Create a Chronological Timeline from Aggregated Text
This exercise uses this Recipe, Googlizer and DateFinder to construct a framework for a chronological timeline. This exercise applies the recipe to a textual example which is freely available on the internet so you can complete the steps yourself and see the results.
This recipe and exercise are available as a PDF download.Exercise Steps
- In this exercise we will construct a chronology of the life of Benjamin Franklin;
- Start with the autobiography of Benjamin Franklin which availble at http://www.history1700s.com/page1798.shtml;
- Login to TAPoR
.
- Add the autobiographical text to your texts, by uploading it to myTexts. More information about adding text to MyTexts is available in this tutorial;
- Conduct a web search for biographical information to augment your existing biographical text using an Aggregation tool such as TAPoR Googlizer];
- Use the Googlizer by searching for 'Benjamin Franklin' and choosing to return full text for the top 5 sources;
- Save your results to the Databench
;
- Add the Googled text to your Texts;
- Choose the googled text from the General area, click Add Url and then choose the original autobiographical web page from your list of texts. This will combine the results found from Google with the original web page so that we can work with them as a single corpus;
- Generate a rough chronology using the TAPoR Date Finder Tool. Choose Date Finder as the tool and the aggregated text as the text, making sure to search in the body for all dates;
- The result should look similar to: 91 unique date entries found
Year
1000 1555 1598 1641 1655 1667 1675 1682 1706 1714 1716 1717 1718
1720 1721 1723 1724 1726 1727 1728 1729 1730 1731 1732 1733 1734
1735 1736 1737 1738 1739 1741 1742 1743 1744 1746 1748 1749 1751
1752 1753 1754 1755 1756 1757 1758 1760 1762 1763 1764 1765 1766
1767 1769 1771 1772 1774 1775 1776 1777 1778 1779 1780 1781 1782
1783 1784 1785 1786 1787 1788 1790 1868 1909
Month
Jan Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Dec
Week
Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
1000- "Now," says he, "Osborne never will allow the least merit in any thing of mine, but makes 1000 criticisms out of mere envy.
- When I searched the registers at Ecton, I found an account of their births, marriages and burials from the year 1555 only, there being no registers kept in that parish at any time preceding.
- My grandfather Thomas, who was born in 1598, lived at Ecton till he grew too old to follow business longer, when he went to live with his son John, a dyer at Banbury, in Oxfordshire, with whom my father served an apprenticeship.
- There fell lately into my hands, in London, a collection he had made of all the principal pamphlets, relating to public affairs, from 1641 to 1717; many of the volumes are wanting as appears by the numbering, but there still remain eight volumes in folio, and twenty-four in quarto and in octavo.
- born 1655, died 1744, AEtat 89.
- born 1667, died 1752, ----- 95.
- It was written in 1675, in the home-spun verse of that time and people, and addressed to those then concerned in the government there.
- Josiah, my father, married young, and carried his wife with three children into New England, about 1682.
- The Autobiography Of Benjamin Franklin
With Introduction And Notes Edited By Charles W Eliot Lld P F Collier & Son Company, New York (1909)
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN was born in Milk Street, Boston, on January 6, 1706. - BENJAMIN FRANKLIN HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 1706-1757TWYFORD, at the Bishop of St. Asaph's, 1771.
- It has seemed advisable, therefore, to detail the chief events in Franklin's life, from the beginning, in the following list:1706 He is born, in Boston, and baptized in the Old South Church.
- 1714 At the age of eight, enters the Grammar School.
- 1716 Becomes his father's assistant in the tallow-chandlery business.
- There fell lately into my hands, in London, a collection he had made of all the principal pamphlets, relating to public affairs, from 1641 to1717; many of the volumes are wanting as appears by the numbering, but there still remain eight volumes in folio, and twenty-four in quarto and in octavo.
- Save the result to the Databench;
- Although there is clearly far too much information here, duplicated dates and dates well out of our range, it is nonetheless a useful stage from which to begin.
Because we can see from the text that Franklin was not born until 1706, we can quickly eliminate any dates prior to this as well as dates after his death in 1801.
- Sort by date;
- Examine list for duplicate information;
- Clean-up text in a text editor ;
1706 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN was born in Milk Street, Boston, on January 6, 1706
1714 At the age of eight, enters the Grammar School.
1716 Becomes his father's assistant in the tallow-chandlery business.
1718 Apprenticed to his brother James, printer.
1721 Writes ballads and peddles them, in printed form,
in the streets; contributes, anonymously, to the "New England Courant," and temporarily edits
that paper; becomes a free-thinker, and a vegetarian.
