Cartographic Countering in "Historic Charleston"

A project for Dr. Tracy Chapman Hamilton's digital art history graduate seminar in Spring of 2020 at Virginia Commonwealth University.

As I began this project, I was interested in visibility, omission, and the preservation of (or perhaps the manufacturing of) the “historic” past. Having grown up in Charleston, South Carolina, I interned with the city’s art museum, The Gibbes Museum of Art, during college. One of the strengths of their collection is work by the Charleston Renaissance (~1915-1940) artists, who were primarily concerned with creating works that romanticized Charleston architecture, landscape, and people. While many artists who visited Charleston can be included in the group, the four leading artists of the movement were Charleston-based artists of which three were women: Alice Ravenel Huger Smith, Elizabeth O'Neil Verner, Anna Heyward Taylor, and Alfred Hutty. As a way to focus the visual material at my disposal, I began with a goal to utilize only imagery by these four artists within the museum's collection. I was interested in visualizing this artistic community using Esri's StoryMaps for a few reasons:

• I was interested in this movement’s focus on rebuilding or preserving the past to project an image of “Historic Charleston.”
• It was during the Jim Crow era (1877-1954) that this image of “America's Most Historic City” was cultivated.
• This image of Charleston was rooted in architecture and landscape, both easily visualized on maps.
• The goals of the Charleston Renaissance to preserve the problematic past of the American South still reverberate today in discussions of monuments, hate crimes, and challenges to outdated ideologies.

I initially thought my mapping of Charleston scenes in these artists' work would shed further light on the ways in which they romanticized reality—specifically African American life—and perhaps create a useful visualization showcasing which areas of the city were of most interest to artists and preservationists. However, as I learned more about Edwin Harleston, the only documented African American "fine artist" who lived and worked contemporaneously in Charleston—who was not included as a Charleston Renaissance artist but always mentioned in scholarship as a counter point—I tacked on additional research questions. How did other African American contributions fit into this "Historic Charleston" the Charleston Renaissance artists so wanted to project, and how was this era's interest in historic preservation linked to the emergence of Charleston's NAACP, of which Edwin Harleston was a founding member [1]?

Though Harleston might have been the only known African American artist making a living working in a "fine art" medium during his time, there were certainly other African Americans working in mediums the art world now concerns itself with. Indeed, "Historic Charleston" flaunted the artistry of numerous African Americans within its own architectural makeup: the ironwork of blacksmiths like Guy and Peter Simmons and later Philip Simmons (no relation), the carpentry of Thomas Mayhem Pinckney and others, and the sweet grass basket weaving traditions of Gullah culture in street side markets both on and outside of the Charleston peninsula. (The expansion of my research question led me to consult additional collections outside of the Gibbes Museum such as The Lowcountry Digital Library of the College of Charleston, which partners with a number of external archives).

This project maps the interests of the Charleston Renaissance artists and then provides what I have called a "Counter-Counter Narrative" to this movement: African American contributions to "historic Charleston" during the early twentieth century. Recently, scholars have been interested in celebrating these histories of the building arts and the so-called "folk arts," but I have yet to find a project that puts these contributions in direct dialogue with those of the Charleston Renaissance artists [2]. Such dialogue built on counter-narratives between the dominant voice and the unheard or under-represented is relevant to not only to Charleston's architectural past, but its recent history as well.

1. Fine artists during the Charleston Renaissance era in the Gibbes collection
2. Sweetgrass basket weavers during the Charleston Renaissance era (and later artists in the Gibbes collection)
3. Carpenters & preservationists during the Charleston Renaissance era (homes mapped with images from the Gibbes collection and the Historic Charleston Foundation)
4. Wrought iron workers & blacksmiths during the Charleston Renaissance era (later wrought iron works mapped with several external sources)

The Gibbes Museum of Art owns six works by Edwin Harleston, a good amount amount given his short career. The Gibbes Museum of Art has also made it a priority to give Mary Foreman Jackson a presence in the art museum in the form of collecting and displaying her baskets, naming the Modern and Contemporary Gallery after her, and collecting a portrait of her. As it is nearly impossible find preserved baskets by women working during the Charleston Renaissance such as Viola Jefferson, Ida Jefferson Wilson, Lottie Swinton, or the numerous other basket weavers whose names history has not recorded, artifacts from this generation would be rare finds in the museum.

