Statistical Atlas of the United States, Based Upon the Results of the Eleventh Census (1890) - plate 24: Population: size of families; sex; color and race
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
Cross-reference discipline is the whole technique. The prose never mentions a chart without giving its address, Map 25 plate 8, Diagram 23 plate 7, so the reader can always jump and always get back. Setting the tables to the same measure as the text columns means data blocks sit inside the grid rather than interrupting it. The ranking chart is left in plain black bars and dropped into the text page instead of being promoted to a colour plate, a cost decision that also happens to be the right design decision, because a ranked list of forty-odd states needs order, not colour.
Steal this when
Copy the cross-reference habit whenever a report has exhibits, appendices or dashboards that live apart from the narrative, so every claim points at the artefact that proves it. Copy the layout when you need dense explanatory copy, tables and a chart on one page without the page turning into a scrapbook.