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.css00012.txt

Buffalo Bill's Wild West Co.
Col. W. F. Cody  . . . . President
Nate Salsbury . Vice President and Director
Jno. M. Burke . . . . General Manager93August 30 1892
Capt Geo LeRoy Brown,United States Indian ServicePine Ridge Agency, S.D.

My dear Captain,Your favor of August 9th to hand, which found us all well here. We are all going home in October, and the Indians will reach Pine Ridge Agency about the 1st of November. I lately sent two Indians home who were not sick, but who complained a
 little of lung complaint. I sent them home as I had plenty here without them.

I have informed the Indians who have been sending money to write & explain to you who the money was intended for. As they are going home so soon I hardly think they will send any more money to their relatives.

Thanking you for past favors,I am,Very truly yours,W. F. Cody1Note 1: This signature appears to be in William F. Cody's hand, but the rest of the letter is not.  Cody apparently signed a letter that had been drafted by someone else.
...

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

	(24%)	ridge pine john note agency city dear contracts ghost neb ...
	(11%)	men red home show major reservation returned season fighting police ...
	(11%)	indian wild days burke place face present room railroad fine ...
	(11%)	cody colonel life william morgan states travel brought started winter ...
	(8%)	indian good make money civilization government civilized horses land native ...
	(6%)	made letter building business white ago city office join put ...
	(5%)	indians col show secretary charge part give europe number noble ...
	(5%)	general west states scout miles began american army united cattle ...

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