How to Make and use Graphic Charts.

7 The Golden Age of Statistical Graphics

“…First, statistical graphics became popularized and entered the main stream. A spate of English textbooks began to appear, for example, Bowley (1901), Peddle (1910), Haskell (1919), Karsten (1925), college courses on graphics were developed (Costelloe, 1915;Warne, 1916), and statistical charts, perhaps mundane, entered standard use in government (Ayres, 1919) and commerce. 23 Of course, Galton, Pearson and even Fisher were enthusiastic graph people, but many of those who extended their ideas (e.g., F. Y. Edgeworth, G. U. Yule and even Pearson himself) turned their attention to mathematical and analytic aspects of correlation, regression and general theories of statistical distributions.…”

The Golden Age of Statistical Graphics

“…First, statistical graphics became popularized and entered the main stream. A spate of English textbooks began to appear, for example, Bowley (1901), Peddle (1910), Haskell (1919), Karsten (1925), college courses on graphics were developed (Costelloe,23 Of course, Galton, Pearson and even Fisher were enthusiastic graph people, but many of those who extended their ideas (e.g., F. Y. Edgeworth, G. U. Yule and even Pearson himself) turned their attention to mathematical and analytic aspects of correlation, regression and general theories of statistical distributions. Later developments of likelihood-based inference, decision theory and measure theory served to increase the sway of more formal mathematical statistics.…”

Whatever Has Happened to the Semilogarithmic Chart?

“…In 1917, Irving Fisher's notable contribution, "The 'Ratio' Chart for Plotting Statistics" was published in the Journal of the American Statistical Association and later reprinted and sold in large numbers (Fisher 1917). In addition, in the 1920s there were Percy A. Bivins's book, The Ratio Chart in Business (Bivins 1926), and several standard manuals on statistical graphics that contained at least one entire chapter on semilogarithmic charts (Haskell 1920(Haskell , 1924Karsten 1923;Riggleman 1925;Smith 1924). In preparing this article, my immediate interest was piqued by a recent article in The American Statistician, on "How to Display Data Badly" by Howard Wainer (Wainer 1984). Wainer's major objective was "to concentrate on methods of data display that leave the viewers as uninformed as they were before seeing the display or, worse, those that induce confusion" (p. 137).…”