Discovering an Unknown Chart from W.E.B. Du Bois’s “The Exhibition of American Negroes” (Part 6)
By: Jason Forrest
Tags: Dvhistory, African American, Data Science, History, Data Visualization

Understanding the sequence of the charts

There are sixty-three of Du Bois’s charts from “The Exhibit of American Negroes” in the collection of the Library of Congress and there are a number of reasons why understanding the sequence of the charts is important. If we learn the order that each chart was created, it would help us to understand why Du Bois developed the unique forms and methods that underlie the entire series. Then, by considering the order in which Du Bois displayed these works to the viewer, we can understand how he communicated his complex data story.

Even with the publishing of the new book “W. E. B. Du Bois’s Data Portraits: Visualizing Black America,” which seeks to tell the story of the exhibit and briefly touches on the individual charts, this body of work remains under-researched. Since there is little historical documentation, not much is known about how the charts were created and the exact sequence of the charts will probably never be known.

We know that the charts were created in less than four months, and we know that after the Paris Exposition the exhibit was displayed in Buffalo, NY, and Charleston, SC. Since the exhibit was created in collaboration with Daniel Murray, assistant librarian at the Library of Congress, Du Bois had known the works would eventually be part of their collection. In my correspondence with the Library of Congress (LoC), they assumed that the order of the charts was likely established by Murray himself, which does lend the sequence quite a bit of credence.

As I’ve written in previous posts, Du Bois set off on a 10-year study of “The Negro Problem” which began with the publishing of “The Philadelphia Negro” in 1899. Encouraged by the positive reaction, he immediately continued his research in both Virginia and Georgia.

Du Bois was already planning to craft a high-level overview as part of his larger body of research. So when “The Exhibit of American Negroes” was organized at the end of 1899, Du Bois naturally took the opportunity to use the exposition to expand the scope of his sociological work. As a result, he then organized the statistical charts to explore data on three levels: international, national, and local.

The charts themselves are split into two groups: “The Georgia Negro” which focuses on the “typical” state of Georgia, which had the second-largest African-American population at the time (Virginia was largest), and the highest Negro to White ratio. It contains charts #1–36.

The other section is called “A Series of Statistical Charts Illustrating the Condition of the Descendants of Former African Slaves Now in Residence in the United States of America”, which focuses on the national and international view of the data. It contains charts #37–63.

Doubts about the sequence of the charts

As discussed in my last article, the chart “Income and Expenditure of 150 Negro Families in Atlanta GA, USA,” which is #31 in the LoC sequence, is actually displayed on the top of a stack of the charts and acts as a “key” to the larger exhibition. It is shown in conjunction with the two “title” charts for each series. I’ve always thought it was odd that the 31st work in the series was shown as the key to understanding the rest of the works.

1900 Exposition with the 2 title charts and key chart, via UMass Amherst Libraries.

Another aspect of the sequence that has perplexed me is how the works are titled. For most of the second series, the titles are printed and pasted onto the card while the first series labels are all hand-lettered. This is important because it suggests that the second series would have been done first in order to get the titles confirmed in time for the printing. Of course, on further examination of the second series, that’s not entirely true as 8 of the 27 works are hand-titled. Then, if we consider the time it took to conduct the research for “The Georgia Negro” and then hand-draw the thirty-five 24" x 27" charts in that series, it seems likely that this series would have to be crafted after the second series.

I propose that the two series were actually created in the opposite order. I believe Du Bois and his students crafted the second series while the research was being conducted for The Georgia Negro. Then, after both series were created, Du Bois added additional hand-titled works to the second series in an effort to complete the storyline in both series. I believe the “key chart” (“Income and Expenditure of 150 Negro Families in Atlanta GA, USA”) was actually among the last of the charts created, as it seems to situate the statistical charts to the larger exhibit.

Below is an image of all the charts in the two sequences. The key chart in the first series has a pink underline, the charts with hand-drawn titles in the second sequence are designated with a green underline. Looking at the entire sequence in this way shows how visually different the two series are, and also displays how innovative the charts are across both series.