Counting costs: the categorization of eighteenth-century theatrical expenditure for the Theatronomics database

Abstract The design and implementation of categories is an important part of digital humanities research, for which theoretical discussion is still relatively underdeveloped. This article presents an instructive case study from the Theatronomics project: the categorization of some 159,000 items of theatrical expenditure recorded 1732–1809. It explores the key considerations involved in categorizing financial data for a database; explains why the team adopted a pragmatic–explorative method, highly manual in nature; illustrates the major problems confronted during the process; and offers suggestions for further thinking on, and enacting of, digital humanities categorization. It advances three main arguments. First, categorization is not a ‘natural’ or ‘common-sense’ process. Scholars working on databases should consider the multiple different methods of categorization available, and the various and sometimes contradictory principles involved in categorization, before designing a method that aligns with their project’s aims, sources, and resources. Second, scholars should assess the uncertainty in their dataset, and consider how to represent it in their categorization model. Third, a model that involves multiple layers of categories can be effective in solving some of the key problems involved in categorization. This article also explains how Theatronomics’s expenses data, categorized in accordance with those three arguments, contributes to scholarship on Georgian theatre, Georgian business, and Georgian London.