inference (much faster than logical)• Use of perceptual attention mechanisms for

monitoring• Encoding information in a manipulable form

-- Stuart Card et al., Readings in Information Visualization: Using Vision to Think (Morgan Kaufman, 1999)

h/t to Chris Sula for the reference

William Playfair, from the Introduction to The Commercial and Political Atlas (1786)

“Information, that is imperfectly acquired, is generally as imperfectly retained; and a man who has carefully investigated a printed table finds, when done, that he has only a very faint and partial idea of what he has read; and that like a figure imprinted on sand, is soon totally erased and defaced.

“The amount of mercantile transactions in money, and of profit or loss, are capable of being as easily represented in drawing, as any part of space, or as the face of a country; though, till now, it has not been attempted. Upon that principle these Charts were made; and, while they give a simple and distinct idea, they are as near perfect accuracy as is any way useful.

“On inspecting any one of these Charts attentively, a sufficiently distinct impression will be made, to remain unimpaired for a considerable time, and the idea which does remain will be simple and complete, at once including the duration and the amount.”

William Playfair, from The Commercial and Political Atlas (1786)

William Playfair, from An Inquiry into the Permanent Cause of the Decline and Fall of Wealthy and Powerful Nations (1805)

William Playfair, “CHART, Shewing at One View The Price of The Quarter of Wheat, & Wages of Labour by the Week, from The Year 1565 to 1821” (1822)

William Playfair, “Preface to the Third Edition,” The Commercial and Political Atlas, 3rd edition (1801).

“A great change is now operating in Europe, and though it is impossible to guess in what it will most likely terminate, yet it is very certain that it will neither in a political nor a moral view return to its former situation. The minds of men, the boundaries of nations, their laws and relations with each other, are all in a state of change, and commerce must feel the consequences of those events of which it has been a principal cause.

“Should those revolutions and partitions already effected, or about to be attempted, produce, as usual, political fermentation in proportion to their importance, Europe may probably be convulsed with war for fifty years to come. The last century has been the century of arts and commerce, this newly commenced may then be that of war and contention. If it turns out so, a picture of the past will be a valuable thing, if, on the contrary, commerce should continue its progress, this will make the first part of a great whole, which, when completed on some future day, will be a most valuable work.”

William Playfair, “Preface to the Third Edition,” The Commercial and Political Atlas, 3rd edition (1801).

“It is not only of importance that this species of information should be handed down, but also that it should go down in such a form and manner as that any person might even, though a native of another country, understand the nature of the business delineated.”

Visualization insight

• It “forces” us to see. --Stephen Ramsay, “In Praise of Pattern,”

TEXT/ Technology 2 (1995).

“A Comparative View of the Quadrupeds of Europe and of America,” Notes on the State of Virginia (1781-5).

Visualization insight

• It “forces” us to see. --Stephen Ramsay, “In Praise of Pattern,” TEXT/

Technology 2 (1995).• A way to “answer questions you didn’t know you had.”

--Catherine Plaisant, “The Challenge of Information Visualization Evaluation” (2004)

Visualization insight

• It “forces” us to see. --Stephen Ramsay, “In Praise of Pattern,” TEXT/

Technology 2 (1995).• A way to “answer questions you didn’t know you had.”

--Catherine Plaisant, “The Challenge of Information Visualization Evaluation” (2004)• A way to tell a new story.

--Mark Hansen, on “Movable Type”

Movable Type by Ben Rubin and Mark Hansenhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfZQf1983iw

The Uses of Visualization for Early Americanists

• It “forces” us to see. --Stephen Ramsay, “In Praise of Pattern,” TEXT/

Technology 2 (1995).• A way to “answer questions you didn’t know you had.”

--Catherine Plaisant, “The Challenge of Information Visualization Evaluation” (2004)• A way to tell a new story.

--Mark Hansen, on “Movable Type”

Methods of Visualization for Early Americanists

• Maps• GoogleMaps (easy); GIS (hard)

• Timelines• Dipity.com (easy); Timeline.js (medium); D3.js (hard)

• Charts• ManyEyes (easy); Google Fusion Tables (medium); D3.js (hard)

• Text analysis/visualization• ManyEyes (easy); Voyant (mostly easy); NLP tools (hard)

• Social network analysis and visualization• Circos (easy); Gephi (medium); Cytoscape (medium); D3.js

(hard)

Methods of Visualization for Early Americanists

• Maps• GoogleMaps (easy); GIS (hard)

• Timelines• Dipity.com (easy); Timeline.js (medium); D3.js (hard)

• Charts• ManyEyes (easy); Google Fusion Tables (medium); D3.js (hard)

• Text analysis/visualization• ManyEyes (easy); Voyant (mostly easy); NLP tools (hard)

• Social network analysis and visualization• Circos (easy); Gephi (medium); Cytoscape (medium); D3.js

(hard)

Great Tools for Data Visualizationhttp://www.idea.org/blog/2012/10/25/great-tools-for-data-visualization/

A Carefully Selected List of Recommended Toolshttp://selection.datavisualization.ch/

Dipityhttp://www.dipity.com

Timeline.jshttp://timeline.verite.co

Circoshttp://circos.ca

Gephihttp://gephi.org

Gephihttp://gephi.org

Voyant Toolshttp://voyant-tools.org

Many Eyeshttp://www-958.ibm.com/software/analytics/manyeyes/

Many Eyes Workshop Questionshttp://lkle.in/ZJ9Ng5