For this assignment, I went to Google’s NGram Viewer and, first, thought about the data shown by the example graph. This was a comparison of the frequency of appearances of the words “Frankenstein,” “Albert Einstein,” and “Sherlock Holmes” from 1800 through 2020. As there were three lines charted on the same graph, it was easy to compare how mentions of each name rose, fell and intersected. An interactive vertical line feature showed the names’ changing positions along the X-axis. It was interesting and surprising to see how the frequency of each name’s mentions in publications varied over 224 years, and I tried to think of cultural and news events that may have coincided with the increases (and decreases). For example, I wondered if the name “Frankenstein” appeared more in certain years because of popular new movies based on or inspired by Mary Shelley’s 1818 story (1931, 1974, 1994 and 2015…the latter with Daniel Radcliffe) or based on news stories relating to genetically modified food (1990s).
Next, I started my own search and entered the term “bell bottoms,” not really knowing what to expect beyond a surge of mentions of the pants style during the 1960s, which indeed occurred. Prior to that, the most mentions of bell-bottoms occurred during the 1940s. The Google NGram’s book-search feature, which I hadn’t used while exploring the previous graph, was super helpful in providing context for earlier highs and lows. I learned that, prior to the 1960s, the most popular reference to bell-bottoms was for a style of pants developed for sailors; the wide bottoms meant the sailors could easily roll them up above the knee to prevent them from getting wet. Earlier in the century and further back into the mid- to late 19th century, the name “bell bottoms” appeared less often, but usually referred to a dandyish style of men’s pants. F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote about them in a fashion article (co-written with his wife, Zelda Fitzgerald) for McCall’s magazine in 1925. (I also learned that, mostly prior to 1960, “bell bottom” occasionally described chemical-processing equipment or the shape of certain tree roots.)
In 1961, Life magazine reported that London designer Mary Quant had created “a line of low-waisted slacks” which, “in British nautical tradition,” featured bell-bottoms; this signaled movement away from the style’s more practical use, and the frequency of mentions quickly rose toward the term’s first significant high point, in 1971. Mentions declined sharply after this, hitting a relative low in 1982. The term began to appear more often beginning in the early 1990s, sometimes describing Halloween costumes, sometimes marking bad fashion choices (in literature and in magazines). As the decade passed, the term’s appearance began to rise again, when it seems to have become less a signal for a fashion misfire than a symbol for the counterculture or the disco years. Mentions of “bell bottoms” continued to increase, reaching another high point in 1998, when it began to be associated with “vintage” looks worn by young people, funk musicians and skaters. “Bell bottoms” again peaked in frequency, in 2011, and most of these mentions seem to come from literature, fashion history texts, or appear in relation to decade-themed events.
This exercise was a great way to try out text mining. As with any tool of this kind, of course, human interpretation of the results is needed to provide the best context, although reading the original documents found by the search feature can be exciting.
