Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story: Topic Modeling Alexander Hamilton

Abstract

My research project topic models the letters of Alexander Hamilton. I will compare the results of a topic model of Hamilton's outgoing correspondence from his arrival in the American colonies (after October 1772) to his death (July 1804) with the lyrics from Hamilton: An American Musical. In doing so, I study the extent to which the vocabulary of Hamilton's letters shape the musical's lyrics,and how this shift reflects changes in perceptions of his place within eighteenth-century American political culture. This project serves as the foundation for my MLIS digital humanities capstone project.