Maps and History Roundup

Stephanie Butnick, "Maps Chart Speech Patterns Across America," Tablet Magazine, June 5, 2013

Today in fun charts: Joshua Katz, a statistics PhD student at N.C. State University put together a series of maps of the United States which reveal the staggering extent to which where we live in influences how we say what we say. Basically, why New Yaw-kers speak differently than, say, Texans. In addition to illustrating the geographic coordinates of the sub/hoagie and soda/pop debates, Katz’s cartographical endeavor plots contentious pronunciation from coast to coast: caramel (where more vowels get dropped the further west you go), crayon (all over the board, literally), and mayonnaise (which I prefer to simply avoid both in speech and practice).>>>

Mickey Mellen, "Historic Overlay Maps of North Carolina," Google Earth Blog, June 3, 2013

Image overlays have consistently been one of the neatest features in Google Earth.  The most common use of overlays is to show imagery that is more fresh than what can be found in Google Earth (such as this one from President Obama’s Inauguration or this one from the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico).  However, overlays can also be used to showcase alternate maps such as detailed topography or historical maps like we’ll show you today.>>>

Teaching Emancipation

Aaron Astor

With the sesquicentennial of the Emancipation Proclamation and the ongoing popularity of the Lincoln movie, which focuses on passage of the Thirteenth Amendment in the House of Representatives, it seems as relevant as ever to talk about how we teach emancipation to undergraduates today.  When I broach the subject in my 19th Century US History course I begin by asking the class a simple question:

Who freed the slaves?

The answers are predictable. First is usually “Lincoln.” And then “the Union Army,” followed by “Congress” and/or “the 13th Amendment.”  A particularly astute student will say, “the slaves freed themselves.” 

The answer, I quickly tell them, is that all of these things are true. But as quickly becomes apparent, I tend to emphasize the latter interpretation—self-emancipation—over the others.   After all, scholarship on emancipation in the last 30 years has focused more and more on the myriad ways in which slaves undermined the bonds of mastery, broke for Union lines at places like Fortress Monroe, attained contraband status in Union army camps, served in the Federal army as soldiers, and made a revolutionary bid for freedom and citizenship in a unique moment when the white power structure was rent by civil war.   I have contributed to that scholarly trend myself with my work on the border states of Kentucky and Missouri, where the Emancipation Proclamation did not apply, and slave agency—by male and female alike—proved especially critical in the emancipation process.