Arkansas State Archives announces fourth annual foodways event

The Arkansas State Archives will host its fourth annual Arkansas foodways symposium from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m. on Sat., Sept. 16, at the north campus of UA Pulaski Technical College in North Little Rock, Department of Arkansas Heritage Director Stacy Hurst announced today. The symposium's theme, Fruit of the Vine: Arkansas's Italian Communities and Foodways, will feature presentations by Chris Dorer, Dr. Rebecca Howard, Regina Moyer and State Archives staff member Terra Titsworth.

Topics will include Little Italy, Arkansas: A Bootlegger's Oasis; Aren't Grits Just Polenta?: Italians in the Ozarks; and Sunnyside: Italian Tradition from Past to Present. The day will conclude with a cooking demonstration by professionally trained chef, Terra Titsworth, who will be preparing cannoli.

The seminar is $12 and registration is required. Check-in will begin at 9:15 a.m. Teachers can earn up to four professional development hours through attendance. An Arkansas Italian fare lunch will be prepared by chefs from UA - Pulaski Tech Culinary Arts and Hospitality Management Institute and a wine tasting will be provided for symposium participants. Deadline for registration will be Sept. 11.

The Arkansas State Archives is an agency of the Department of Arkansas Heritage and is responsible for collecting and maintaining the largest collection of historical materials on Arkansas in the world. The State Archives has two branch locations: the Northeast Arkansas Regional Archives is located in Powhatan and the Southwest Arkansas Regional Archives is located in Washington.

Other agencies of the Department of Arkansas Heritage include the Arkansas Arts Council, the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program, the Delta Cultural Center in Helena, the Old State House Museum, the Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission, the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center, and the Historic Arkansas Museum.

This event is sponsored by the Friends of the Arkansas State Archives and funded in part by a grant from the Arkansas Natural and Cultural Resources Council.

For more information about the symposium, email events.archives@arkansas.gov or call 501-682-6900. To register, visit https://italian-foodways.eventbrite.com.

Arkansas State Archives receives grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities

The Arkansas State Archives has been awarded a grant in the amount of $208,128 for the digitization of historic Arkansas newspapers through the National Endowment of the Humanities, Department of Arkansas Heritage Director Stacy Hurst announced today.  The National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP) grant will allow 100,000 pages of historic Arkansas newspapers from the collections of the State Archives to be digitized and made available online for research. The project is a partnership between the Arkansas State Archives and the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, which will provide technical support to Arkansas in the digitization.

Arkansas State Archives Director Dr. Lisa Speer expressed appreciation for the grant, saying, “I am delighted that the NEH selected the Arkansas State Archives’ grant application for an award.  Arkansas is one of a handful of states not participating in the NDNP.  This grant and collaboration with the Mississippi Department of Archives and History will benefit scholarship on our state by providing convenient access to a large body of public domain Arkansas newspapers.  I’m very grateful to the MDAH for their willingness to share their expertise to help us achieve this goal.”

The project will take two years to complete. Once digitized, the newspapers will be housed online through the Chronicling America website hosted by the Library of Congress (http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/) and will be accessible to the public for free. An announcement of which Arkansas newspapers are to be digitized will be made at a later date following the work of a selection committee.

The State Archives holds the largest and most extensive Arkansas newspaper collection in existence. Its total newspaper holdings include an estimated twenty million pages from almost 1,800 titles representing all seventy-five counties in the state.

The Arkansas State Archives is an agency of the Department of Arkansas Heritage and is responsible for collecting and maintaining the largest publicly available collection of historical materials on Arkansas.  The State Archives has two branch locations; the Northeast Arkansas Regional Archives is located in Powhatan and the Southwest Arkansas Regional Archives is located in Washington.

Other agencies of the Department of Arkansas Heritage include the Arkansas Arts Council, the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program, the Delta Cultural Center in Helena, the Old State House Museum, the Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission, the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center, and the Historic Arkansas Museum.

