Category Archives: Government

The 47th Annual Christmas Frolic & Open House today at Historic Arkansas Museum

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hamfrolic2014This marks the 47th year that Historic Arkansas Museum has hosted an annual Christmas Open House.  For many families, attending this event on the first Sunday afternoon in December is a multi-generational family tradition.
This event celebrates Christmas as it was in the 1800s with living history, carols, reenactments, live music, dancing and more. Visitors come from across the state every year for our famous hot cider and ginger cake, as well as Arkansas Made holiday shopping in the Museum Store.
Among the activities will be blacksmithing demonstrations, the Arkansas Country Dance Band, Lark in the Morning, Sugar on the Floor, fiddler Ricky Russell and friends, Carolers in the Kitchen and the Aeolus Recorder Konsort.
Admission is free. The event runs from 1:00 pm to 4:00 pm.
Two of HAM’s sister museums will also be hosting holiday events today.  The Old State House Museum and Mosaic Templars Cultural Center both have Holiday Open Houses this afternoon.  All three museums are agencies of the Department of Arkansas Heritage.

Old State House Holiday Open House this afternoon

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IMG_9317[1]Today from 1:00 p.m. until 4:30 p.m., the Old State House Museum will host its annual Holiday Open House.

The traditions of joyous family holiday celebrations past can be relived at Holiday Open House. Visitors will find the Old State House colorfully decorated for the season.

Fun, hands-on activities will be available to children; they can create unique holiday cards and more. Delightful carols will be performed by local music groups.

Visitors will also enjoy delicious cookies and punch.

Call (501) 324-9685 for more information. Admission is free.

Two of of the Old State House Museum’s sister institutions, Historic Arkansas Museum and the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center, will also be celebrating the holidays with activities today.  All three museums are agencies of the Department of Arkansas Heritage.

Sandwich in History at Little Rock’s House House today at noon

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Joseph W. House HouseToday at noon the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program’s Sandwiching in History tour visits the Joseph W. House House at 2126 Arch Street.

The “Sandwiching In History” program is a series of tours that seeks to familiarize people who live and work in central Arkansas with the historic structures and sites around us. The tours take place on Fridays at noon, last less than an hour, and participants are encouraged to bring their lunches so that they can eat while listening to a brief lecture about the property and its history before proceeding on a short tour. A representative from the property is encouraged to attend also and address the group.

The Arkansas Historic Preservation Program is an agency of the Department of Arkansas Heritage. All tours are free and open to the public.

Joseph W. House House, 2126 S. Arch Street, Little Rock. Located in the Governor’s Mansion Historic District, this home was built about 1892 for prominent attorney and statesman Joseph Warren House, Sr. He served in the Confederate Army during the Civil War and later practiced law at Searcy. In 1871 House was elected to represent White County in the General Assembly and helped draft Arkansas’s fifth and current constitution during the convention of 1874. In 1892 he moved to the home at 2126 S. Arch Street, where he lived until his death in 1926.

 

Little Rock Look Back: Twelve Aldermen Jailed

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The Pulaski County Courthouse where the 12 Little Rock aldermen were arraigned.

The Pulaski County Courthouse where the 12 Little Rock aldermen were arraigned.

On Monday, December 4, 1939, a dozen of Little Rock’s aldermen reported to the county jail to serve sentences for contempt of court.  The previous Monday, the twelve council members had voted against an ordinance which had been ordered by the judge in an improvement district matter.  The other aldermen had either voted in the affirmative or had been absent.  Because the twelve had refused to change their votes since that meeting, the judge ordered them jailed.

At the hearing, the judge brought each alderman up one by one. This seemed to be in order to further embarrass the aldermen.  The judge also interviewed Mayor J. V. Satterfield and City Clerk H. C. “Sport” Graham to put on the record that they had counseled the aldermen to obey the judge’s order.

Mrs. C. C. Conner, the only female alderman, was not jailed but was fined $50. The eleven men were held at the jail, though not in cells.  Newspaper photos showed the men playing cards in a conference room.  In order to get out of jail, the judge gave the aldermen the chance to change their votes.

