Howard University
Digital historian focused on 19th-century transatlantic correspondence networks. Building tools to analyze letter frequency, sentiment, and social connections among abolitionist communities.
Reconstructing the transatlantic correspondence network of the abolitionist movement (1830-1865) through computational text analysis of 12,000 digitized letters. Tracking how ideas about emancipation spread through personal connections across the Atlantic.
Analysis of 12,000 letters exchanged between American and British abolitionists (1830-1865) reveals that the movement's transatlantic coherence depended on a surprisingly small number of broker figures who connected otherwise separate communities. Named entity recognition and sentiment analysis show how the emotional register of correspondence shifted dramatically after the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.