John Bailey Peddle (Terre Haute, Indiana, February 27, 1868 – idem, April 6, 1933) was an American mechanical engineer, Professor of Machine Design at the Rose Polytechnic Institute and author,Indiana Authors and Their Books, 1917–1966, 1974. p. 474 known for his seminal work Construction of Graphical Charts, 1910.Karsten, Karl G., Charts and graphs: An introduction to graphic methods in the control and analysis of statistics. Prentice-Hall, Incorporated, 1923.Funkhouser, H. Gray. "Historical development of the graphical representation of statistical data." Osiris 3 (1937): 269–404.FitzPatrick, Paul J. "The Development of Graphic Presentation of Statistical Data in the United States." International Social Science Review 37.4 (1962): 203.
Life and work Peddle was the son of Charles R. and Mary Elizabeth Ball Peddle. He graduated at the Rose Rose Polytechnic Institute in 1888, and after six years in business joined the faculty in 1894 as an instructor in machine design. From 1897 until 1933 he was Professor of Machine Design back at the Rose Polytechnic Institute.Harriet McNeal Caplow, Joyce Lakey Shanks, Edward K. Spann. Juliet Peddle of Terre Haute: The Architect, the Historian, ... 1989.
In 1910 Peddle published the Construction of Graphical Charts, which was the first book in the English language treating of the art of graphical representation.William Crosby Marshall, Graphical methods for schools, colleges, statisticians, engineers and executives. New York, McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc. 1921. p. V The work was written from a mathematical point of view,Beniger, James R., and Dorothy L. Robyn. "Quantitative graphics in statistics: A brief history." The American Statistician 32.1 (1978): 1–11. and required some engineering training. In 1914 Willard C. Brinton published a similar work for the general audience with no mathematics, called Graphic Methods for Presenting Facts.
Peddle has been member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers,Journal of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. 1910. p. 1420. and the Indiana Academy of Science.Proceedings of the Indiana Academy of Science, 1911. p. 28. In the May 1911 meeting he presented an Illustrated lecture, "The Autochrome Process in Color Photography."
Peddle was also an amateur photographer, who published some of his work and articles in The Photographic times magazine including a self-portrait.The Photographic times, v.39, no.7 (1907); v.41, no.2 (1909)
Family Peddle's younger sister was the sculptor Caroline Peddle Ball (1869–1938).Caroline Peddle Ball Collection; Dates: 1887–1998 . Retrieved December 2, 2021. Peddle married Alice O Peddle, and they had two children: Juliet Peddle (1899–1979), a modernist architect, and one other child.
Publications The construction of graphical charts, New York, McGraw-Hill, 1910.
Article's, a selection "Alinement Diagram in the Graphical Solution of Equations," By John B Peddle, 1905. "The construction of graphical charts," in: American Machinist, May 30, 1908. "Color Photography," in: Proceedings of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers. 1915. "Carl Leo Mees," in: Science. September 2, 1932. Vol 76, Issue 1966. pp. 206–207
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