Visual Correspondence: Analysing Letters through Data Visualisation

Thomas and Kathleen Clarke Letters

Thomas Clarke was one of the key architects of the 1916 Easter Rising, while his wife Kathleen was a founder member of Cumann na mBan and became Dublin's first female Lord Mayor. Find out more about them both.
Patrick H. Pearse Letters

Before 1916, Padraig Pearse was an educational innovator, a writer, a powerful orator and advocate of the Irish language. After 1916 he became synonymous with the Easter Rising in Ireland. Find out more about his life through his letters.
Éamonn Ceannt Family Correspondence

A staunch advocate of Irish culture and language, founding the Pipers Club and a prominent member of the Gaelic League, Éamonn Ceannt was also a revolutionary. He was one of the seven signatories of the Irish Proclamation in the 1916 Easter Rising. After his execution his wife and sisters were prominent in creating the new Irish State. Discover more through their correspondence.
Visualizing Hemingway: A Man in Letters

The John F. Kennedy Library have published a blog post on how Visual Correspondence's tools can illuminate the life of Ernest Hemingway. Using data from the Library's detailed finding aid, correspondence from over 50 years of the author's life has been collated and visualised on this site. Read the blog post here. or start visualising his letters.

Letters on this Date

Letter writing is a rich and ancient form of communication. It offers deep insights into the thoughts, feelings and experiences of people from every walk of life in a more immediate way than almost any other medium. As well as the content of letters, the set of circumstances surrounding a letter's creation, transmission and reception tells a story in itself.

Data visualisation strives to make sense of the large and complex, condensing and clarifying complicated data in a single image. It can achieve an impact that words simply cannot replicate.

Visual Correspondence uses data visualisation to makes sense of a person's life through their correspondence. Who they wrote to, who wrote to them, when and where - these flashes of detail unveil a rich narrative about people and our past through images.

As well as providing tools to visualise huge collections of correspondence, in bringing together detail on 165327 letters from 56 collections, Visual Correspondence provides a new way to explore the letters themselves. Links to the full text of the letters are provided were possible and added information helps put the letters in context. Hopefully in exploring this site, you will start to see correspondence in a new way.

Choose a collection and start to visualise

Visual Correspondence

Analysing Letters through Data Visualisation

Thomas and Kathleen Clarke Letters

Patrick H. Pearse Letters

Éamonn Ceannt Family Correspondence

Visualizing Hemingway: A Man in Letters

Letters on this Date