Visualizing Emancipation in DH

Although Abraham Lincoln proclaimed emancipation in 1863, two years before the end of the Civil War, freedom did not come instantly. Emancipation did not even begin when the proclamation happened, it started long before the first shot gun in the Battle of Bull Run and ended long after Rober E. Lee surrendered in Spring.

This digital humanities project created by undergraduate students at the University of Richmond visualizes and displays when, where, and what happened during the process and collapse of slavery. Just like many digital humanities projects, there are three basic components to the creation of this compilation of information.  These compilations are visualized through an animation and a list that are very specific and elaborate. A project like this has never been done before and this map  is the first to collate and present one of the most important social changes of history.

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data visualization of emancipation events, army base locations, and the legality of slavery. Key to be found on top right hand of image.

Three components:

Source: To compile information necessary for the final digital project, this group of digital humanists used three kind of different information. One is the legality of slavery, represented by the gray area. To located and find the territories in which slavery was recognized as a legal practice, they navigated information available by the National Historical GIS. Secondly, they looked for Union Army Regiments, represented by the blue points on the animation,  to locate army units in the United States, and for that, they used Compendium of the war of Rebellion(1908). Thirdly, Undergraduate students at the University o Richmond identified Emancipation Events, expressed through the red points, using letters, diaries, newspapers, and books. They also used photographs for some of the points on the map. One this I really appreciate about this is that anyone, who has the credentials, can go on the website and report an emancipation event that is not presented in the map already.

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Anyone can access this to add information to the map. However, these information submitted have to be reviewed before published.

Process: Next step is to compute, transfer and organize the information the team gathered.  They encoded the information such as the states/territories slavery was legal, they transformed the files they found on military bases into a Google Earth map-able application, and they coded and recorded the emancipation events they found from the files, letters, and books they used to find the information.  They were funded by a We the People from the National Endowment for the Humanities to conduct this research. As of February 2012, the undergraduate students of U of Richmond have collected  3400 emancipation events. To me, this is a crazy amount. Especially considering that the civil war only later five year, I would expect the number to be less. However, according to this team of humanists, emancipation occurred unevenly and there are many more events that are unreported in this DH project because they simply don’t have the information for them.

Present: Finally, this project is made web-accessible, searchable, and visual. Anyone can access this website by looking up Visualizing Emancipation. Anyone has access to the animation map. This group of undergraduate students have created an excellent data visualization in the form of a timeline and animation. If you go on the website and click play, you’re able to see how emancipation events, army basis and legality of slavery have changed through out time, specifically from Jan 1, 1861 – Dec 31, 1865. You are also able to view a bar graph that shows and compares the specific years and the amount of emancipation events that took place in the given year. It is one of the most coolest and interesting presentation I have ever seen. Not only are you able to pause and click on a given dot to look at  descriptions, exact location, time, and occasional pictures whenever you want, you’re also able to report an error if you see something that is misrepresented. Another interesting thing I noticed on the map animation was the the fact that arm bases, and emancipation events are not only visible in the United States, but also in parts of south and western Africa as well as Central and Northern America.

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Bar graph shows the emancipation events that took place for different years. If a specific year is selected, the map will show only events that took place for that particular year.

I really appreciate and loved this digital humanities project. While navigating through the website, I could not help but wonder not only how cool and fun the research must have been, but also the amount of digging, unraveling, and sleepless library nights it took to get this website up and working.  This website could be a moving, emotional, and education resource for teachers, professors and anyone who is interested in history and this field of study. After maneuvering through this site, I have found a new appreciation for digital humanities projects and for the people who conduct the research, encode, file and create. You can also download the data presented in this project here.

nicolas

6 Comments

  1. I like how interactive this DH project was. I find that their presentation, particularly in the form of a animation allows for a better learning experience. I also liked reading your reaction to the project. I particularly liked when you stated “I could not help but wonder not only how cool and fun the research must have been, but also the amount of digging, unraveling, and sleepless library nights it took to get this website up and working.”  I think all their hard work paid off.  Lastly, I thought it was cool to see how many sources they used and how they chose to display it in order to achieve what they were trying to accomplish.

  2. You picked a really interesting project! I find that it’s particularly interesting that the project was set up so that individuals can add data points to the timeline later on. It seems like a really smart decision, because having it continue to be updated makes the project even more interactive and dynamic. I also liked how the projected combined the map and the timeline.
    I also found the explanations of the decisions made in the process of creating the project helpful to understand certain aspects of the map. For example, this page, which explains the meanings of some icons, was very helpful.

  3. Hi Nicolas,

    This is such a nice analysis of the project. Can you imagine looking up and transcribing all those events? That’s a ton of work!

    One thing I find interesting about this project is the participants’ definition of an “emancipation event.” When you think about it, that itself constitutes a historical argument: that these things, and only these things, qualify as emancipation events. Of course, the project participants also open things up by allowing people to comment.

    The other thing that’s interesting to think about is the kind of history this is. This allows you to get a sense of how emancipation was unfolding on a national scale, over time. But if you try to imagine what emancipation was actually like to an enslaved person, they probably didn’t experience things that way. The differences they felt might have been much more local and personal. That’s not to say that one way to tell the story of emancipation is better than the other — it’s just to say, there are different ways to tell the story!

    Thanks for the thought-provoking blog post!

    — Miriam Posner

    • That’s such an interesting, different dialogue. Thank for shedding light on that part of the story. This project does indeed show how unevenly emancipation unfolded through out the united states and some other parts of the world but it doesn’t speak for the individuals who were experiencing it. It would be cool to digitalize a diary of someone who went through the process of emancipation. It would a really cool project.

  4. This is fascinating! Before this project, I hadn’t even considered how large of a timespan passed between the first and last emancipation of a slave. I really appreciated your guide for us through the process of putting something like this together. I also appreciated the layout and intractability of your post. To think, that each and every dot is it’s own individualistic story! Thank you for sharing!

  5. After reading your intriguing take on the reverse engineering of the emancipation in 1863, I had to check the website out for myself. The first thing I noticed was the sheer quantity of emancipation events and union army locations. As I zoomed in to the details, I marveled at the incredible precision of every red and blue dot. The “amount of digging, unraveling, and sleepless library nights” is truly awe-spring. I am curious in how the undergraduate students at the University of Richmond were able to identify the Emancipation Events; seems like a quite a daunting task. Anyways, I learned a lot about the emancipation from your post and the website; thanks for sharing!

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