Scribner's Statistical Atlas of the United States, Showing by Graphic Methods Their Present Condition and Their Political, Social and Industrial Development - plate 34: Plate 6: Political History (Supremecy of Parties and Popular Vote)
The pattern
This still is filed under Data as proof.
Define
A chart, map, or count that is the argument, not an illustration next to the argument.
Mechanism
Sighted evidence. The reader is asked to believe their eyes: a bar, a share, a spread on a map.
Verdict
The claim is comparative or quantitative and the figure can be read without a caption doing the sell.
Why it works
The colour belt is a single continuous mark covering a hundred years, so the shape of party power lands before a word is read, and letting its width double as total turnout fuses growth and control into one picture instead of two charts. Filling the belt with the party in power while demoting the opposition to thin black threads makes the title literally visible: supremacy is area, opposition is a line. The letterpress panels above are not the argument, they are the evidence rack, which lets the plate work at arm's length and again at reading distance. The bottom timeline renames each stretch of the century by its dominant subject, telling the reader what the fight was actually about.
Steal this when
Use this when you have to show who held control across a long span while the total pool was also growing: market share against category growth, seats against electorate, headcount against org control. Put the continuous coloured band in the middle, thread the losers through it as lines, and hang the detail panels above it for anyone who wants receipts.