Data + Donuts: Innovative Color Analysis of the HKS Political Buttons Collection

Tracy Stuber is the Digital Humanities Specialist in Arts & Humanities Research Computing (DARTH) at Harvard University. At DARTH, Stuber provides digital humanities expertise and project management for faculty-led research initiatives. As a department, DARTH provides software, consultation, and instruction to support faculty digital research initiatives with particular focuses on modeling complex humanities data, organizing and analyzing data, and building innovative web platforms to showcase and visualize the results.

At this session of Data + Donuts, Stuber will present a set of innovative tools for performing color analysis on the Political Buttons at HKS Collection. The collection features over 5,000 buttons representing US political history from 1904 through today, including buttons from candidates, ballot initiatives, social issues, grassroots movements, and more. The collection offers for a rich, tangible exploration of democratic engagement over the past two centuries. Stuber recently developed three tools for extracting, analyzing, and visualizing the colors of buttons in the collection, enabling new methods for visual exploration.

This talk will be given in a hybrid format. Harvard affiliates are invited to register to attend in person, while members of the public are invited to attend online.

Since 2018, Data + Donuts has featured researchers and practitioners speaking about how they use data in their work, and on issues of data and society. We welcome those from the HKS community and beyond to share knowledge, discussion, and donuts. Explore the full list of past speakers. Video recordings are available upon request.

Anyone with a disability who would like to request accommodations or who has questions about physical access may contact library_research@hks.harvard.edu or call 617-495-7813 in advance of the program or visit.