Ramsay’s Infographics

David Ramsay (1749–1815) was a legislator in South Carolina and then in the Continental Congress. He became a son-in-law to not one but two prominent members of that Congress: John Witherspoon and Henry Laurens.

Ramsay was a physician and also a historian, author first of a History of the Revolution of South Carolina (1785) and a History of the American Revolution (1789).

In 1810, Ramsay published a Historical and Biographical Chart of the United States. Measuring 29" by 17", this poster combined multiple infographics with extensive text.

On the left was a map of the U.S. of A. as it existed in 1810, extending from Maine to Georgia, and westward to territories and “Lands in Dispute.”

On the right side were timelines for each American state showing what sort of government they were under in each period, starting with “primitive Settlers” like those at Plymouth. Michael D. Hattem wrote for the Junto:

Ramsay…was not content to merely represent chronology in a linear fashion. Instead, he sought to illustrate substantive change over time, particularly regarding the political and military circumstances of the colonies. He color-coded his timeline to represent different types of colonial governments, e.g., “free governments,” “royal,” “proprietary,” oligarchic,” or “Parliamentary.” He also color-coded the imperial power over a colony at any given time. His chart also includes symbols denoting the establishment of colleges, rebellions, war with Native Americans, and involvement in imperial wars.

The Confederation Congress of the 1780s was in Ramsay’s view a “Period of nerveless advisory government,” nonetheless “free.”

Below those state timelines are timelines of eminent American men, sorted into five regions and four categories. Like Joseph Priestley, Ramsay positioned those men’s surnames chronologically, but in this case according to their dates of death with no indication of lifespans. (Priestley himself was among the men Ramsay included since he emigrated to America in 1794.)

In the upper right corner Ramsay shifted his graphic form. Under the U.S. Constitution, shifts in government became moot, and there were supposedly no more wars to mark. Instead, the poster displays national economic measures in jagged lines like William Playfair’s.

Ramsay thus built on Priestley, Playfair, and other predecessors in infographics. It looks like we don’t know the name of his engraver or printer. But in a March 1812 letter which Hattem quoted in a footnote, Ramsay identified some collaborators: “My daughters paint & varnish the map and chart; but the painting each copy requires one [hour?] & 45 minutes.”