The Gibbes Museum of Art has also collected two portraits of Philip Simmons, the ironworker. However, given the nature of Philip Simmons' decorative wrought iron works on the streets of Charleston, showcasing his work in the museum setting is difficult. It is nearly impossible to find any additional documentation on his older mentor, Peter Simmons, who was working during the Charleston Renaissance. Also nearly impossible is exhibiting the historic preservation of Charleston buildings by carpenters such as Thomas Mayhem Pinckney. Further, Pinckney is likely one well documented case in a history of many undocumented others.

Perhaps the dialogue I hope to encourage, which enhances the agency of African American artists and artisans, is most successful seen on the map rather than upon the museum walls. A map becomes useful to address and perhaps overcome the limitations of scarce documentation.

Visualizing these contributions to "Historic Charleston" on a map is a valuable way to use portions of the museum's existing collections (of Charleston Renaissance artists) in critical yet productive way to create visual dialogue with African Americans' contributions to the city, using a variety of other Charleston-based archives to supplement.

The goal of this project, to allow the landscape of "Historic Charleston" to suggest visual counters to problematic narratives of the Charleston Renaissance, rather than only (and problematically) exhibiting the groups' caricatures of African American life, could be further developed with additional research and could likely be extended to numerous collections in the American South. The map effectively reduces problematic imagery to mere plotted points, while still allowing for visual overlaps to be recognized.

Though I believe this kind of critical dialogue should be enacted with and within the museum, perhaps this kind of dialogue needs the map format to move this conversation forward and allow early twentieth century African American artists and artisans to quite literally take up space in "Historic Charleston."

The map below features all previously discussed points color-coded on one map so that contributions to "Historic Charleston" by the selection of African American artisans previously discussed and the interests of the Charleston Renaissance artists in the Gibbes Museum of Art collection may be more easily observed.

• A Tribute to The Mother Emanuel Church. College of Charleston’s Race and Social Justice Initiative. Accessed May 21, 2020. http://ldhi.library.cofc.edu/exhibits/show/mother-emanuel-tribute.
• Coakley, Joyce V. Sweetgrass Baskets and the Gullah Tradition. Mount Pleasant, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2005.
• Dennison, Marie Caudill. “Art of the American South, 1915–1945: Picturing the Past, Portending Regionalism.” Ph.D diss., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2000. 
• Fields, Mamie Garvin with Karen Fields. Lemon Swamp and Other Places: A Carolina Memoir. New York: Free Press, 1983.
• Fletcher, Pamela and Anne Helmreich, with David Israel and Seth Erickson. “ Local/Global: Mapping Nineteenth-Century London’s Art Market ,” Nineteenth Century Art Worldwide 11:3 (Autumn 2012).   
• “History.” Emanuel AME Church: Charleston, SC. Last accessed May 21, 2020. https://motheremanuel.com/history-2/.
• Hutchisson, James M., and Greene, Harlan. Renaissance in Charleston: Art and Life in the Carolina Low Country, 1900-1940. Athens, Ga.: University of Georgia Press, 2003.
• Keeper of the Gate: Phillip Simmons Ironwork in Charleston, South Carolina. Lowcountry Digital History Initiative. Accessed May 21, 2020.  https://ldhi.library.cofc.edu/exhibits/show/philip_simmons 
• McCutcheon, Priscilla. “The ‘Radical’ Welcome Table: Faith, Social Justice, and the Spiritual Geography of Mother Emanuel in Charleston, South Carolina.” Southeastern Geographer 56, no. 1 (2016): 16–21.
• McDaniel, Maurine Akua. “Edwin Augustus Harleston, Portrait Painter, 1882-1931.” Ph.D diss., Emory University, 1994.
• National Park Service. "Low Country Gullah Culture Special Resource Study and Final Environmental Impact Statement." Atlanta, GA: NPS Southeast Regional Office, 2005.
• Podas, Caitlin E. ““A Worthy Individual of the Opposite Race”: Edwin A. Harleston at the Charleston Museum—Laura Bragg and Thomas P. Stoney's Attempt for Progress, 1926.” MA Thesis, University of South Carolina, 2012.
• Potts-Campbell, Leila, Mae Gentry, Maurine Akua McDaniel, and Susan Van D'Elden Donaldson. Edwin Augustus Harleston: Artist and Activist in a Changing Era. Charleston, S.C. : Avery Research Center, 2006.
• Rosengarten, Dale. “Babylon Is Falling: The State of the Art of Sweetgrass Basketry.” Southern Cultures 24, no. 2 (2018): 98–124.
• Severens, Martha R. Alice Ravenel Huger Smith: An Artist, a Place, and a Time. Charleston, SC: Carolina Art Association, 1993.
• Severens, Martha R. The Charleston Renaissance. Spartanburg, S.C.: Saraland Press, 1998.                  
• Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, “Grass Roots: African Origins of an American Art,”  https://africa.si.edu/exhibits/grassroots/civilwar.html 
• Vlach, John Michael. Charleston Blacksmith: The Work of Philip Simmons. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1981.
• Wellen, Laura Augusta Lindenberger. “Looking Forward Together: Three Studies of Artistic Practice in the South, 1920–1940.” Ph.D diss., The University of Texas at Austin, 2012.   

• Francis Marion National Forest Collection
• Historic Charleston Foundation
• Philip Simmons Foundation
• Library of Digital Histories Initiative
• The Lowcountry Digital Library (College of Charleston)

[1] Laura Augusta Lindenberger Wellen, “Looking Forward Together: Three Studies of Artistic Practice in the South, 1920–1940” (Ph.D diss., The University of Texas at Austin, 2012), 113.

[2] For scholarship on Sweetgrass baskets, Joyce V. Coakley, Sweetgrass Baskets and the Gullah Tradition. (Mount Pleasant, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2005); Dale Rosengarten, “Babylon Is Falling: The State of the Art of Sweetgrass Basketry.” Southern Cultures 24, no. 2 (2018): 98–124; Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, “Grass Roots: African Origins of an American Art,”  https://africa.si.edu/exhibits/grassroots/civilwar.html ; National Park Service, Low Country Gullah Culture Special Resource Study and Final Environmental Impact Statement. (Atlanta, GA: NPS Southeast Regional Office, 2005). For scholarship on Charleston ironwork by African Americans (especially that of Philip Simmons), see John Michael Vlach, Charleston Blacksmith: The Work of Philip Simmons. (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1981) and The Philip Simmons Foundation’s Documentation Project. For scholarship on Carpentry of Thomas Mayhem Pinckney, see Tim Condo, "Thomas Mayhem Pinckney," Preservation Society of Charleston.  https://www.preservationsociety.org/blog/2016/12/08/thomas-mayhem-pinckney/ 

[3] For more on the history of Mother Emanuel AME Church's history, see “History,” Emanuel AME Church: Charleston, SC, last accessed May 21, 2020, https://motheremanuel.com/history-2/)

[4]Ibid.

[5] Mamie Garvin Fields with Karen Fields, Lemon Swamp and Other Places: A Carolina Memoir (New York: Free Press, 1983).

[6] For this and other responses, see “Responses,” A Tribute to The Mother Emanuel Church (College of Charleston’s Race and Social Justice Initiative.), last accessed May 21, 2020, http://ldhi.library.cofc.edu/exhibits/show/mother-emanuel-tribute/responses)

[7] Letter from Edwin A. Harleston to John R. Shillady, November 2, 1918. Collection of Mae Gentry. Quotation included in Wellen, “Looking Forward Together,” 115.

