Wednesday's Wonderful Collection - Eclectic Society and Lotus Club records MS.000111

The Little Rock Lotus Club was founded December 19, 1877, at the home of Fay Hempstead, as a reading club meeting twice monthly. Membership was limited to twenty-five men and women. The first officers were Fay Hempstead, president; George E. Dodge, vice-president; and Sterling R. Cockrill, secretary. Some of the original members included Mr. and Mrs. H.H. Bien, Mr. and Mrs. T.C. Tuppen, Mr. and Mrs. S.R. Cockrill, Fay and Gertrude Hempstead, Fannie Ashley, Georgie Woodruff, Godiva Parham, Mr. and Mrs. George E. Dodge, B.S. Johnson, and Beall Hempstead.

The Eclectic Society was founded in 1879 by U.M. Rose, H.C. Caldwell, and Elbert H. English to study Arkansas history and collect historical documents. A committee from this society researched the correct pronunciation of "Arkansas." From 1881-1885, articles about Eclectic Society presentations regularly appeared in the Arkansas Gazette. Some of the topics included "The Decadence of Poetry," "Marriage and Divorce," "Conflict of Science and Religion," "Federal Aid to Education," and "The Effects of Alcohol on Society."

This collection consists of presentations, attendance records, and check stubs from the Eclectic Society and Lotus Club, Little Rock, Arkansas, dating from 1877-1923.

• Papers presented to the Eclectic Society and Lotus Club (Box 1)
  • "On religion"
  • "The administration of justice in the east"
  • "The development and growth of the English language"
  • "The development and growth of the English language"
  • "The development and growth of the English language"
  • "The development and growth of the English language"
  • "Words"
  • "King Arthur and the roundtable"
  • "Money!"
  • "The tragic element of Macbeth"
  • "William Evart Gladstone" by M.M. Cohn
  • "Woman: Her slavery and wrongs in the early and middle ages" by M.A. Cohn
• Minutes, 1877 December 17-1879 January 29 and attendance record sheet, 1880-81
• Check stubs, 1922-1923

February 2017 Acquisitions and Accessions

ASA Books

Under Every Tree:  A Guide to Finding Your Roots in Virginia, by Phillis Brock Silber
Trammel’s Trace:  The First Road to Texas from the North, by Gary L. Pinkerton
Choctaw by Blood:  Enrollment Cards, 1898 – 1914, Volume VIII, by Jeff Bowen
Choctaw by Blood:  Enrollment Cards, 1898 – 1914, Volume XI, by Jeff Bowen
Marriage and Death Notices from Columbia South Carolina Newspapers, 1838 – 1860, by Brent Howard Holcomb
Charleston South Carolina Marriages, 1877 – 1895, by Susan L. King
White Slave Children of Colonial Maryland and Virginia:  Birth and Shipping Reocords, by Richard Hayes Phillips
50th Anniversary Mulerider, 1909 – the Golden Years – 1959, Southern State College

ASA Periodicals

Perry County Historical Society Newsletter, May 9, 2016
Perry County Historical Society Newsletter, Sept 12, 2016
Perry County Historical Society Newsletter, November 14, 2016
Brickwall Gazette, Vol. 20, No. 6, June 2016
Brickwall Gazette, Vol. 20, No. 6, June 2016
Brickwall Gazette, Vol. 20, No. 7, July 2016
Brickwall Gazette, Vol. 20, No. 9, September 2016
Brickwall Gazette, Vol. 20, No. 10, October 2016
Brickwall Gazette, Vol. 20, No. 11, November 2016
Brickwall Gazette, Vol. 20, No. 12, December 2016
Brickwall Gazette, Vol. 21, No. 1, January 2017
Carroll County Historical Quarterly, Vol. 61, No. 2, June 2016
Carroll County Historical Quarterly, Vol. 61, No. 3, September 2016
Carroll County Historical Quarterly, Vol. 61, No. 4, December 2016
Grand Prairie Historical Bulletin, Vol. 59, No. 2, October 2016
Madison County Musings, Vol. 35, No. 2, Summer 2016
Madison County Musings, Vol. 35, No. 3, Fall 2016
Madison County Musings, Vol. 35, No. 4, Winter 2016
The Backtracker, Northwest Arkansas Genealogical Society, Vol. 45, No. 2, Spring 2016
The Backtracker, Northwest Arkansas Genealogical Society, Vol. 45, No. 3, Summer 2016
The Backtracker, Northwest Arkansas Genealogical Society, Vol. 45, No. 4, Autumn 2016
The Louisiana Genealogical Register, Vol. 62, No. 2, Summer 2016
Perry County Historical Society, Vol. 34, 2016
The Heritage, Vol. 63, 2016
The History Newsletter, Vol. 44, 2015-2016

