Shifting cotton imports
Charles J. Minard is the founder of the infograph, an informative visual representation of spatial and statistical data on a geographical background. On these three infographics showing cotton imports in the years 1858, 1864 and 1865, Minard shows the crisis in the European textile market at the hands of the American Civil War. Each millimetre width of a coloured lane represents 4,000 tonnes of raw cotton, with the colour varying by country of origin. A comparison of those figurative maps shows that exports from the southern states, which first dominated the European textile market, completely collapsed due to naval blockades during the Civil War. In fact, shortly after the victory over the northern states, those exports barely recovered. Meanwhile, Europe has unlocked new imports of raw cotton by intensifying colonial production in India and the Middle East in particular.
C.J. Minard, Carte figurative et approximative des quantités de coton brut importées en Europe en 1858 en 1864 et en 1865, Paris 1866. Digital print, Bibliothèque nationale de France, FRBNF40666359, ± 40 x 70 cm.
