This digital humanities research project was created by undergraduate students Grace Campbell, Elizabeth Rapkin, and Edwin Rosenberg under the leadership of Professor David J. Birnbaum and undergraduate teaching assistant Evan Ressel.
Our research concentrates on the evolution of principles reflected in Presidential Inaugural Addresses. As it serves as an introductory speech for a newly elected President, Inaugural Addresses set the tone or goals for an upcoming term. Delivering these addresses provides an opportunity for communication of American leadership with citizens. They can uplift listeners, guiding the country through a particular hardship or reflect a change in governmental ideals. Whether exhaustive or short, the speech sets the basis of the executive branch’s aims or models for the upcoming four years.
This project focuses on the attached values and policies found throughout the Presidential Inaugural Addresses. We specifically targeted the ways these changes may differ by political party and religious affiliation. Our analysis began through adapting the XML of a previous Digital Humanities project. On our Addresses page you can find a reading view of our markup, originally intended to highlight the different tone, values, and policies found within each address. Please see our Analysis page to see how we analyzed the addresses following our initial markup through Topic Modeling using MALLET software and Network Analysis using Cytoscape software.