The Buffalo Bill Project

Buffalo Bill's Wild West and the Progressive Image of American Indians

Jason A. Heppler and Douglas Seefeldt

Topic Modeling

The basis of the project relies upon an archive of textual documents relating to William F. Cody and Show Indians in the Wild West. The majority of documents have come from the William F. Cody Digital ARchive and were analyzed with the MALLET software package.

Topic modeling uses statistical techniques to categorize individual texts and uncover categories, patterns, and topics that might not be immediately apparent. The topics here do not emerge from the editorial decisions of the researcher, but rather are uncovered by algorithmic computation. Topics here mean groups of words that are likely to appear together in the same document. The method here is similar to Franco Moretti's concept of "distant reading" from his chapter on graphs in Graphs, Maps, and Trees: Abstract Models for Literary History.

DOC :wfc.css00015.txt

North Platte Neb
  Jan. 5th 94
  Capt. Chas. G. PenneyAgt. Pine RidgeS. Dak

Dear Capt.Mr. Salsbury has just sent me the Form of Agreement for the Indians drawn by yourself.1  we both approve of it.  And Just what we have wanted the Indians to for years.  But as their contract was up or made out this way before  they wished their money as soon as the show closed.  but this will be much better for them each and all will have a little money when they arrive at the Agency. 2this way

Accept our sincere thanks for your kindly interest

Wishing you a happily New Year.

Very truly yoursW. F. CodyNote 1: The Wild West's employment contracts with Indian performers had to be approved by the agent in charge of the reservation where the Indians resided.  In this case, it appears that Agent Penney took an active role in drafting the contracts himself.Note 2: Cody refers to the practice of withholding a portion of an Indian performer's salary until the individual returned to the reservation at the end of the show season.  This was a common element in Wil...

Top topics in this doc (% words in doc assigned to this topic)

	(24%)	ridge pine john note agency city dear contracts ghost neb ...
	(9%)	indians col show secretary charge part give europe number noble ...
	(9%)	men red home show major reservation returned season fighting police ...
	(8%)	west wild show yesterday exhibition omaha hundred honor rapid state ...
	(7%)	indians commissioner shows mr affairs reservation government order reservations agent ...
	(7%)	indian wild days burke place face present room railroad fine ...
	(6%)	indian good make money civilization government civilized horses land native ...

[Index]