Finding the Klan with Network Analysis

Elaine Frantz (Kent State University)

This video discusses historical network analysis with the tools Gephi and Pajek. It explains the basics of network analysis and relational data including when to use network analysis and what types of questions you need to be able to ask and answer about your data for use in network analysis. It walks through the steps to make a similar project such as building a database, data cleaning, and using the network analysis tool.

Further Reading and Resources

To look more closely at Dr. Frantz’s work with violent social networks in Union County, South Carolina, read her book, Ku-Klux: The Birth of the Klan during Reconstruction (Charlotte: University of North Carolina Press 2016). For a concise and informed introduction to the use of Network Analysis in historical scholarship, see Chapter Six of Shawn Graham, Ian Milligan, and Scott Weingart, Exploring Big Historical Data: The Historian’s Macroscope (2015).

July 3, 2019. Digital History, Network Analysis

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Elaine Frantz (Kent State University)

Elaine Frantz is a Professor of History at Kent State University. She has published articles in academic journals including the Journal of American History, the Journal of Southern History, Reviews in American History, and the Journal of Social History. She is currently working on a book project on the history of paid violence work in Pittsburgh.