book history. historical geographer. truthseeker.
For Moses Grandy, his end in telling his story of enslavement was to reveal the horrors of slavery as he experienced it as well as use the proceeds of the sale of his book to purchase his enslaved children’s freedom who had been sold further south into Louisiana from the Virginia/North Carolina border.
In many ways I feel like I am still arriving at an understanding of the contours that make up the vast body of knowledge known as geography. For me as a newcomer who stumbled in as a Janie-come-lately by way of Women’s and Gender Studies, History, and a concentration in the study of American Slavery … Continue reading #Geography as a field: Paradigm Shifts
The featured image here was done by a close friend of mine from my hometown. His name is Laurence McDuffie and he and I have stayed in touch since we were both teenagers growing up in Laurinburg, N.C. Through the years we lost touch but eventually,we always seem to reconnect... Laurence follows my instagram and … Continue reading An Artist’s Rendition
The video of the murder of George Floyd at the hands of police broke my heart--I have lost a lot of faith. This is what life is in a world filled with social disorder and widespread oppression.
The rapid increase in innovation within web mapping technology has provided users with an array of choices for mapping geographic information for data visualization. Web GIS is a “combination of the web and GIS using web technologies such as Hyptertext Transfer Protocol, Hypertext Markup Language, Uniform Resource Locator, Javascript, Web Graphics and more.”[1] Indeed, the … Continue reading D3.js and Leaflet.js for Web Mapping
In every household, the Coronavirus has changed the way the world connects as well as how individuals reach out to each other.
COVID-19 DIARY March 17, 2020 Christy Hyman Occupation: PhD Student in Historical Geography at the University of Nebraska Lincoln Mother of two children, 20 year old college sophomore Chastity, and 14 year old 8th grader Ricky Day 2 Woke up at about 8:30am after a strange dream. This time the dream was set in my … Continue reading #Quarantine Diary #SociallyDistant Christy March 17, 2020
Many of you are aware that my daughter Chastity Hyman sophomore B.FA art student living, working and loving here in Lincoln, Nebraska. Followers of my blog are aware that I commissioned her to do a depiction of former enslaved canal laborer Moses Grandy last summer.
Born in 1786 on a farm owned by enslaver William Grandy in Camden County, North Carolina Moses Grandy learned as a child how difficult life was for an enslaved person. Of his early life Grandy writes,
This was me the day that I passed qualifying exams(9/18/19). The event was preceded by 12 months of reading 250 books on the history of the United States in the nineteenth century with a special emphasis on slavery and capitalism(hence my close association with supporters Ed Baptist and Calvin Schermerhorn both brilliant historians who have written field-reshaping works on the topic).
Upon visiting the site I am impressed by its design. It is not cluttered or busy and the layout lends itself to the subject at hand in a manner that signals the gravity of the content contained. A difficult balance for projects dealing with traumatic records.
Very nicely done.
I want to say thank you. I want to thank this vibrant intellectual community of scholars who over the past few years have helped me either by sitting down with me one on one to help improve my writing, putting my name up for opportunities, or writing letters of recommendations.
