Shades of Emancipation: The 1860-61 Slave Census Maps
Tuesday, October 15
6:00 PM
In the summer of 1861, soon after the start of the Civil War, the United States Coast Survey published a pair of influential maps based on data gathered in the previous year’s national census. Both depicted the percentage of enslaved people living in individual counties utilizing varying shades of black and gray—one map featuring Virginia, and the other all slaveholding states in the American South. Explore who created the maps, how the U.S. Army used them to benefit sick and wounded soldiers, and their influence on directly impacting emancipation policy enacted by leaders of the Union war effort, up to and including President Lincoln.
 
Codie Eash serves as Director of Education and Museum Operations at Seminary Ridge Museum and Education Center in Gettysburg, and is a 2014 graduate of Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in communication/journalism and held a minor in history. In addition to museum tours and interpretation, he lectures for American Battlefield Trust conferences, National Park Service sites, historical societies, Civil War roundtables, educational groups, and other organizations. Codie is a founding contributor to the collaborative project Pennsylvania in the Civil War, writes book reviews for Civil War Monitor, and is a member of the Gettysburg Magazine editorial board.
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