Old Time Infographics

The idea of using humor to convey technical information came from Science Service director E.E. Slosson. Every chart, the chemist said, should illustrate a “relation between discrete facts or striking changes in public tastes or movements of population,” while the accompanying cartoons should be “lively and interesting without impairing their scientific accuracy.” So Cartoonographs, a “hybridization of the cartoon and the statistical graph,” were born. Using drawings to “tell the story,” Cartoonographs would inform readers about current social and economic trends.

Cartoonograph about campaign spending, 1924, pen and ink drawing by Elizabeth Sabin Goodwin, Smithsonian Institution Archives, RU 7091, Image no. SIA 2010-3712.

Cartoonograph about radio and chewing gum sales, 1924, pen and ink drawing by Elizabeth Sabin Goodwin, Smithsonian Institution Archives, RU 7091, Image no. SIA 2010-3714.

Until a fulltime cartoonist was hired in January 1925, local Washington, D.C., artists drew the charts, including 21-year-old Elizabeth Sabin Goodwin, then an award-winning student at the Corcoran School of Art. In “Finding Elizabeth,” Tammy Peters describes how the Smithsonian, aided by the online Flickr community, helped to identify Elizabeth’s photograph.

More about Elizabeth Sabin Goodwin and cartoonographs at The Bigger Picture

Thanks Tom.