Rights statement: This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis Group in Historical Methods on 16/07/2015, available online:http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/01615440.2014.995390
Accepted author manuscript, 308 KB, PDF document
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Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Explaining geographical variations in English rural infant mortality decline using place-centred reading
AU - Hastings, Sarah
AU - Gregory, Ian
AU - Atkinson, Paul
N1 - This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis Group in Historical Methods on 16/07/2015, available online:http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/01615440.2014.995390
PY - 2015
Y1 - 2015
N2 - Making effective use of digital texts is one of the major challenges facing the humanities. This paper explores a novel method of using a large corpus of British newspapers to help explain why three neighbouring rural districts in England showed very different patterns of infant mortality decline in the second half of the nineteenth century. Quantitative analysis does not reveal any major differences between these districts that might explain this. Repeatedly querying the corpus using different combinations of search-terms and placenames,we show significant differences in the quality of local government between thesedistricts. We argue that place-centred reading, as we term this approach, can be used to help explain patterns found using conventional quantitative Geographical Information Systems (GIS) approaches.
AB - Making effective use of digital texts is one of the major challenges facing the humanities. This paper explores a novel method of using a large corpus of British newspapers to help explain why three neighbouring rural districts in England showed very different patterns of infant mortality decline in the second half of the nineteenth century. Quantitative analysis does not reveal any major differences between these districts that might explain this. Repeatedly querying the corpus using different combinations of search-terms and placenames,we show significant differences in the quality of local government between thesedistricts. We argue that place-centred reading, as we term this approach, can be used to help explain patterns found using conventional quantitative Geographical Information Systems (GIS) approaches.
U2 - 10.1080/01615440.2014.995390
DO - 10.1080/01615440.2014.995390
M3 - Journal article
VL - 48
SP - 128
EP - 140
JO - Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History
JF - Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History
SN - 0161-5440
IS - 3
ER -