Informing Infograms

An Infogram is a powerful online-based learning tool, which resembles an interactive poster. The focus of Infograms is to convey a message with charts, diagrams, and using as little text as possible. In history class, we were tasked with creating an Infogram that displayed the differences and advantages between the North and South before the Civil war. We were to analyze how these differences affected each side's strategy, and how they affected the outcome of the war.


We chose to use the facts and information that seemed most pertinent to the outcome of the war. Ellie and I thought that information like population, factory workers, and railroads were important to the outcome of the war. We chose to use multiple visuals first in the Infogram, to attract the viewers attention, before getting to the more information-dense portion of the Infogram. We chose to represent the North with the color red throughout the infogram, and the south with the color blue. This allows the viewer to keep the information straight. By associating the information with a color, the viewer will remember the information more effectively.
By researching and creating this infogram, we have learned a great deal about the situation in which the North and South were in leading up to the civil war. It became evident to us that the North had a majority of the advantages in the war, which definitely contributed to the eventual victory of the North in the Civil War. The advantages in resources of all kinds, and the need for an aggressive war, meant that the north had the resources to support a war and the means to win it. The north had more soldiers, and with more gun production their armies were better prepared. The only true advantages that the south had, were that they: did not have to fight an aggressive war, they just had to defend their land, and that they had most of the military universities, which meant their commanders were better. This imbalance in resources and tactical advantages contributed to the triumph of the North over the South.