Raiders of the Lost Tombs: The Search for Some Heroes of the History of Data Visualization

Michael Friendly and Les Chevaliers des Albums de Statistique Graphique¹

Groucho Marx famously asked guests on his TV quiz show, You Bet Your Life, what should be a no-brainer: “Who is buried in Grant’s Tomb?” In this article we take up the thornier question of the final resting places of some un-memorialized heroes of data visualization. We are the raiders of lost tombs, but only in the most benign and reverent sense.