ASA Printed Ephemera

Arkansas Genealogical Society Fall Seminar, October 14 – 15, 2016, Benton, Arkansas
The Gems of Pike County, Arkansas, Vol. 27, No. 3, Summer 2016
The Arkansas Pioneers Association of Pulaski County 2016 – 2017

ASA CDs

Bates  Family History Volume 1 & 2

ASA Discs

Bates  Family History Volume 1 & 2

NEARA Books

The Challengers: Untold Stories of African Americans Who Changed the System in One Small Southern Municipality, by Elmer Beard
The Bellah Family: Past and Present, by Theda Snow Massey

NEARA Periodicals

Genealogical Society of Craighead County Newsletter, February 2017
Sharp County Historical Society Newsletter,  January 2017

SARA Books

Wombles of Nevada County, Arkansas, the Texas Panhandle and Lauderdale County Alabama, by Billy Womble

SARA Periodicals

Clark County Historical Association and Museum Newsletter, January 2017

ASA Accessions

Poets' Roundtable of Arkansas collection, 0.5 cu. ft.
Arkansas Congressional speeches, 1893-1916, 0.10 cu. ft.
Panoramic photograph of Camp Pike: "Casual Co. Educational Center, Camp Pike 1920," 01 item
Arkansas Railroad Club Records, 2 cu. ft.
16 mm film of Batesville vs. Newport high school football game, ca. 1960s, 1 reel
BHCA Seminar "Black Political Engagement in Arkansas" 3 DVDs, 3 items
Mike Rankin genealogical collection
United Provinces Exhibition photograph album (German), 1910
Little Rock General Store negative, 1 item
Little River Training School Alumni Association grant project report, 0.25 cu. ft

Arkansas History Commission Announces Quarterly Meeting

The Arkansas History Commission will hold its quarterly meeting at 10 a.m. on Thursday, March 9, 2017, in the conference room of the Arkansas State Archives, which is on the second floor of the Multi Agency Complex building behind the State Capitol (One Capitol Mall, Little Rock).  The meeting is open to the public.
For more information, please call 501-682-6900 or email events.archives@arkansas.gov.

Arkansas State Archives annouces second Pen to Podium lecture

The Arkansas State Archives will hold the second lecture in its series, Pen to Podium: Arkansas Historical Writers’ Lecture Series, on Tues., Mar. 28 from 7 - 8 p.m. at Historic Arkansas Museum in Little Rock, Department of Arkansas Director Stacy Hurst announced today. Elizabeth Hill will present, A Splendid Piece of Work: Arkansas’s Early Home Demonstration Clubs in recognition of Women’s History Month. Before the lecture, a reception sponsored by the Friends of the Arkansas State Archives will begin at 6:30 p.m. in the atrium of the museum.

The lecture is free but registration is required. Registration is limited and deadline for registration will be Fri., Mar. 24.

State Archives Director Dr. Lisa Speer noted that Hill’s work is based in part on research conducted on Home Demonstration Club scrapbooks held at the Arkansas State Archives. “I am delighted that Elizabeth Hill is the featured speaker for this lecture during Women’s History Month,” remarked Speer.  “Her work on the state’s home demonstration clubs is a thoughtful and well researched addition to scholarship on Arkansas women in the twentieth century.”

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 more information or to register, contact events.archives@arkansas.gov or call 501-682-6900.

The Northeast Arkansas Regional Archives Celebrates Six Years

The Northeast Arkansas Regional Archives (NEARA) will be celebrating its sixth year anniversary with an open house from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. on Fri., March 3, 2017, at the Male and Female Academy in Powhatan, announced Department of Arkansas Heritage Director Stacy Hurst.

The open house will feature presentations by staff members and past recipients of the NEARA award for historical scholarship and tours of the facility. Light refreshments will be served.

NEARA is a branch of the Arkansas State Archives. NEARA’s mission is to collect and preserve primary and secondary source materials pertaining to the history of northeast Arkansas. Its collections span a 16-county region dating back to 1806. The opening of NEARA in 2011 marked the return of the original Lawrence County court records to Powhatan from Arkansas State University, where they had been housed for several years.  These records constitute some of the earliest records on Arkansas, dating back to the early 19th century. Lawrence County was created in 1815 as part of Missouri Territory and was the second of five large counties in what became Arkansas Territory in 1819.