Wednesday's Wonderful Collection - Arkansas Employment Security Division records, MS.000089

The Arkansas Employment Security Division was created in 1937 by Act 155 of the Arkansas Legislature, and was known as the Bureau of Labor's Unemployment Compensation Division. With its establishment, all Arkansas employers were required to contribute a percentage of their employees' earnings to funds that could be used in the event that these workers became involuntarily unemployed.

In 1941, the Unemployment Compensation Division changed its name to the Arkansas Employment Security Division. It also restructured its mission and services in order to better handle the state's influx of industrial defense projects and workers. 

This name and mission remained until 2005, when the division reorganized to become the Department of Workforce Services. The mission was rewritten to reflect the growing need for the state's workers and employers to compete in a global economy.

In addition to linking workers and job-seekers with a variety of employment services, the department maintains records on unemployment insurance, workforce investment activities, and labor market information.

This collection contains annual reports, handbooks, service bulletins, research and statistics, Advisory Council quarterly meeting minutes, conference proceedings, laws and regulations, reports on Arkansas' industry and agriculture, and a variety of miscellaneous documents.

• • 1937 (Box 1)
  • 1938
  • 1940
  • 1941
  • 1941
  • 1942
  • 1943
  • 1944
  • 1945
  • 1948
  • 1949
  • 1949
  • 1950
  • 1951
  • 1952
  • 1953
  • 1955
  • 1956
  • 1957
  • 1958
  • 1959
  • 1960 (Box 2)
  • 1961
  • 1962
  • 1964
  • 1965
  • 1966
  • 1967
  • 1968
  • 1969
  • 1970
  • 1971
  • 1972 (Box 3)
  • 1974
  • 1975
  • 1976
  • 1977
  • 1978
  • 1979
  • 1980
  • 1981
  • 1982
  • 1983
  • 1984 (Box 4)
  • 1985
  • 1986
  • 1987
  • 1988
  • 1989
  • 1990
  • 1991
  • 1992
• Arkansas Service Bulletin
  • 1938 April (Box 5)
  • 1938 June
  • 1938 July
  • 1938 August
  • 1938 September
  • 1940 May
  • 1940 July
  • 1940 October
  • 1941 January
  • 1951 first quarter
• Arkansas Agricultural Activities
  • 1950 (Box 6)
  • 1951
  • 1953
• Handbook of Employment Security Statistics
  • 1938-1958 (Box 7)
  • 1959-1963
  • 1964-1968
• Handbook of Employment Security Activities
  • 1956 (Box 8)
  • 1956-1957
  • 1957-1958
  • 1958-1962
  • 1958-1959
  • 1959-1960
  • 1959-1963
  • 1960-1961
  • 1960-1964
  • 1961-1965
  • 1962-1966
  • 1963-1967
  • 1964-1968
  • 1965-1969
  • 1966-1970 (Box 9)
  • 1968-1972
  • 1974
  • 1975
  • 1976
  • 1977
  • 1978
  • 1979
  • 1980
• Arkansas' Industrial Progress
  • 1970-1977
  • 1970-1979
• Law and regulations
  • 1973 July 1
  • 1977 July 1
• Research and statistics
  • 1979 June (Box 10)
  • 1980 July
• Advisory Council quarterly meetings
  • 1977 March 11
  • 1977 June 30
  • 1977 September 9
  • 1977 December 8
  • 1978 March 10
  • 1978 June 30
  • 1978 September 22
  • 1978 December 8
• Interstate Conference of Employment Security Agencies
  • Proceedings, 1974 September 9-12
  • Proceedings, 1975 September 20-23
• Statistical review
  • 1979 August (Box 11)
  • 1979 September
  • 1979 October
  • 1979 November
  • 1979 December
  • 1980 January
  • 1980 February
  • 1980 June
  • 1980 July
  • 1980 August
  • 1990 first quarter
  • 1990 second quarter
  • 1990 third quarter
  • 1990 fourth quarter
  • 1991 first quarter
  • 1991 second quarter
  • 1991 third quarter
  • 1991 fourth quarter
  • 1992 first quarter
  • 1992 second quarter
• Annual Planning Information
  • Fiscal year 1979 Fayetteville-Springdale (Box 12)
  • Fiscal year 1979 Fort Smith
  • Fiscal year 1979 Little Rock-North Little Rock
