The Georgia Negro: A Social Study - Diagram shows the value of land owned by African Americans in Georgia from 1875 to 1899 [LCCN2013650437]
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
A pictorial unit chart with the picture doing the metaphor work: a money-bag is understood without a legend in any language, which matters for an international exhibition audience. Holding the palette to one sepia wash across all six forces the comparison onto size alone, so no bag looks more important than another for reasons of colour. The bags widen rather than scaling proportionally, which flatters the growth early and, in the last two, quietly shows the plateau - the slowdown after 1895 is visible without a word being spent on it.
Steal this when
Use this for a single monetary series over time where the audience is mixed-language or mixed-numeracy. One repeated pictorial mark, one colour, the figure lettered on the mark, and no axis at all.