Purpose
To present basic biographical information about people, in this case the first presidents of the United States and socio-economic/political information relevant about the holder of the office.
The Exhibit highlights some of the general patterns that emerge from that information. The sample data set includes data on the first 20 presidents, extracted from entries on WikiPedia. View this exhibit on our server HERE.
Download zip file: presidents-Archive.
NOTE: This data is given for demonstration purposes only and does not purport to provide authoritative data about the US presidents.
Data Design Details
Details about each president are contained in the pres Template, which is comprised of the following Attributes (listed by ID, rather than label):
- name: A Text Attribute containing the full name of the president. This Attribute provides the label for each president Record.
- order: A Number Attribute designating the order in which this president held office (1 for George Washington, etc).
- birthplace: A Text Attribute containing the name of the place where this president was born.
- birthlatlon: A Lat-Lon Attribute with the location where this president was born (for display on a map).
- deathplace: A Text Attribute containing the name of the place where this president died.
- deathlatlon: A Lat-Lon Attribute with the location where this president died (for display on a map).
- lifespan: A Dates Attribute giving the date range during which this president was alive. Since this Attribute can be used for creating Timeline visualizations, a Legend has been defined for it which provides a basic periodization of American history.
- in_white_house: A Dates Attribute giving the date range during which this president was alive. Since this Attribute can be used for creating Timeline visualizations, a Legend has been defined for it which provides a basic periodization of American history.
- party: A Vocabulary Attribute for all of the different political parties to which American presidents belonged, with color-coded Legend.
- religion: A Vocabulary Attribute for all of the different religious denominations to which American presidents belonged, with color-coded Legend.
- terms: A Number Attribute for the number of terms completed by this president, with color-coded Legend. This could be 0 (for those who died in office before completing the first term), 1 or 2.
- max_slaves: A Number Attribute for the maximum number of slaves owned by this president (a significant issue, given the role of slaveholding in every aspect of American life and its divisiveness to the present).
- portrait: An Image Attribute pointing to a graphic image of this president on an internet source.
- web_page: A Link To Attribute pointing to the WikiPedia entry about this president.
Exhibit Design
The Exhibit about U.S. Presidents includes the following visualizations:
- Listing: A simple listing of the main data about the presidents using the Directory view.
- Browse: A faceted browser categorizing presidents by their political party, religious affiliation and number of entire terms completed.
- Gallery: A visualization of the portrait and a few facts about the presidents using a Cards view.
- Birthplaces: A Map view showing the places where presidents were born. The size of markers corresponds to the number of terms completed.
- Slaveholding: A TextStream which displays the name of each president, ordered by order in office and (label) sized by the maximum number of slaves owned.
- Lifespans: A Timeline showing the lifespans of presidents.
- Slaveholding by Party: A Stacked Chart comparing political party to maximum number of slaves owned.
- Religion by Slaveholding: A Stacked Chart comparing religion to maximum number of slaves owned.
