Data stories
Data stories
Counts from the people in the archive: plans, names, nicknames, streets and the war years.
- Boston University or Harvard? Where Massachusetts seniors said they were headed, 1920s-1940s
What 15,460 Massachusetts seniors printed as their plans, school by school: Boston University led at 4 schools, Harvard at 4, and secretarial schools at the rest. - The war in the senior class: Massachusetts seniors who named the service, 1939-1945
The share of seniors naming military service rose from 1.7% in 1940 to 19.2% in 1944, and from 2.8% to 31.0% at Brockton High. - Barbara rises, Mildred fades: first names in Massachusetts senior classes, 1920s-1940s
Mary and John led for 25 years, but Barbara climbed from 24th to 3rd and Robert from 6th to 2nd among 48,075 seniors' first names. - Dot, Al, Bob and Red: the nicknames in Massachusetts senior classes, 1917-1945
21,821 printed senior nicknames: Dot was first, 426 of 626 Dorothys went by it, and Al was as often Alice as Albert. - The streets that sent the most seniors to high school: Cambridge, Brookline, Springfield and four more cities
Home streets printed in century-old yearbooks: Cambridge Street and Massachusetts Avenue in Cambridge, Beacon Street in Brookline, Main Street in Springfield. - The most common surnames in Massachusetts senior classes, town by town
Sylvia, Medeiros and Silva in New Bedford, Sullivan and Murphy in Cambridge, Johnson in Brockton: the top surnames in 13 town-and-period groups of yearbook seniors. - Girls, boys and the course of study: who took commercial, college and technical in Massachusetts high schools
Counting first names in 50,705 yearbook entries: 75.9% of commercial-course seniors had girls' names, 3.2% of industrial-course seniors, and 55.8% of all seniors. - Before they were famous: 70 notable people in Massachusetts high school yearbooks
Leroy Anderson, May Sarton, Mary Switzer and 67 more notable people matched to Wikipedia, in Cambridge, Newton, Boston Latin and Medford yearbooks.