For this assignment, I used Google Ngrams to track the use of words relating to technology developments in the 19th century.

The first term I decided to search for was “buggy”. Particularly, I was thinking of a horse and buggy. Over time, I hypothesized that these terms would become more and more popular with developments in technology favoring quicker and more advanced transportation, such as buggies. 

 

As I predicted, you can clearly see the gradual rise of the use of “buggy” over the course of the 19th century. As buggies began to rise in popularity, so did it’s usage in literature as well.

 

The second term I chose to search was “rifle”. At first, I expected another gradual rise in usage over time as the technology developed, just like “buggy” did. However, I was even more surprised by what I wound up finding.

I was shocked to see such a significant spike in the results! Then upon further research, I quickly found out why. After seeing what events took place during this time period, the real reason for this spike wast the start of the Civil War in 1861. This directly correlates with my findings, with the usage of “rifle” peaking in 1862.

Lastly, I decided to research the term “urban” using Google Ngrams. As I anticipated, the term significantly increased over time.

The gradual slope was even more evident than my first search, further supporting the concept that as technology develops, civilizations grow, populations rise and cities form. The urbanization of society is directly reflected in the usage of the term “urban” itself in 19th century literature.

 

Overall, this was one of my favorite projects we have worked on in this class. I really found this to be interesting, I have always been looking for a tool like this to notice trends and word usage over time, and now I’ve finally found it! (In literature, at least.) I would love if this same analytic technology could be applied to the usage of certain keywords on the internet over time in shorter time periods, ie. a trending “hashtag” or slang. I’m sure the technology exists- and I will definitely be looking after this exercise to find that as well!