The Shape of History presents an alternative genealogy for the emergence of modern data visualization. By recovering the forgotten visualization work of the author and educator Elizabeth Palmer Peabody (1804–1894), and by recontextualizing her abstract and colorful charts in terms of contemporary ideas about visualization, we seek to challenge present assumptions about what visualization should do: “reveal” the significance of underlying data, “enhance” the clarity and legibility of data, “amplify” existing cognitive processes, or otherwise facilitate “pathways to insight.”1 Contrary to these views, Peabody intended her charts, which depict significant events in US history, to “leave scope for a little narration.”2 Her hope was that, by appealing to abstraction and affect, and by insisting that her students interpret each chart for themselves, she would encourage her students to conjure their own narratives of history, and therefore produce historical knowledge for themselves.
Peabody envisioned the process of knowledge production...
University of California Press