1723 Breaks his indenture and removes to Philadelphia; obtaining employment in Keimer's
printing-office; abandons vegetarianism.
1724 Is persuaded by Governor Keith to establish himself independently, and goes to London to buy
type; works at his trade there, and publishes "Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity,
Pleasure and Pain."
1726 Returns to Philadelphia; after serving as clerk in a dry goods store, becomes manager of
Keimer's printing-house.
1727 Founds the Junto, or "Leathern Apron" Club. 1728 With Hugh Meredith, opens a printing-office.
1728 With Hugh Meredith, opens a printing-office.
1729 Becomes proprietor and editor of the "Pennsylvania Gazette"; prints, anonymously,
"Nature and Necessity of a Paper Currency"; opens a stationer's shop.
1730 Marries Rebecca Read.
1731 Founds the Philadelphia Library.
1732 he began to issue his famous "Poor Richard's Almanac" for the enrichment of which he borrowed
or composed those pithy utterances of worldly wisdom which are the basis of a large part of his
popular reputation.
1736, Made clerk of the General Assembly.
1737 Elected to the Assembly; appointed Deputy Postmaster-General; plans a city police.
1738 Begins to study French, Italian, Spanish, and Latin.
1742 Invents the open, or "Franklin," stove.
1743 Proposes a plan for an Academy, which is adopted 1749 and develops into the
University of Pennsylvania.
1744 Establishes the American Philosophical Society.
1746 Publishes a pamphlet, "Plain Truth," on the necessity for disciplined defense, and forms a
military company; begins electrical experiments. 1748 Sells out his printing business; is appointed on the Commission of the Peace, chosen to the
Common Council, and to the Assembly.
1749 Appointed a Commissioner to trade with the Indians.
1751 Aids in founding a hospital.
1752 Experiments with a kite and discovers that lightning is an electrical discharge.
1753 Awarded the Copley medal for this discovery, and elected a member of the Royal Society;
receives the degree of M.
1754 Appointed one of the Commissioners from Pennsylvania to the Colonial Congress at Albany;
proposes a plan for the union of the colonies.
1755 Pledges his personal property in order that supplies may be raised for Braddock's army;
obtains a grant from the Assembly in aid of the Crown Point expedition; carries through a bill
establishing a voluntary militia; is appointed Colonel, and takes the field.
1757 Introduces a bill in the Assembly for paving the streets of Philadelphia; publishes his famous
"Way to Wealth"; goes to England to plead the cause of the Assembly against the Proprietaries;
remains as agent for Pennsylvania; enjoys the friendship of the scientific and literary
men of the kingdom.
1762 Receives the degree of LL.D.
1763 Makes a five months' tour of the northern colonies for the Purpose of inspecting the post-offices.
1764 Defeated by the Penn faction for reelection to the Assembly; sent to England as
agent for Pennsylvania.
1765 Endeavors to prevent the passage of the Stamp Act.
1766 Examined before the House of Commons relative to the passage of the Stamp Act; appointed agent
of Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Georgia; visits Gottingen University.
1767 Travels in France and is presented at court.
1772 Elected Associe Etranger of the French Academy.
1774 Dismissed from the office of Postmaster-General; influences Thomas Paine to emigrate to America.
1775 Returns to America; chosen a delegate to the Second Continental Congress; placed on the
committee of secret correspondence; appointed one of the commissioners to secure the cooperation
of Canada.
1776 Placed on the committee to draft a Declaration of Independence; chosen President
of the Constitutional Committee of Pennsylvania; sent to France as agent of the colonies.
1779 Appointed Minister Plenipotentiary to France.
1780 Appoints Paul Jones commander of the "Alliance".
1782 Signs the preliminary articles of peace.
1783 Signs the definite treaty of peace. 1785 Returns to America; is chosen President of Pennsylvania; reelected 1786.
1787 Reelected President; sent as delegate to the convention for framing a Federal Constitution.
1788 Retires from public life.
1790 April 17, dies.
- Thus we are able to take a complete autobiographical text and aggregated text from the internet and quickly and effectively scan it to create the foundations of a comprehensive chronological timeline.
Discussion
This recipe uses the Databench functionality of the TAPoR so it is important that you actually be logged in to TAPoR. You can obtain a guest account.Glossary
- Databench
- The Databench is a temporary workspace where you can store your text analysis results in the TAPoR for further use.
Next Steps/Further Information
- List of All Recipes
- Recipe to Create a Chronological Timeline from Aggregated Text
- Help with Particular Tools
- Background on Text Analysis
- Here's a Cool Tool for constructing graphical chronologies
- Here are some great examples of chronological timelines