Decorative Arts of the Gulf South began as the Classical Institute of the South (CIS), an independent project founded in 2011 by New Orleans attorney Paul Haygood. THNOC incorporated CIS into its mission in 2016, establishing the Paul M. Haygood Fund to honor the memory of CIS’s founder and to enable future field survey work. In 2021, the project rebranded as DAGS.

THNOC’s 2021 exhibition Pieces of History: Ten Years of Decorative Arts Fieldwork highlighted findings from DAGS’s first decade. Pieces of History appeared with additional artifacts at the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts in early 2022, and in a condensed panel version at the Historic Natchez Foundation.

Past Fieldwork Sites

Louisiana: Franklin, New Iberia, New Orleans, St. Francisville
Mississippi: Columbus, Natchez, Port Gibson, Woodville
Alabama: Camden, Demopolis, Huntsville, Montgomery