  • Fiscal year 1979 Pine Bluff
  • Fiscal year 1979 includes data for balance of state and central Arkansas consortium
  • Fiscal year 1980 Fayetteville-Springdale
  • Fiscal year 1980 Fort Smith
  • Fiscal year 1980 Little Rock-North Little Rock
  • Fiscal year 1980 Pine Bluff
  • Fiscal year 1980 includes data for balance of state and central Arkansas consortium
  • Fiscal year 1982
  • Fiscal year 1983
  • Fiscal year 1984
  • Fiscal year 1985 and 1986
  • Fiscal years 1989 and 1990 statewide
  • Fiscal years 1989 and 1990 central (Box 13)
  • Fiscal years 1989 and 1990 west central
  • Fiscal years 1989 and 1990 north central
  • Fiscal years 1989 and 1990 western
  • Fiscal years 1989 and 1990 city of Little Rock
  • Fiscal years 1989 and 1990 northeast
  • Fiscal years 1989 and 1990 eastern
  • Fiscal years 1989 and 1990 Fayetteville-Springdale
  • Fiscal years 1989 and 1990 northwest
  • Fiscal years 1989 and 1990 Pine Bluff
  • Fiscal years 1989 and 1990 Fort Smith
  • Fiscal years 1989 and 1990 Little Rock-North Little Rock
  • Fiscal years 1989 and 1990 southwest
  • Fiscal years 1989 and 1990 southeast
  • Program years 1991 and 1992 central service delivery area
  • Program years 1991 and 1992 statewide
  • Program years 1993 and 1994 statewide
  • Program years 1993 and 1994 central service delivery area
• Miscellaneous reports
  • Tabular summary of statistics of public assistance, 1937 (Box 14)
  • Staffing Patterns for Manufacturing Industries in Arkansas
  • United States employment service, 1942 January 1
  • Operations manual, 1948
  • Classification and compensation plan
  • Rules for the merit system of personnel adminsistration
  • Report, 1953 June
  • Employment bulletin, 1953 July
  • Functional codes for time distribution, 1953 July 1
  • Average weekly earnings, 1967
  • Employment and payrolls, fourth quarter 1967
  • Current employment developments, 1970
  • Correction to 1971 and 1972 fiscal year handbook
  • Current employment developments, 1972-1974
  • Arkansas job openings 1973
  • Employment trends
  • Employment service management data, 1979 December-1980 September
  • Unemployment insurance claims, 1980 February 9-1980 November 15
  • Youth in Arkansas, 1981 July
  • Arkansas' youth in SMSAs, 1981 September
  • Unemployment insurance handbook

Black History Commission of Arkansas announces quarterly meeting

The Black History Commission of Arkansas will hold a regular, quarterly meeting on Thurs., Aug. 10, 2017, at noon in the Arkansas State Archives conference room, located on the 2nd floor of the Multi-Agency Complex at One Capitol Mall, Little Rock, Arkansas.  This meeting is open to the public.

The Black History Commission of Arkansas is an advisory body to the Arkansas State Archives charged with preserving the history of black Arkansans and promoting the teaching of black history in Arkansas’s schools.

The Arkansas State Archives is an agency of the Department of Arkansas Heritage and is responsible for collecting and maintaining the largest collection of historical materials on Arkansas in the world.  The State Archives has two branch locations; the Northeast Arkansas Regional Archives is located in Powhatan and the Southwest Arkansas Regional Archives is located in Washington.

Other agencies of the Department of Arkansas Heritage include the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program, the Arkansas Arts Council, the Delta Cultural Center in Helena, the Old State House Museum, the Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission, the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center, and the Historic Arkansas Museum.

For questions and comments, please contact the Arkansas State Archives at 501-682-6900.