"Fighting Tuberculosis" Isotype charts for the National Tuberculosis Association

Collection

Identifier: MSS 465

Scope and Contents

The collection contains 19 Isotype charts created for the National Tuberculosis Association by Otto and Marie Neurath in 1938. This series of charts, entitled “Fighting Tuberculosis,” educated the public on the causes and prevention of tuberculosis. 5,000 sets of the series (originally consisting of 20 charts) were printed, and they were distributed as a traveling exhibition throughout the United States and Canada.

Isotype (International system of typographic picture education) is a method for configuring and disseminating information in pictorial form. It uses simplified pictures – termed pictograms – as repeatable units to convey information.

Researchers should note that the College collection is missing chart number 19.

Dates

1938

Creator

Neurath, Otto, 1882-1945 (Person)

Conditions Governing Access

This collection is open for research.

Conditions Governing Use

Some restrictions may apply. Contact the library for more information.

Biographical / Historical

Otto Neurath (1882-1945) was the creator of Isotype. His work included political economy, sociology, philosophy, urbanism, and visual communication. In 1923 he founded a housing museum and in 1925 he renamed it the Museum of Society and Economy in Vienna. In the late 1920s he developed a way of representing quantitative information via graphics, the Vienna Method of Pictorial Statistics. Marie Neurath later renamed this project Isotype. In 1940 Otto Neurath and Marie Reidemeister fled the German invasion of the Netherlands to Britain. They married in 1941 and soon after set up the Isotype Institute in Oxford. Otto Neurath died in 1945.

Marie Neurath (1898-1986) worked at the Museum of Society and Economy in Vienna, analyzing raw data and putting it into picture form for final production by graphic artists. Around 1935 she invented the term “Isotype” for the Vienna Method of Pictorial Statistics. After Otto Neurath’s death she continued as the director of the Isotype Institute and became a prolific author of children’s books. She died in 1986.

Extent

0.01 Linear feet (1 oversize folder, 19 charts)

Language of Materials

English

Additional Description

Custodial History

These charts were found in the library stacks in 2025 with no associated materials. It is unknown how and when the library acquired them.

Bibliography

“Introduction.” ISOTYPE Revisited, 2009, isotyperevisited.org/2012/08/introduction.php.

“Marie Neurath.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 29 Sept. 2025, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Neurath.

“Otto Neurath.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 9 July 2025, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Neurath.

Walker, Sue. “Effective antimicrobial resistance communication: The role of Information Design.” Palgrave Communications, vol. 5, no. 1, 26 Feb. 2019, https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-019-0231-z.