N-Gram: Relative Word Frequencies Over Time

This graph represents the relative frequency of twenty of the most common words found in the Jane Addams Digital Edition. Relative frequency is the number of times that word was used compared to the total number of words used in a certain year. These trends can be used to visualize what topics or words were significant at different times in Jane Addams' life. For example, if we choose "peace" from the drop-down menu, we see that the value increases sharply in 1914 and 1915, which correlates with the outbreak of World War I.

Tips:

Use the drop-down menu on the left side to select a word and view the trend for that specific word. Hold your mouse button to scan up and down the list.

Hover over the the graph to see the exact relative frequency value for each year.

This visualization was created in the Spring of 2019 by Catie Olson, a senior at the University of Michigan in the School of Information, who focused on data analytics. Catie's work with the Jane Addams Digital Edition was part of a capstone project for her degree. She also earned a double major in German and is on the rowing team at Michigan. After graduation, she began work as a data analyst for Nike in Portland, Oregon.