Our newsletter is out! Click here to read it: January 2015 Arkansas Archivist
Below is a sampling from some of the articles in this month's newsletter:
Lawrence County Bicentennial Celebrated
The AHC and NEARA marked the bicentennial of the creation of
Lawrence County On Thursday, Jan. 15, 2015, in Powhatan with a day-long
symposium titled “Erasing Boundaries: Lawrence County at 200.” The symposium
featured 12 speakers presenting on a variety of topics pertaining to Lawrence
County’s earliest history. The event was funded by a grant from the Arkansas
Humanities Council and the Department of Arkansas Heritage.
The AHC Kicks Off the New Year with New Research Room
Technology
As of January 1, the AHC is offering a variety of options to
researchers for obtaining copies of materials held at its three locations.
Researchers will now be able to scan and save images from the AHC’s microfilm
collection on select machines in the AHC research room in Little Rock. Flash
drives can be purchased at the AHC Research Room desk for $5.75 per 2GB drive.
Additionally, the AHC is adding new media duplication services for film and
sound recordings. At the SARA and NEARA branches researchers will only be able
to scan documents, but we hope to add the new equipment for scanning film in
the near future.
Black History Commission News
The Black History Commission of Arkansas and the Arkansas
History Commission will be hosting a symposium on Saturday, February 7, at the
Mosaic Templars Cultural Center from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m.
The symposium’s theme, “The Roots of African American
Education in Arkansas,” will feature speakers, Peggy Lloyd, Dr. Joseph Hale,
Amanda L. Paige and Gwendolyn Twillie. Topics will include Ila
Upchurch, the history of the Colored Industrial Institute,
the Jeanes Teacher Program, and a living history presentation about the life of
Charlotte Stephens.
From the Director
This month, as we inaugurate a new governor, we should
consider that Arkansas has had 46 governors who have all given inaugural
addresses. The first governor of the State of Arkansas, James Sevier Conway,
had to delay his inauguration due to the fact that the Capitol building (now
known as the Old State House) was not finished in time for him to take the oath
of office. In September 1836, various dignitaries escorted Governor Conway to
the main chamber of the state Capitol building. Governor Conway entered the
House of Representatives chamber and, flanked by the Speaker of the House and
the President of the Senate, addressed those gathered in the House chamber.
“The date of our existence, as a free and independent State, has commenced,”
Conway told those gathered. The Arkansas History Commission holds many of the
papers of the state’s governors.