NEARA’s holdings include traditional archival material such as letters, diaries, maps, photographs, newspapers, as well as broadsides, books, periodicals, and other print resources. The core of NEARA's holdings includes approximately 500 cubic feet of Lawrence County government records, including court cases, marriage records, probate records, and pension records, donated by the Lawrence County Historical Society.

“Arkansas is fortunate to have these early territorial papers,” remarked State Archives Director Dr. Lisa Speer, “and we are grateful to the foresight of the Lawrence County Historical Society members who saved these historical records from destruction.” With the bicentennial of Arkansas Territory coming up in 2019, Speer noted that she expects these records and NEARA to receive increased attention and use.

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.

ASA launches new Japanese American internment digital collection

On February 19, the Arkansas State Archives is launching an online digital collection of materials related to Japanese American internment camps in Arkansas, Department of Arkansas Heritage Director Stacy Hurst announced today. The launch coincides with the 75th anniversary of Executive Order 9066, which authorized the removal of people of Japanese ancestry from the west coast in February 1942 and led to the creation of internment camps across the interior of the country during World War II.

The collection, “You Fought Prejudice and Won: Japanese American Internment Camps in Arkansas,” contains over 750 documents and images from the State Archives, relating to the Rohwer and Jerome Relocation Centers in the Arkansas Delta.  The camps housed approximately 16,000 Japanese and Japanese-American citizens between 1942 and 1945.  Materials in the online collection include photographs, letters, official documents, newspaper articles, personal narratives and artwork from internees and camp officials.

These materials were digitized as second phase of a larger collaborative project, funded in part by a grant from the National Park Service.  The collaborative project, “Rohwer Reconstructed,” directed by the Center for Advanced Spatial Technologies at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, will feature materials from multiple Arkansas archival repositories, as well as 2D maps and a 3D reconstruction of the camp.  Phase one of the Rohwer Reconstructed project is slated for completion in March 2017, with phase two materials to be added over the course of the following year. The entire project is slated for completion in September 2018.

Dr. Lisa Speer, state historian and director of the Arkansas State Archives, says of the digital project, “This project to create greater public awareness of the plight of Japanese Americans and Japanese- born immigrants in the U.S. during the second World War is critical to helping us understand the experience of those who suddenly find themselves under suspicion by the country they have chosen to call home.”  “Hopefully, this digital collection has lessons we can learn from the past and apply to our future,” Speer noted.

“You Fought Prejudice and Won: Japanese American Internment Camps in Arkansas,” is the 20th online collection created by the Arkansas State Archives since the launch of its digital collections website, the Arkansas Digital Ark-ives in 2014. This collection joins others on the site relating to World War I, Arkansas Territory, and the Civil War, which can all be viewed at The Arkansas Digital Ark-ives

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.

Wednesday's Wonderful Collection: James R. Turner papers SMC.18.13

James R. Turner was born on August 7, 1848, to William R. and Elizabeth F. Ewett Turner of Phillips County, Arkansas. He was a livery merchant for twenty-five years in Poplar Grove (Phillips County) and also served as postmaster for twenty years. He married Retta N. McCoy on February 2, 1868. They had several children including Robert N., Daisy, Eva, Templin, and Cavett. He served as Justice of the Peace for eight years, following in his father's footsteps. In 1869, he became a correspondent for the "Southern Shield" newspaper. After he lost everything in a fire, in 1895 he established "The Shield," a Helena newspaper. He was a member of the Knights of Honor, and he and Mrs. Turner were members of Knights and Ladies of Honor. He died June 9, 1936.

This collection contains invitations and programs of various social activities in and around Poplar Grove, Helena, and Marvell, Phillips County, Arkansas, including Knights of Honor and Knights and Ladies of Honor events that were attended by James R. Turner. There are also items related to President Theodore Roosevelt's visit to Little Rock in 1905. Other items in the collection include a Justice of the Peace commission for William Turner (James R. Turner's father) and a land grant issued to Walter and Sarah Burress.

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• Commission (Reel MG00210)
  • 1860 October 17: William Turner, Justice of the Peace, Marion Township, Phillips County, Arkansas
• Land grant
  • 1839 October 10: Walter and Sarah Burress, Phillips County, Arkansas
• Invitations
  • 1873 February 25: Carnival of Helena, to J.R. Turner and Lady
  • 1874 February 17: Grand Mardi Gras Ball given by Knights of Phillippi
  • 1874 June 24: Lafayette Lodge, Number 189, A.F. and A.M. Masonic Picnic, Poplar Grove, Arkansas
  • 1875 February 9: Carnival Ball, Knights of Phillippi, Helena, Arkansas
  • 1877 December 18: The "Helena Rifles" Grand Ball and Flag Presentation
  • 1878 May 14: "Helena Rifles" at Phillips Academy, Helena, Arkansas, William H. Coates to James R. Turner
  • 1878 July 4: Ball, Helena Fire Department
  • 1881 May 19: Dance and Ice Cream Supper, Ladies Aid Society, Marvell, Arkansas
  • 1883 May 23: Grand Ball, Young Men of Clarendon
  • 1883 October 16: Poplar Grove Lodge Number 2442, Knights of Honor, Turner Hall, Poplar Grove, Arkansas
  • 1883 December 27: Social Dance, Poplar Grove Hall
  • 1884 January 15: Grand Supper and Masquerade Ball, Clarendon Dramatic Club
  • 1885 December 10: Grand Ball, Irvin House, Poplar Grove, Arkansas
  • 1886 June 17: Grand Ball, Irvin House, Poplar Grove, Arkansas
  • 1887 October 20: Young Men's Annual Hop, Armory Hall
  • 1881 December 21: Wedding of Janie Neel and Stephen W. Williams, First Presbyterian Church, Shelbyville, Kentucky
  • 1887 December 27: Grand Ball and Supper, Trenton Social Club at the Masonic Hall, Trenton, Arkansas
  • 1888 January 27: Ball and Supper, Ladies Aid Society, Irvin House, Poplar Grove, Arkansas
  • 1888 August 7: Wedding of Bessie Noel and John Williams, St. Paul's Methodist Episcopal Church South, Wytheville, Virginia
  • 1889 December 26: Grand Ball and Supper, Masonic Hall, Trenton, Arkansas
  • 1891 June 5-12: Grand T.P.A. Special Train Excursion to Hot Springs, Arkansas, and through the Great Southwest
  • 1891 July 23: Army and Navy Reception at Redondo Hotel, Redondo, California, in honor of arrival of the U.S.S. War Ship Charleston, to Mr. James R. Turner and family
  • 1892 May 13: Bridge Opening Banquet, Gayoso Hotel, Memphis, Tennessee
  • 1893 December 21: Knights of Pythias Grand Ball, Clarendon Opera House
  • 1896 January 23: Program, Public Installation of the officers of Reynolds Lodge Number 7, Knights of Pythias, Grand Opera House, Helena, Arkansas
  • 1897 November 24: Mr. and Mrs. Carruth, Fortieth Anniversary, Marvell, Arkansas
  • 1898 May 3: Reception and Banquet in honor of the Grand Lodge, Knights and Ladies of Honor, Batesville, Arkansas
  • 1898 June 1: Wedding of Sue Louise Powell and Rufus Walter Polk, Christ Church, Arkansas, Edward Wadsworth Winfield to Mr. Turner
  • 1899 February 14: Programme, St. Valentine's Ball, Concordia Hall, Little Rock, Arkansas
  • 1908 May 21: Luncheon, Arkansas Press Association, Hotel Marion
  • 1908 May 21-23: Program, Arkansas Press Assocation
  • 1909 October 6: Banquet commemorating the Twenty-Third Anniversary of Al G. Field, Greater Minstrels, Columbus, Georgia
  • May 24: Banquet, Ridge City Club, Helena, Arkansas
  • May 24: Program, Officers Memorial Assocation
  • June 3: Odd Fellows' Picnic, Marvell, Phillips County, Arkansas
• Theodore Roosevelt's visit to Little Rock, Arkansas
  • 1905 October 25: Announcement
  • 1905 October 5: Press Stand Admission, James R. Turner
• Miscellaneous
  • 1892 March 14: Card, Ridge City Club, Helena Arkansas, to J.R. Turner, Introduced by William M. Neal
  • 1892 April 23: Letter: R.W. Nicholls, President, Sons of Veterans, Helena, Arkansas, to "Sir"
  • 1894 February 5: Membership card, New Orleans Chess, Checkers, and Whist Club, to Mr. Turner
  • 1896 February 7: Pamphlet, "Yankee Doodle and Dixie," Cleburne Chandler's book
  • Undated: Postcard, "A New American Novelist"
  • May 18-20: Card, The Southwestern Telegraph and Telephone Company
• Correspondence
  • 1906 March 12: Dr. and Mrs. Rightor to Mr. Turner
  • 1908 July 4: "Daisy" to Mr. J.R. Turner, Helena, Arkansas
• Other
  • 1906 March 28: Kubelik Turner died
  • Undated: Christmas Greeting, Forrest to Grandpa