Andre-Michel Guerry (1833) was the first to systematically collect and analyze social data on such things as crime, literacy and suicide with the view to determining social laws and the relations among these variables.
Adolph d'Angeville (1836) presented a comprehensive statistical summary of nearly every known measurable characteristic of the French population (by department) in his Essai sur la Statistique de la Population francaise. Using the graphic method of shaded (choropleth) maps invented by Baron Charles Dupin and applied to significant social questions by Guerry, Angeville's Essai became the first broad and general application of principles of graphic representation to national industrial and population data.