As a side project, I’ve been compiling some raw data on women in the U.S. Congress: senators and representatives, committee chairs, party leaders, significant elections, et cetera. Just charting a stacked graph of women in Congress since 1789 clearly shows why history is such an obstacle to women in American politics — and why the U.S. can’t seem to reach even just 20 percent female representation in Congress.

Globally, the U.S. ranks 74th in percentage of women serving in parliaments or lower houses of Congress, sandwiched in between Turkmenistan and Albania (and ranking far below Bangladesh, Serbia, Eritrea, Afghanistan, Moldova, and Sudan, among others).

Check out the chart (click to enlarge):

“There is a magic in graphs. The profile of a curve reveals in a flash a whole situation – the life history of an epidemic, a panic, or an era of prosperity. The curve informs the mind, awakens the imagination, convinces.”

This is the first paragraph of the preface of Graphic Presentation, a 1939 book posted online recently by the National Archives. The book’s preface, entitled Magic in Graphs, was composed by Henry D. Hubbard, then Secretary of the National Bureau of Standards in Washington, DC. Hubbard’s description of the utility and beauty behind infographics is still just as relevant today as it was in 1939. The full page is posted below — definitely worth a read!

Click to enlarge: