Monthly Archives: November 2019

Florence Price focus of Mosaic Templars “Lunch and Learn” program today at 12 noon

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Take a break from your work day for a Midday Music Moment at Mosaic Templars Cultural Center!  The program begins at 12 noon today (November 7).

They are partnering with the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra to bring a special lunchtime presentation and performance by pianist/composer Karen Walwyn.

Karen will talk about one of Arkansas’s most renowned classical composers, Florence Price, and play snippets of her work. Karen will also lead discussion about the barriers that Price and other African American classical musicians have faced.

This is a free event.

Author Hampton Sides discusses new book ON DESPERATE GROUND today

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Image result for hampton sides on desperate ground"Join the Little Rock Parks and Recreation Department as they welcome acclaimed journalist Hampton Sides at the MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History.

Sides is best-known for his gripping non-fiction adventure stories set in war or depicting epic expeditions of discovery and exploration including the bestselling histories Ghost Soldiers, Blood and Thunder, Hellhound On His Trail, In the Kingdom of Ice, and, most recently, On Desperate Ground about the greatest battle of the Korean War.

He’ll be speaking about On Desperate Ground, which features Little Rock’s John Yancey, whose family shared his notes and letters with the author. Hampton will also be signing books.

The program begins at 12 noon.

Happy 188 to Little Rock!

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With the stroke of Territorial Governor John Pope’s pen, Little Rock was officially chartered as a town on November 7, 1831. This followed approval by the Arkansas legislature a few days earlier.

As a chartered, officially recognized municipality, the Town of Little Rock was authorized to create a government and to plan for a Mayor and Aldermen to be elected. That election would take place in January 1832 with the initial council meeting later that month.

There are several earlier and later days which could be used to mark Little Rock’s official birth (La Harpe sighting in 1722, first settler in 1812, permanent settlement in 1820, selection of trustees in 1825, chartered as a City in 1835, chartered as a City of First Class in 1875) — but it is November 7, 1831, which has been the officially recognized and accepted date.

In 1931, Little Rock celebrated her centennial with a series of events.  Likewise, in November 1981, Little Rock Mayor Charles Bussey signed and City Clerk Jane Czech attested Resolution 6,687 which recognized the Little Rock sesquicentennial.

CALS Legacy & Lunch explores New Madrid Earthquake at noon today

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Learn about “The New Madrid Earthquakes and Their Aftermath in Quapaw Country, 1811-1833” today (11/6) at 12 noon at the CALS Butler Center’s Legacies and Lunch program.  It will take place in the CALS Main Library.

The New Madrid Earthquakes of 1811–1812 were the strongest earthquakes in the North American interior in the last six centuries. Across the vast expanse of land the seismic events affected, people struggled to address the earthquakes’ religious meaning and material impact. This talk focuses on the earthquakes in Quapaw country, where the events featured in recorded Quapaw oral histories and became a factor in Quapaw territorial dispossession through the New Madrid Relief Act of 1815.

Jonathan Hancock is an associate professor of history and environmental studies at Hendrix College in Conway. He has published work in the Journal of the Early Republic, The Princeton Companion to Atlantic History, and Warring for America: Cultural Contests in the Era of 1812 (University of North Carolina Press, 2017) and has held research fellowships from the Bright Institute at Knox College, the Huntington Library, the Newberry Library, and the University of North Carolina Royster Society of Fellows. He is currently completing a book, Convulsed States: Earthquakes, Prophecy, and the Remaking of Nations in Early America, and beginning research for a new book project, “The Indigenous Lowcountry: A 4,000-Year History of Native Communities near Charleston.”

Legacies & Lunch is a free monthly program of CALS Butler Center for Arkansas Studies about Arkansas related topics.  Program are held from noon to 1 pm on the first Wednesday of the month.  Attendees are invited to bring a sack lunch; drinks and dessert are provided.  A library parking discount is available upon request