Florence Nightingale is known for her impressive work in statistics and for being the mother to modern nursing practices. Known as “the Lady with the Lamp” she is respected for creating diagrams and infographics that would persuade English royals to adopt certain reforms that eventually saved innumerable lives. Florence Nightingale, Mortality and Health Diagrams by RJ Andrews is an outline of how she utilized data visualization to change the world. The book includes reproductions of her coxcomb folios, a complete set of her statistical diagrams (including foldout charts) and an analysis with hand-drawn drafts of her diagrams. 

‍Florence Nightingale, Mortality and Health Diagrams is one of three books from Visionary Press, and is a part of a series that celebrates creators of data visualization. Series editor RJ Andrews is the author of Info We Trust, How to Inspire the World with Data and is an American data storyteller, who wrote this book while advertising national health policy out of San Francisco. 

Andrews spoke with Flaunt about data, research, and the creation of this series.

‍Would you say that, beyond learning about historical figures during these deep research dives, you also regularly learn something new about yourself? How might you explain this?‍

On these research dives, ideally, you lose yourself in the work. Your mind inhabits a different time and place and your personal identity fades into the background. Some call it flow state. Once the work is done, you reemerge, but you’re not the same. The main lesson you reemerge with is an appreciation for the effort required to make an impact in our world. As a scientist, we fool ourselves into thinking we merely have to produce the right answer. As an artist, we fool ourselves into thinking we merely have to produce a beautiful answer. Producing an outstanding artifact, like a persuasive data graphic, is merely the cost of entry. It is not sufficient to accomplish your goals. Once you have the artifact the real work begins: attracting attention to it and engaging the right audience with it. These historic figures understood the challenge of getting eyes on their work. Their success inspires us to do the same.‍

In a time of sometimes contorted and inaccurate 'data' reporting in the media, why does looking backward, or to history, with data matter?‍

Every piece of data is a detail that someone selected to encode and cast into the future for us to learn from. Every piece of data is a shadow of a past reality. Sometimes, data can give us answers. More dependably, data gives us context. Data can help us see the circumstances that help us better understand and assess. In this way, data can help us gain a richer and more nuanced appreciation for whatever is being reported in the media.‍

What is a beautiful moment for you in seeing this project come to life? ‍

Constructing histories is like putting together a jigsaw puzzle that is missing most of its pieces. Your job is to find and arrange enough pieces to achieve a confident sense of what the picture says. My heart skipped when I read a catalog description that indicated some of Florence Nightingale’s hand drawn draft diagrams may have survived. After several weeks we located them, photographed them, and finally saw pencil edits on these manuscript sheets. We were the first to appreciate them in over 170 years! A door had opened. Finding these priceless drafts gave us new understanding into her creative process: How she worked. Who she worked with. And how their designs evolved over several iterations. ‍

What do you love about illustrators' point of view? What might they accomplish that writers cannot?‍

The written word’s power is linear, efficient, and commanding. Prose is a direct route through an idea space, as if I told you to get from here to there by “going down a few blocks, then turn left.” Images offer a different kind of power. They are holistic and rich with context. They direct the audience’s attention to areas of interest, but allow the reader’s eye to explore too. In addition to a direct route through space, images give you the rest of the map too, as if to say: “here we are, and here’s everything that surrounds us.” And while prose may have its own appeal, it cannot compare to the beauty of the image. We decorate our museums with images, not blocks of text.‍

What anecdote about a cultural figure that was unpacked in this series do you relate to closely? How so?‍

To return to Florence Nightingale, she used data graphics to campaign for public health reform. She nicknamed these diagrams “God’s revenge upon murder” because she believe the diagrams were instrumental to her righteous fight against unnecessary death. I produced her volume in the midst of our own public health catastrophe, Covid-19. Her wit and zeal is a model of what I hope for. That we can use data graphics to do great things that accomplish good.‍

What's your favorite color and why?‍

If I had to live in a world with only one color it would be blue. It makes my brain happy.