Open an American literature anthology and the names jump off the page: Whitman, Emerson and Melville. But for UTA students Noelle Pastor and Andrew Renfro, those familiar names told only part of the story. When they transformed more than 150 years of anthology data into animated visualizations, they discovered that the literary canon is far less fixed than it appears on the page. 

Their winning project, Top American Authors in 19th-21st century Literary Anthologies, earned recognition in the Covers, Titles, and Tables Data Visualization Contest and challenged viewers to reconsider how American literature has been defined and who decides what matters. 

From Archive to Contest 

The contest grew out of Covers, Titles and Tables, a digital archive created by Professor Emeritus Dr. Kenneth Roemer and recently republished by UTA Libraries. The collection assembles tables of contents from American literature anthologies and literary histories dating back to the 1800s, revealing patterns in what editors considered important over time. 

"This archive lets researchers' study how American or U.S. literature has been defined over time and which things are considered important enough to include," said Jessica McClean, Director of Reference, Instruction & Open Education at UTA Libraries. She added that the archive "captures decisions by editors and publishers that have shaped ideas about culture, values and American identity." 

Dr. Roemer wanted the collection to do more than exist as a repository. "There's a ton of content in there," McClean said, "but until you kind of turn it into data, it's not something that's going to be usable for research." That vision led to the data visualization contest, putting students at the center of interpretation. 

Turning Numbers into Stories 

Pastor and Renfro's winning entry immediately stood out. Their project features animated top 10 author bar graphs moving along a timeline from 1855 to 2023. Using page counts and percentages of total anthology space, the visuals show authors rising and falling in prominence over time. Viewers can pause on a specific year or move forward and backward to see how the literary canon shifts. 

Pastor explained the technical aspects of the work and emphasized that much of the collaboration focused on interpretation. 

"We mainly used Python and R to process the data, to get it from just scanned PDFs to structured data that we could actually analyze. We use Python for that and then R for most of the analysis," Pastor said. "Most of our meetings were more about what the actual questions were that we wanted to answer, whether to focus on major authors, themes or broader patterns." 

Renfro summarized the project's goal: to derive a story from the raw data. They worked to find a story, meaning, and a connection among the major authors and how their representation changed over time as they reviewed tables of contents from American literature anthologies and literary histories. 

What the Data Revealed 

The project uncovered patterns both expected and surprising. Canonical authors like Walt Whitman and Ralph Waldo Emerson continue to dominate anthology pages, even amid efforts to include underrepresented voices. At the same time, timing and genre shaped visibility: Philip Freneau led from 1857 to 1891, while Herman Melville didn't enter the top 10 until 1954. 

Other findings prompted deeper questions. From 1939 to 1955, poet Horace Gregory topped the charts.  

"Even though Gregory was once a prominent poet, critic and translator, his sudden prominence raises questions about editorial influence, publishing trends, and the rise and fall of literary reputations," Dr. Roemer said. 

The visualizations also highlighted broader patterns, such as how Native American literature appears in anthologies in terms of page count and frequency, encouraging reflection on inclusion over time. 

What Page-Count Data Might Not Tell Us 

Dr. Roemer was very impressed with the contest winners, but he reminds us that page-count data can be misleading, mainly because of genre issues. For example, why were Freneau, Whitman, and Dickinson top ten-page count authors during specific time periods? Part of the reason is that poems often leave lots of blank space on the page. Well-known poetry typically takes up more pages than prose paragraphs. 

A Lasting Impact 

Renfro sees the project as illuminating the changing priorities of American literature. 

 "It shows what was important during different stages of American literature throughout different time periods." Pastor echoed the sentiment, emphasizing that the work helps verify hypotheses about who was considered "major" and where representation broadened over time. 

The project is now featured in a UTA Libraries exhibit, offering others a hands-on way to engage with the data and its insights. Reflecting on their win, Renfro praised Pastor's work: "The amount of work that she put into this is insane. I was very impressed with how she handled the data and the pipeline she put in to get it to a point where it could be processed." 

At UTA Libraries, projects like this demonstrate the power of student-driven research. By turning historical documents into living data, the Libraries spark new conversations about American literature and the choices that shape it.