Reference: New Interactive Resources Break Down the Language and Map Locations Used in All State of the Union Addresses

Two new interactive resources to share. Both are available on The Atlantic’s website.
First, a a look at the locations mentioned in State of the Union addresses.
From The Atlantic:

Using natural language processing algorithms followed by hand corrections, we have combed through these 224 State of the Union addresses and identified 16,408 mentions of 1,410 different places. Plotted on a map, the results reveal how American presidents have seen their nation and their world.
We invite you to explore these speeches. Click the arrow on the maps below and observe how the priorities and concerns of our presidents have evolved over time. Pause the map and click on any of the circles to see the passages from each speech that refer to the locations beneath the circles. Then scroll down below the maps and discover how our team of historians interprets what these maps show and what they conceal.

Second, the language used.
From The Atlantic:

Using the Bookworm platform for text analysis, we’ve combed through the full texts of all 224 State of the Union addresses and ranked the frequency with which each president used each word.
Click on any individual word and observe how frequently each president employed it. Sort by DATE to see how the word’s use has evolved over time, and by DENSITY to rank the presidents by their propensity to use that particular word. Click on any of the colored bars to summon a list of all the times that the corresponding president used the word in a State of the Union address. Then scroll down below the graph and see how our team of historians interprets what this chart reveals, and what it may conceal.

Direct to “Locations” Interactive
Direct to “Language” Interactive
These new resources were created by:

• Benjamin Schmidt is an assistant professor of history at Northeastern University and and a core-faculty member in the NULab for Texts, Maps, and Networks.

• Mitch Fraas is a curator at the Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books, and Manuscripts at the University of Pennsylvania.

Filed under: Archives and Special Collections, Maps, Resources