Tag Archives: Arkansas Humanities Council

Legacies & Lunch: Annie Abrams

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The Butler Center for Arkansas Studies will host Annie Abrams as the speaker for Legacies & Lunch on Wednesday, December 5, at noon in the Main Library’s Darragh Center, 100 Rock Street.  Abrams has been involved in Arkansas politics for over 60 years and will discuss experiences gained with her many civic and political duties.

Abrams has served as a consultant to many Arkansas governors, including Winthrop Rockefeller, Dale Bumpers, Bill Clinton, Jim Guy Tucker, and Mike Beebe. She currently serves on the board of directors for Our House and as commissioner for the Fair Housing Commission.

The Butler Center’s Legacies & