2.Philip Ragan and Sociographics Philadelphia
As Isotype gained popularity in the United States in the 1930s, several designers inspired by this method emerged, one of whom was Philip Ragan, whose unique pictogram design stood out. A graduate of the School of Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania, Ragan studied theatrical design at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Based on strong geometric forms, his pictograms were reminiscent of the Art Deco style, which may have been influenced by his studies in Paris.
Ragan’s name did not appear in publications until July 1934, shortly after his graduation from university, in a special bulletin of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s Department of Labor and Industry (Carr, 1934). This bulletin contained several charts that used Isotype-influenced techniques to visualize statistical data on the realities of the Great Depression, including unemployment and workmen’s compensation, and the effects of measures to address it (Figure 2).
The bulletin also noted that these charts were produced by a group of unemployed architects mainly associated with the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Architecture called ‘Sociographics Philadelphia’ (hereafter ‘Sociographics’) under Ragan’s leadership. It also stated that the work was implemented as part of the Civil Works Administration (CWA), a public works project undertaken as a relief program for the unemployed. This suggests that Ragan and the other architects began producing pictorial statistics partly because of their problem with unemployment, as architecture was a Depression-hit profession with only a limited number of architects available for architectural work, many of them working in other fields.
When the CWA closed in July 1934 and was taken over by the Works Progress Administration (WPA), one of the major unemployment agencies set up in the New Deal, Sociographics continued working on projects sponsored by the Department of Labor and Industry and approved by the Pennsylvania WPA as well as designs for printed materials and charts published by the department.
This Philadelphia WPA project, which ran from July 1937 to December 1938, for the survey and analysis of labor, was unique in that it was both a statistical survey and a graphic representation of that survey. The Department of Labor and Industry published several printed materials containing these charts, including its monthly bulletin, which temporarily changed its name to Laborgraphic in May 1937 and was designed entirely by Sociographics, including its charts and cover design (Department of Labor and Industry, 1939, p.32). When the bulletin ceased publication after eight issues, it was replaced by three issues of the bulletin Keystone Labor and Industry, whose overall layout, cover design, and chart designs were produced by Sociographics.
As mentioned above, Ragan and Sociographics focused on local activities in the early 1930s, but by around 1938, they began working on a national scale. One such work was the editorial design and illustration for The Right to Work by Nels Anderson, a director of the labor relations section of the WPA, published in 1938 (Anderson 1938). Although uncredited, Sociographics may have also been responsible for the statistical illustrations in Inventory of the WPA, published the same year, which summarized the WPA’s achievements (Works Progress Administration, 1938). In the late 1930s, Sociographics became known as a U.S. leader in using the Isotype technique.
Since the themes of Sociographics’s charts in their work around the WPA were socioeconomic issues, such as the reality of unemployment and work-related accidents and their guarantees, one may assume that Ragan’s interest in Isotype was not only limited to graphics but was also guided by the ideas of Neurath, who proposed Isotype as a visual education method for teaching social and economic matters. This is evident in Neurath’s arrival to the United States in September 1936 and his subsequent six-month stay. In November of that year, he lectured at the annual meeting of the International Industrial Relations Institute in New York. The lecture was titled ‘The Rational Approach to the Future Problems of Production and Livelihood: Measurement-in-kind (Naturalrechnung) and Visualization’, where Neurath discussed the visualization of social and economic issues, linking Isotype with his economy-in-kind theory (Neurath, 1936).
Ragan, whose name was included in the guest list, attended this meeting and should have seen Neurath up close (Figure 3). Based on this fact alone, however, it is challenging to determine the extent of Ragan’s interest in Neurath’s thought, and it is also impossible to ascertain whether Ragan was particularly interested in Neurath’s socialistic ideas. Nevertheless, it is certain that Ragan’s interest in Neurath included the idea of visualizing social and economic issues.
Meanwhile, Ragan seemed to have fostered some kind of relationship with Modley, as the chart design for Report of Mississippi Valley Committee of the Public Works Administration included not only the work of Modley’s Pictorial Statistics Inc. but also that of Ragan’s Sociographics (Mississippi Valley Committee, 1934). In his review of Sociographics’s work, Modley noted that ‘the artwork is very good, but the statistical transformations are not always clear’ (Modley, 1937, p.134). Indeed, examining the large number of Sociographics charts produced between 1934 and 1937, one would observe some monotonous compositions and the problematic quality of some statistical graphs.
In contrast to the issues surrounding Sociographics’s pictorial statistics, the aesthetic of their work lies in their design of pictograms based on geometric abstract forms and whose diagrams and illustrations create a narrative out of factual information. For instance, The Right to Work, through pictorial diagrams composed of a continuous sequence, compares three cases in which U.S. support is directed to either the capitalist, the factory, or the worker, illustrating how the production and consumption cycle can be restored by increasing workers’ purchasing power (Figure 4). A diagram that may have inspired these illustrations can be found in the booklet One Year of WPA in Pennsylvania 1935–1936, published in 1936 (Figure 5).
Another notable work that is almost exclusively dedicated to illustration is Inventory: An Appraisal of the Results of the Works Progress Administration, also published in 1938, which summarizes the WPA’s accomplishments. On the front pages of each section, an illustration symbolizes the type of work carried out by the agency. The bottom of the figure also includes statistical data showing the percentage of each type of work in the total budget but without any special effort as opposed to pictorial statistics (Figure 6).
Table 1. The graphic works of Ragan and Sociographics Philadelphia
| Year | Month | Title | Design Credit | Client |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1934 | July | Pennsylvania Labor and Industry in the Depression, Special Bulletin no.39 | Sociographics Philladellphia | Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Department of Labor and Industry |
| September | Graphic presentation of the Pennsylvania workmen`s compensation system | Sociographics Philladellphia | Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Department of Labor and Industry | |
| October | Report of the Mississippi Valley Committee of the Public Works Administration | Sociographics Philladellphia | Mississippi Valley Committee of the PWA | |
| December | Preliminary Report Pennsylvania State Planning Board to the Hon. Gifford Pinchot Governor of the Commonwealth and to the National Resources Board. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Harrisburg Pennsylvania, | Sociographics Philladellphia | Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Department of Labor and Industry | |
| 1935 | Jun | State Planning: a review of activities and progress | Sociographics Philladellphia | National Resources Board |
| 1936 | Jun | Accomplishments of the Works Progress Administration in Pennsylvania, July 1, 1935-June 30, 1936 , | Sociographics Philladellphia | Works Progress Administration for Pennsylvania |
| 1936 | One year of WPA in Pennsylvania 1935 – 1936 | Sociographics Philladellphia | Works Progress Administration for Pennsylvania | |
| 1937 | January | Poster for the Mercury Theatre | Philip Ragan | Mercury Theatre |
| 1937 | May- December | Laborgraphic | Sociographics Philladellphia | Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Department of Labor and Industry |
| 1937-1938 | December | Pennsylvania Labor and Industry in the Depression, Bulletin | Sociographics Philladellphia | Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Department of Labor and Industry |
| 1938 | Jun | Inventory: an appraisal of results of the Works Progress Administration | Works Progress Administration | |
| 1938 | October | Keystone Labor and Industry, vol.1 Graphic Supplement | Sociographics Philladellphia | Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Department of Labor and Industry |
| 1938 | Nels Anderson, ‘The right to work’ | Sociographics Philladellphia | A new modern age book | |
| 1940 | January | Charts for ‘War and Peace’ | Philip Ragan | Fortune |
| February | Charts for ‘THE U.S. vs. THE WORLD’ etc | Philip Ragan | Fortune | |
| May | Chart for ‘RFC’s Disbursements from February 2‘ | Philip Ragan | Fortune | |
| October | Carts for ‘U.S. LABOR POOL FOR DEFENSE: AT WORK AND UNEMPLOYED’ | Philip Ragan | Fortune | |
| 1941 | July | Chart for ‘We Only Have Months ’ | Philip Ragan Associates | Fortune |
| August | Chart for ‘Transport: The Peak Is the Problem、THIS IS ALSO, AND CRUCIALLY, A WAR OF THE LIGHT METALS’ | Philip Ragan | Fortune | |
| 1942 | January | Chart for ‘EUROPE’ | Philip Ragan | Fortune |
| 1946 | January | Chart for ‘American Productivity’ | Philip Ragan | Fortune |
| 1947 | October | Chart for ‘THE RIGHT TO MOVE’ | Philip Ragan | Fortune |
Table 1 summarizes Ragan’s and Sociographics’s graphic works that we have identified so far, including those from 1940 onward. In the 1930s, mainstream projects included the abovementioned New Deal–related work of the Department of Labor and Industry, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and the WPA, but after 1940, no WPA-related work could be confirmed besides the sporadic work for Fortune magazine. Also, as the name ‘Sociographics Philadelphia’ could not be authenticated, one may assume that the group was dissolved; instead, some of the chart credits used the company name ‘Philip Ragan Associates’. Ragan’s graphic work for Fortune, a prestigious magazine, also indicated that his efforts were gaining a certain level of national recognition during the same period. In particular, a chart in the February 1940 issue of Fortune showed the design for a well-known energy map under the direction of architect Buckminster Fuller, who had become the magazine’s scientific advisor (Figure 7).
