Letters From WWI Soldiers

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Analysis

Approach to Analyzing the WWI Letter Corpus

The letters written home by a soldier during the Great War only show us a snapshot of one day, or series of days, he was living during a war that went on for many years. A soldier's well-being depended on many factors, only some of which we were able to identify and mark up in this project. The type of letters written range in tone from hopeful to outraged, and from reassuring to openly scared. Censorship of letters increased as the war continued, so the content of later years may not be as representative in feeling nor in practical information (such as location and travel) as the letters written in earlier years.

Our sample of 49 letters was written by soldiers from English speaking countries (USA, UK(and countries within, not specified), Australia, and New Zealand). They span the years 1915-1920, so some of them were written after the war had concluded. From this sample, our research aimed to see what soldiers were writing about the most, and how it impacted their well-being as judged by statements that had an emotive quality.

Objectives

Our objectives for analyzing this data are the following:

  1. Compare percentage of each emotive statement per letter and conclude based on the majority value whether the letter is generally positive, neutral, or negative.
  2. Compare percentage of factors per letter, and look for a correlation between the prevalent factor and the overall sentiment of the letter.
  3. Compare number of letters from each country in each year, to see if there is a trend between location of soldier and the type of letters they were writing.

The visualizations for our analysis are still in progress. A sample is presented here of the type of chart which will represent objectives 1 and 2: a stacked bar chart in order of ascending year, for which one bar represents each letter in the corpus.

50 50 Harold, 1915 63 13 25 S.C.D., 1916 100 Jack P., 1916 25 25 50 H.W. Cronin, 1916 100 Unsigned, 1916 14 14 71 Freddy , 1916 100 Will, 1916 50 50 Dick Mansbridge, 1916 23 23 54 Sid, 1916 100 M.P. Pond, 1916 33 67 Gilbert Williams, 1916 33 33 33 D.J. Robertson, 1916 33 67 Ted., 1916 50 25 25 Frank, 1916 33 67 Will., 1916 33 67 Unsigned, 1916 50 50 F. Turner., 1916 100 Bill., 1916 50 50 Private H. Bullen, 1916 44 56 Harry Beaumont, 1916 83 17 Frosty., 1916 100 Will., 1916 50 50 Bill, 1916 100 Herb, 1916 60 10 30 A. Smith, 1916 63 13 25 'Frosty'., 1916 50 50 Bill, 1916 42 17 42 H.A. Skilling, 1917 100 Unsigned, 1917 100 Will, 1917 75 25 Harry Beaumont, 1917 100 F.R. Morris, 1917 100 F. Secrett, 1917 38 25 38 Kenneth W. Sharland, 1917 33 17 50 Lloyd S., 1917 100 J.C. Kibblewhite Sgt., 1917 75 25 F.J. Board , 1917 67 33 F.E. Andrews', 1917 14 14 71 Len, 1917 33 33 33 W. Wiggs, 1917 20 80 Lloyd M. Staley, 1918 100 J.W. Hyam, Fatty., 1918 62 31 8 Lloyd, 1918 40 30 30 Lloyd, 1918 22 44 33 Lloyd, 1918 50 8 42 Lindsay., 1918 100 G.W.L., 1919 50 50 Chas, 1920 15 15 69 S. Smith., Unknown 0% 25% 50% 75% 100% Percentage of Emotive Statements Percentage of Emotive Statements per Letter

Legend:

< Emotion

Factors >

100 Harold, 1915 40 40 20 S.C.D., 1916 40 20 20 20 Jack P., 1916 25 50 25 H.W. Cronin, 1916 50 50 Unsigned, 1916 6 69 25 Freddy , 1916 40 20 40 Will, 1916 40 20 40 Dick Mansbridge, 1916 6 19 31 38 6 Sid, 1916 33 67 M.P. Pond, 1916 71 6 24 Gilbert Williams, 1916 40 60 D.J. Robertson, 1916 50 50 Ted., 1916 67 33 Frank, 1916 33 67 Will., 1916 50 50 Unsigned, 1916 33 33 33 F. Turner., 1916 100 Bill., 1916 100 Private H. Bullen, 1916 33 25 42 Harry Beaumont, 1916 20 10 50 20 Frosty., 1916 100 Will., 1916 33 67 Bill, 1916 25 50 25 Herb, 1916 29 50 21 A. Smith, 1916 20 20 20 40 'Frosty'., 1916 100 Bill, 1916 9 43 6 23 20 H.A. Skilling, 1917 50 50 Unsigned, 1917 50 50 Will, 1917 33 67 Harry Beaumont, 1917 100 F.R. Morris, 1917 100 F. Secrett, 1917 5 14 50 32 Kenneth W. Sharland, 1917 20 40 40 Lloyd S., 1917 100 J.C. Kibblewhite Sgt., 1917 50 50 F.J. Board , 1917 40 20 40 F.E. Andrews', 1917 16 32 21 32 Len, 1917 33 67 W. Wiggs, 1917 20 80 Lloyd M. Staley, 1918 100 J.W. Hyam, Fatty., 1918 23 8 69 Lloyd, 1918 40 60 Lloyd, 1918 6 6 31 56 Lloyd, 1918 0 Lindsay., 1918 33 67 G.W.L., 1919 40 40 20 Chas, 1920 22 22 44 11 S. Smith., Unknown 0% 25% 50% 75% 100% Percentage of War-time Factors Percentage of Factors per Letter Written