[8] Brinton started his career as mechanical engineer working for various companies,[8][9] and travelled through the United States, and to Europe, Japan and China.

Now scarce in original form, this early volume is recognized as the first American book focused on graphic techniques geared for a general audience.

In Graphic methods for presenting facts (1914) explained about the need for knowledge representation: After a person has collected data and studied a proposition with great care so that his own mind is made up as to the best solution for the problem, he is apt to feel that his work is about completed.

[18] The committee made a study of the methods used in different fields of endeavor for presenting statistical and quantitative data in graphic form.

It consisted of a first set of suggestions, which the committee had thus far considered as representing the more generally applicable principles of elementary graphic presentation in several magazines of the participating scientific societies.

Fourteen of the rules, including the accompanying diagrams, were devoted exclusively to the portrayal of time series in the form of arithmetic line charts.