Comparison of word frequency, by year.
The seven word clouds below represent the most commonly used words (minus the same set of stop words) within each of the seven years in which The Masses appeared, with the largest words appearing the most frequently. Click on any of the word clouds, or on the link above it, and you’ll be taken to the Voyant work page for that period of the magazine.
Please note that the word “pgbrk” does not appear in the magazine but has been inserted by the MJP into the magazine transcripts to indicate the location of page breaks in each issue. Because “pgbrk” occurs once every page, its appearance in each word cloud offers a visual baseline for how frequently the other words appear in each period. You can find out the exact number of times each word is used by hovering the cursor above it.
Vol 1: Jan-Dec 1911 (12 issues: 1.1-4 edited by Thomas Selzter, 1.5-12 edited by Horatio Winslow):
Vols 3 & 4.1-2: Jan-Aug 1912 (8 issues, edited by Piet Vlag):
Vol 4.3-12: Dec 1912-Sep 1913 (10 issues, edited by Max Eastman):
Vol 5: Oct 1913-Sep 1914 (12 issues, edited by Eastman):
Vol 6: Oct 1914-Sep 1915 (12 issues, edited by Eastman):
Vols 7.1 & 8.2-12: Oct/Nov 1915-Oct 1916 (12 issues, edited by Eastman):
Vols 9 & 10.1/2: Oct 1916-Nov/Dec 1917 (13 issues, edited by Eastman):