Connor Hamm

This project considers artistic and cultural engagements with the coastal version of modernization that remade the American Lowcountry after the Civil War. Stretching along the shores of Georgia and South Carolina, the Lowcountry responded to the loss of agriculture and lack of manufacturing by embracing industries compatible with its seaside, subtropical environment: tourism and leisure; fishing and aquaculture; and shipping and other maritime activities. These discrepant socioeconomic developments occurred alongside equally locational artistic and cultural practices and gave rise to a regional visual culture. Drawing on the interdisciplinary energies of modernist studies, environmental humanities, and cultural studies, this dissertation observes how a variety of media and modes—including painting, photography, exhibitions, and museum practices—ushered in a distinct coastal sensibility that is both colloquial and cross-cultural. This project analyzes the work of little-known artists from a variety of backgrounds, all of whom worked in the Lowcountry and variously considered what it means to be “modern” and “American” on the shores of the Deep South. I bring an original, environmental framework to bear on such materials and posit the coast (in addition to the city and country) as a key geographical category in the development of modernity. By focusing on this dis-esteemed area in the Southeast, I hope to contribute to the few modernist studies on the Lowcountry and expand the map of modern American art. Far from being a provincial backwater, the Lowcountry’s down-home cosmopolitanism comes to the fore when its coastal character is adequately explored.