Probabilistic Topic Decomposition of an Eighteenth-Century American Newspaper

We use a probabilistic mixture decomposition method to determine topics in the Pennsylvania Gazette, a major colonial U.S. newspaper from 1728–1800. We assess the value of several topic decomposition techniques for historical research and compare the accuracy and efficacy of various methods. After determining the topics covered by the 80,000 articles and advertisements in the entire 18th century run of the Gazette, we calculate how the prevalence of those topics changed over time, and give historically relevant examples of our findings. This approach reveals important information about the content of this colonial newspaper, and suggests the value of such approaches to a more complete understanding of early American print culture and society.