Mayor J. V. Satterfield plead with the judge to let the aldermen leave the jail to attend the meeting at City Hall, which was nearby.  He requested that the city be allowed to maintain “what little dignity remained” by not having the meeting at the jail.  The judge relented, and the aldermen were escorted by deputies to the council chambers.

After the aldermen changed their votes, the judge suspended the remainder of their sentences.  The sentences were not vacated, they were only suspended.  The judge admonished them that should they attempt to reverse their reversal, he would throw them back in jail.

Red, Blue and Brownbag – Election Analysis by Jay Barth at the Old State House today at noon

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Barth, Jay- 2012(2)As the season of Red States and Blue States gives way to Red & Green Christmas decorations, the Old State House Museum offers a final chance for post-election analysis today as part of the Brown Bag lecture series.  The program will take place at noon today.

Dr. Jay Barth will present a wrap-up of the recent elections in Arkansas, and provide an analysis of how they may affect local, state, and national politics moving forward. Dr. Barth is the M.E. and Ima Graves Peace Distinguished Professor of Politics at Hendrix College, and has long followed the trends of the Arkansas electorate.  His political analysis has been featured locally, regionally and nationally.

He is the 2014 recipient of the Diane Blair Award for Outstanding Achievement in Politics and Government from the Southern Political Science Association.  In 2008, he received a Butler Center Fellowship, The Butler Center for Arkansas Studies.  He is the author, with Diane Blair of the 2nd edition of Arkansas Politics and Government: Do the People Rule?

Grants for Rep, ASO announced by National Endowment for the Arts

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nea-logo-960Two Little Rock cultural institutions were among the nine Arkansas recipients of National Endowment for Arts grants recently announced.

These were Art Works and Challenge America grants. Art Works grants supports the creation of art that meets the highest standards of excellence, public engagement with diverse and excellent art, lifelong learning in the arts and the strengthening of communities through the arts. Challenge America grants offer support primarily to small and mid-sized organizations for projects that extend the reach of the arts to underserved populations whose opportunities to experience the arts are limited by geography, ethnicity, economics or disability.

The Arkansas Repertory Theatre received $10,000 to support the production of Matthew Lopez’s The Whipping Man. This play is set during Passover 1865.  As the annual celebration of freedom from bondage is being observed in Jewish homes, a wounded Confederate officer returns from the Civil War to find his family missing and only two former slaves remaining.

The Rep  will partner with the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center and the Jewish Federation of Arkansas to explore the play’s themes and the role of both the African-American and Jewish communities in Arkansas history.

The Arkansas Symphony Orchestra received $10,000 Little to support performances, workshops, and related outreach activities featuring violinist Randall Goosby. Goosby, the first-place winner of the 2010 Sphinx Competition, will be in residence in Central Arkansas conducting free workshops and music demonstrations for community members and student musicians drawn from economically disadvantaged schools.

In addition, TheatreSquared in Fayetteville received $10,000 for its Arkansas New Play Festival. This is presented in Fayetteville and Little Rock. The Little Rock performances are in conjunction with the Arkansas Rep.

Other Arkansas recipients were the Walton Arts Center, Fort Smith Symphony, Sonny Boy Blues Society (for the King Biscuit Blues Festival), Low Key Arts of Hot Springs, Ozarks Foothills Film Festival and John Brown University.

History of Arkansas State Fair focus of December Legacies & Lunch at noon

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ark state fairThis month’s Legacies & Lunch program focuses on the Arkansas State Fair.

Numerous state fairs and livestock shows have been held in Arkansas since the 1860s.  The Arkansas Livestock Show Association has existed for 75 years. While early fairs promoted agriculture and tourism, these events struggled financially.  Following the social upheaval caused by the Great Depression, a group of businessmen, farmers and educators led by oilman T. H. Barton envisioned a new Arkansas economy not dependent on cotton farming.

Deb Crow, museum and archive director for the Arkansas State Fair, and Dr. Jim Ross, professor of history at UALR ,will share details about the fair’s rich history, including rare photographs.

Legacies & Lunch is a monthly program of the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies, a division of the Central Arkansas Library System.  The program, sponsored in part by the Arkansas Humanities Council, takes place at 12 noon.  This month’s program will be at the Darragh Center of the main library.