National maps often register the different collective experiences with which nations have wrestled in the modern era. Even as we celebrate infographics as snapshots of national politics, looking at early statistical maps offer an important set of historical precedents both to look at the fracture lines of a nation, and examine how maps have wrestled with national political divides as they seek to secure an image of national unity. While the infographic offers a superficial image, we read it as wrestling with similar problems of embodying national unity in ways strikingly similar to the issues that early engraved statistical maps confronted. The stark divides between red and blue states that often seem burned into our collective consciousness are evident in the map that the Superintendent Henry Gannett mapped the distribution of the popular vote in the 1880 election as a way to heal the nation, mapping the unity of a political landscape. The map indeed offers historical depth both to existing divides within the country and to the superficiality with which most infographics chart similar divisions as being inherent parts of our current political landscape. Continue reading ![]()
