History of Line Graphs

When Line Graphs Were a Marker of Cultural Status 

for the learning of mathematics, Vol. 45 Num. 2 (2025): 31-36. Link.

ABSTRACT: This essay examines how line graphs functioned as markers of status and authority in early 20th-century America, distinguishing intellectual elites from ordinary citizens. Despite education reformers' efforts to democratize functional thinking and graphical representation in the first decades of the century, line graphs retained their position as symbols of expertise. The author explores this tension through analysis of education reform initiatives, standardized testing changes, newspaper coverage, and cultural representations. While mathematicians advocated for universal graph literacy in the early 1900s, implementation challenges in schools and the broader cultural mystification of graphs in media reinforced their elite status. Only gradually through the 1930s did line graphs become more accessible to general audiences, revealing how mathematical literacy is deeply entangled with questions of expertise, authority, and social hierarchy.