Statistical Atlas of the United States, Based Upon the Results of the Eleventh Census (1890) - plate 21: Rank of the most populous cities at each census: 1790-1890
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
This is the bump chart, the ancestor of every rank-flow used today. Vertical position encodes rank, fill colour encodes identity and the connecting hairline encodes continuity, so three questions are answered by one mark. The crossings are not a problem to be tidied away, they are the message, so the design gives them room and keeps everything else, paper, grid, type, silent. Printing the name list at both outer edges lets a reader enter from either end of the century and read inward, which is what makes a hundred-year table navigable at all.
Steal this when
Use this when the story is about order changing over time, league tables, market share ranks, search positions, category leaders, and the audience cares who overtook whom rather than by how much. It is also the cleanest way to make a long, boring rank table into something people will actually stop and read.