Labor Day

The Arkansas History Commission will be closed for Labor Day on Monday, September 1.

Arkansas Gubernatorial Papers

The Arkansas History Commission is pleased to announce the opening of several collections of gubernatorial papers.  Over the last year, the gubernatorial papers of Charles Hillman Brough, Harvey Parnell and John E. Martineau have been conserved and have had updated guides created and are now newly available for research.

Each collection holds a variety of archival documents.  The Parnell and Martineau papers contain political and administrative documents from their time in office with little personal material.  The Brough papers contain both personal and gubernatorial records, including photographs, personal correspondence and scrapbooks. 

In 2013, the History Commission was awarded a grant from the Arkansas Natural and Cultural Resources Council in the amount of $48,500 to conserve and create guides to 16 major collections of Arkansas gubernatorial papers and another 22 small manuscript collections.  Along with the three opened gubernatorial collections, 15 of the 22 small manuscript collections have been conserved and are open for research as well. 

“We are very appreciative to the Arkansas Natural and Cultural Resources Council for the funding it has provided for this project,” said Dr. Lisa Speer, Arkansas History Commission Director.  “As the state archives of Arkansas, the governors’ papers are among the most important papers that we hold documenting the workings of the highest office in state government.  The ANCRC’s support allows us to not only provide better protection for these papers, but also to improve public access to them.”

The collections can be viewed in the AHC’s research room from Monday through Saturday, 8 a.m. until 4:30 p.m.

Summer Cleaning

Nothing can clutter up a space like working on multiple projects all at once and no one at the Arkansas History Commission is working on any single project at one time. So sometimes we can appear a little bit cluttered.  The AHC did its own version of ‘spring cleaning’ during the week of the 21^st of July. For that whole week, every individual at the Little Rock History Commission stopped all projects to clean, reorganize, throw out, and relocate items in every room, office, lab, and vault within these well-used rooms. We made the cleaning project enjoyable by having a different get-together each day with food and conversation about what we had found and to celebrate everyone’s hard work. Here are some before and after photos of the big clean up.

Grant Awarded

The Arkansas Humanities Council, in partnership with the Arkansas History Commission, is pleased to receive a grant award in the amount of $4,995 from the Central Arkansas Planning and Development District, Inc.

 

Funds will be used for the development of teacher lesson plans from primary source documents found within Arkansas History Commission archives.
 

Pictured below (L to R): Rodney Larsen, Executive Director Central Arkansas Planning and Development District, Inc., Paul Austin, Executive Director, Arkansas Humanities Council, Representative Warwick Sabin, Brian Irby, Archival Assistant, Arkansas History Commission, and Dr. Lisa Speer, Director, Arkansas History Commission.

 

 

Monthly Newsletter

Our monthly newsletter, The Arkansas Archivist, is out for the month of August.  Be sure to check out the section called, "From the Director," written by Dr. Lisa Speer. Dr. Speer discusses some upcoming changes to our policies.

 http://www.ark-ives.com/!userfiles/pdfs/August%202014%20final.pdf

July Acquisitions

A listing acquisitions made by the AHC in July:

NEARA

Jim McCall donated 3 checks from Black Rock Pearl Button Company (1 payroll, 2 expense)

Books

AHC

Heritage of Tattnal County, Ga., 1801-2012

History of Dodge County, by Mrs. Wilton Philip Cobb

Old Times Not Forgotten:  A History of Drew County, by Rebecca DeArmond

Albion’s Seed:  Four British Folkways in America, by David Hackett Fischer

Vaughans in Wales and America:  A Search for the Welsh Ancestors of William Vaughan(1750-1840), by James E. Vaughn

Dowdy Aka Israel, by Emma Israel Sanders

Telfair County:  A Pictorial History

Bleckley County Georgia Marries, 1913-2004, by Betty J. Smith

The News from Milan, Rhine and old Telfair, Volume I, 1807-1919, by Tad Evans

The News from Milan, Rhine and old Telfair, Volume II, 1920-1932, by Tad Evans

The News from Milan, Rhine and old Telfair, Volume III, 1933-1937, by Tad Evans

The News from Milan, Rhine and old Telfair, Volume IV, 1938-1940, by Tad Evans

The News from Milan, Rhine and old Telfair, Volume V, 1941-1944, by Tad Evans

The News from Milan, Rhine and old Telfair, Volume VI, 1945-1951, by Tad Evans

Alabama Newspaper Clippings:  Taken from Georgia Newspapers, 1814-1907, by Tad Evans

Pulaski County, Georgia, Newspaper Clippings, Volume I, 1867-1875, by Tad Evans

Pulaski County, Georgia, Newspaper Clippings, Volume II, 1876-1881, by Tad Evans

Pulaski County, Georgia, Newspaper Clippings, Volume III, 1882-1887, by Tad Evans

Pulaski County, Georgia, Newspaper Clippings, Volume IV, 1888-1897, by Tad Evans

Pulaski County, Georgia, Newspaper Clippings, Volume V, 1898-1907, by Tad Evans

The News from Chauncey, Volume I, 1869-1918, by Tad Evans

The News from Chauncey, Volume II, 1919-1932, by Tad Evans

The News from Chauncey, Volume III, 1933-1938, by Tad Evans

The News from Chauncey, Volume V, 1945-1957, by Tad Evans

The News from Chauncey, Volume VI, 1958-1969, by Tad Evans

The Life and Times of Reverend N. C. Denson:  Reminiscences of a Confederate Soldier, Dedicated Minister, and Arkansas Leader, by Dillard Denson, M.D.

NEARA

Craighead County Marriages, 3 vols., Craighead County Genealogical Society

Greene, Greene County Historical & Genealogical Society Newsletter, September, 1998 - March, 2008

Greene, Greene County Historical and Genealogical Society Quarterly, 1998 - Fall, 2005

The Ozarks Mountaineer, March, 2004 - July - Aug, 2008

Searching Arkansas's Archives

Our director, Dr. Lisa Speer, was interviewed by KUAF's Kyle Kellams for Ozarks at Large.  The interview played yesterday.  Dr. Speer got a chance to talk about a lot of the really great things we have here at the AHC.  To listen, click on the link below:

http://kuaf.com/post/searching-arkansas-archives

The Great War: Researching World War I in Arkansas Archives

The Arkansas History Commission and the Sequoyah National Research Center will be hosting a free half-day symposium on Saturday, September 13 from 9:00 a.m. until noon in Dickinson Hall at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. The symposium’s theme, The Great War: Researching World War I in Arkansas Archives, will feature presenters, Dr. Daniel F. Littlefield, Roy Boney and Amanda Paige.
Topi...cs will include Cherokee Code Talkers: World War I and Beyond, American Indians in World War I: Choctaw Case Study, and Letters, Scrapbooks and Discharges: WWI Treasures at the Arkansas History Commission.
The Arkansas History Commission, located in Little Rock, is the official state archives of Arkansas and maintains the largest collection of historical materials on Arkansas in the world. Associated with the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, the Sequoyah National Research Center maintains the largest collection of Native American expression in the world and works to acquire and preserve the writings and ideas of Native North Americans.
For more information about the symposium, call Dr. Lisa Speer at (501) 682-6900 or Dr. Daniel Littlefield at (501) 569-8336.