Word Cloud Answers

Yesterday, I posted four word clouds built from presidential inaugural addresses. Here are the answers, and a brief discussion of each.

Cloud #1 is Lincoln's 1st inaugural address, delivered March 4, 1861, on the East Portico of the Capitol. I thought this one was easy. Even if you weren't sure, seeing the words "Union" and "Constitution" would make it your guess. And if you spotted "slavery" or "section," then the only real possibilities are Lincoln 1861 or Buchanan 1857. I guess it would have been devious of me to put up Buchanan's inaugural, since it could easily be mistaken in a word cloud for Lincoln's. (Click on the clouds to enlarge them).

Lincoln first inaugural

Buchanan inaugural

One of the more striking things to see is a word cloud comparison of Lincoln's first inaugural and his second. As many people know, the first address was focused on trying to hold the union together following the secession of the Gulf states. Lincoln makes a detailed argument about the benefits of union, the problems of secession, and the common future of the sections. The second inaugural, four years later, is toward the end of the war, and is by far the more famous: it is short, terse, and thick with religious language. It reads almost like a plea to God. Whereas "Constitution," "States," and "Union" are the most common words in the first, "God" and "War" are the most common in the second:

Lincoln's second inaugural

Cloud #2 is FDR's 1st inaugural address, delivered March 4, 1933, on the East Portico of the Capitol.

I thought this difficult, but quite gettable. If you spotted the word "emergency," I think that gives it away: aside from Lincoln's first inaugural, I don't associate that word with any other inaugural besides FDR's 1st. And I don't think you could ever confuse Lincoln 1861 with FDR 1933 --- the absence of "Union" alone would make 1861 a dubious guess.

As a side note, it's interesting to compare FDR's 4th inaugural (January 1945) to Lincoln's 2nd. Both were toward the end of wars that were going to be won, but which had taken heavy tolls and were seemingly still many battles from completion. Both addresses were short, and both were very different than typical inaugurals. Here's FDR's 1945 cloud:

Cloud #3 is Reagan's 1st inaugural address, delivered January 20, 1981, on the West Front of the Capitol. Cloud #4 is Obama's inaugural address, delivered January 20, 2009, on the West Front of the Capitol.

Reagan 1981

Obama 2009

I think looking at these clouds in direct comparison is interesting because (a) they more or less have the same optimistic outlook when you scan the words, but (b) you would never mistake one for the other. For example, a quick scan of the Regan cloud prominently evokes the phrase PEOPLE MUST BELIEVE AMERICA, while the Obama cloud prominently displays NEW GENERATION AMERICA NATION. I guess those are theoretically two different ideas, but in practice they are more or less just a liberal and conservative expression of the same thing: we should be optimistic about the future of the United States, and our time is now.

One question the Reagan/Obama clouds raise is "How homogenous has the modern inaugural address become?" To give us some leverage on this, here are the Clinton 1993 and Bush 2001 clouds:

Clinton 1993 cloud

Bush 2001 cloud

As with the Reagan/Obama divide, it certainly seems like the Clinton cloud evokes a sense of America's leading place in the world community, while the Bush cloud evokes a sense of nationalistic pride. As one might expect, the liberal cloud is somewhat more future looking, while the conservative cloud tends to emphasize the past.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed the quiz.