-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Visualizing Slavery (UNCLASSIFIED)
Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2010 07:39:49 -0600
From: Hadden, Robert L AGC <[log in to unmask]>
To: Maps, Air Photo, GIS Forum - Map Librarianship <[log in to unmask]>


Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
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        There is an interesting article in the NY Times about a map on
slavery done in 1860, "Visualizing Slavery," by SUSAN SCHULTEN, printed on
December 9, 2010, on the Opinion page.
        "The 1860 Census was the last time the federal government took a
count of the South's vast slave population. Several months later, the United
States Coast Survey-arguably the most important scientific agency in the
nation at the time-issued two maps of slavery that drew on the Census data,
the first of Virginia and the second of Southern states as a whole. Though
many Americans knew that dependence on slave labor varied throughout the
South, these maps uniquely captured the complexity of the institution and
struck a chord with a public hungry for information about the rebellion.
        The map uses what was then a new technique in statistical
cartography: Each county not only displays its slave population numerically,
but is shaded (the darker the shading, the higher the number of slaves) to
visualize the concentration of slavery across the region. The counties along
the Mississippi River and in coastal South Carolina are almost black, while
Kentucky and the Appalachians are nearly white."
        Read more about it at:
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/09/visualizing-slavery/

Lee Hadden

R. Lee Hadden, BA, BS, MLS
Geospatial Information Library (Map Library)
Army Geospatial Center
7701 Telegraph Road
Alexandria, VA 22315
(703) 428-9206
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Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE