Destiny Manifested: The American Western Landscape Modernized by Georgia O'Keeffe and Ansel Adam

Manifest Destiny is a term coined by the newspaper editor John O'Sullivan in the nineteenth century. It is a term that at the time was used to justify the westward expansion in the United States and a reason to confiscate Indian and Mexican land. This thesis will explore the ideologies of Manifest Destiny and how it was portrayed and used in the sublime landscapes of the nineteenth century artists, beginning with the Hudson River School and artists in more westward regions like Thomas Moran (1837 -- 1926) and photographers like William Henry Jackson (1843-1942). It will then move into the twentieth century and examine the portrayal of the modern western landscapes in the work of Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986) and Ansel Adams (1902-1984) and analyze whether their representation of the American Western Landscape were reactions against Manifest Destiny and nineteenth century representations of the American West or are a part of the continual evolution of the genre of western landscape painting and evolving meaning of Manifest Destiny.