[8] Priscilla McCutcheon’s use of “opposing landscapes” and “spiritual geographies” in her article about the historic Mother Emanuel AME church influenced my thoughts. See Priscilla McCutcheon, “The ‘Radical’ Welcome Table: Faith, Social Justice, and the Spiritual Geography of Mother Emanuel in Charleston, South Carolina.” Southeastern Geographer 56, no. 1 (2016): 16–21.  doi:10.1353/sgo.2016.0005 .

[9] See Martha R. Severens, The Charleston Renaissance. (Spartanburg, S.C.: Saraland Press, 1998); Harlan Greene and James M. Hutchisson, “Introduction: The Charleston Renaissance Considered,” Renaissance in Charleston: Art and Life in the Carolina Low Country, 1900–1940. (Athens, Ga.: University of Georgia Press, 2003), Stephanie E. Yuhl, “The Legend Is Truer Than the Fact: The Politics of Representations in the Career of Elizabeth O’Neill Verner,” Renaissance in Charleston: Art and Life in the Carolina Low Country, 1900-1940. (Athens, Ga.: University of Georgia Press, 2003); Susan V. Donaldson, “Charleston’s Racial Politics of Historic Preservation: The Case of Edwin Harleston,” Renaissance in Charleston: Art and Life in the Carolina Low Country, 1900–1940. (Athens, Ga.: University of Georgia Press, 2003).

[10] Maurine Akua McDaniel, “Edwin Augustus Harleston, Portrait Painter, 1882–1931,” (Ph.D diss., Emory University, 1994), 19–47.

[11] Wellen, “Looking Forward Together,” 110–116.

[12] Ibid, 108.

[13] Ibid, 128.

[14] Ibid, 139–140.

[15] Ibid, 103.

[16] Ibid, 98.

[17] Ibid, 99–101.

[18] McDaniel, “Edwin Augustus Harleston, Portrait Painter," 162.

[19] Historic Charleston Foundation, Archival Record CALHOUN.121.1

[20] Severens, The Charleston Renaissance, 17.

[21] Ibid, 17.

[22] Coakley, Sweetgrass Baskets and the Gullah Tradition, 14.

[23] Ibid, 14–16.

[24] Severens, The Charleston Renaissance, 19. See also National Park Service, Low Country Gullah Culture Special Resource Study and Final Environmental Impact Statement, 66–67.

[25] Rosengarten, “Babylon Is Falling: The State of the Art of Sweetgrass Basketry,” 103.

[26] Ibid, 103.

[26] Rosengarten, “Babylon Is Falling: The State of the Art of Sweetgrass Basketry,” 100.

[27] Tim Condo, "Thomas Mayhem Pinckney," Preservation Society of Charleston,  https://www.preservationsociety.org/blog/2016/12/08/thomas-mayhem-pinckney/ 

[28] Ibid.

[29] Ibid.

[30] Ibid.

[31] Ibid.

[32] For this fact and those in all preceding sentences in this paragraph, see Bernard E. Powers Jr.,“The Black Craft Tradition in Charleston,” Keeper of the Gate: Philip Simmons Ironwork in Charleston, South Carolina, Lowcountry Digital History Initiative (with Philip Simmons Foundation), last accessed September 21, 2020,  https://ldhi.library.cofc.edu/exhibits/show/philip_simmons/black-craft-tradition-in-charl 

[33] For this fact and those in all preceding sentences in this paragraph, see John Michael Vlach, “Philip Simmons, Keeper of the Gate” Keeper of the Gate: Philip Simmons Ironwork in Charleston, South Carolina, Lowcountry Digital History Initiative (with Philip Simmons Foundation), last accessed May 21, 2020,  https://ldhi.library.cofc.edu/exhibits/show/philip_simmons/philip-simmons-keeper-of-the-g .

[34] Ibid.