Did you know that the topics of presidential inaugural addresses have changed over time? During the world war eras and for years afterward the focus was on peace. In earlier years more attention was given to constitutional rights and civic duty and today there is greater emphasis on national unity and pride.
This figure shows results from a structural topic model (STM) which is a machine learning technique used to identify recurring themes in large collections of text. The model was applied to all US presidential inaugural addresses to uncover major topics and track how their prominence shifted over time. Each bar represents the proportion of a given topic within a single speech with colors indicating themes such as constitutional rights; peace; national security; and national unity. The visualization highlights how the content of inaugural addresses reflects changing historical contexts and national priorities.
*These figures have not yet been formally peer reviewed and are intended as exploratory