Old Atlanta StoriesArchives & Artifacts
Atlanta made data beautiful before dashboards
Du Bois and Atlanta University students used design to challenge racist claims at the 1900 Paris Exposition.
Du Bois and Atlanta University students used design to challenge racist claims at the 1900 Paris Exposition.
ListenListen while you readUse the record as atmosphere and archive, not the whole thesis.
ContextVerified trail2 Public Sources linked below for public context.
In 1900, W. E. B. Du Bois and Atlanta University students prepared photographs, maps and boldly colored statistical charts for the Paris Exposition. Their evidence challenged racist claims by documenting Black education, work, property and social progress three decades after emancipation.
The designs feel startlingly modern—circles, bars and fields of color used to make social facts visible at a glance. Atlanta was not simply the subject of the research; its university community helped invent a visual language for presenting Black life to the world.
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Same Archives & Artifacts collectionFlyers, Photos and RecordsThe things we kept tell stories of their own.
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Shared thread: Photo StoryShare Your Old Atlanta MemoryA photograph, a place, a voice. Your part of the city's story.
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Shared place: AtlantaBo Legs and Atlanta Civic LegacyMarvin Arrington, Sr., An Atlanta Story.
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