If Gannett Kept Going: Total White and Black Population: 1900-1970

Henry Gannett (1846-1914) served as geographer of the U.S. censuses of 1880, 1890, and 1900 and was a driving force behind the Statistical Atlases of the United States from those same years. His reports mark a high point in early census cartography and data visualization. Due partially to lack of funding, later census reports were made up mostly of tables instead of maps and graphs, until computer technologies allowed for the kinds of visualizations you can find on the U.S. Census Bureau website today. We thought it would be fun to imagine what it would be like "if Gannett kept going." This is one example of our thinking. In 1894, Henry Gannett produced a graph showing population changes among whites and Blacks from 1790 to 1890. The graph on these slides uses data from United States Census to model what it would look like if Gannett continued to produce data visualizations into the present day, and includes a slow reveal process that is ready for you to complete.  Imagine if students used Census data to create their own "If Gannett kept going" graph!