Chart and Soul

Organized by sociologist W. E. B. Du Bois, “The Exhibit of American Negroes” at the 1900 Exposition Universelle in Paris contained 363 photographs, as well as 32 charts delineating the changing status of African Americans since 1750. The charts, like the one shown here depicting the value of household and kitchen furniture owned by Black Americans in Georgia, anticipated modern infographics’ ability to visually transmit data-rich concepts with only a Spartan amount of text. Freely using colorful crisscrossing lines and shapes, the graphics echoed the work of contemporary avant-garde artists such as Piet Mondrian and Wassily Kandinsky.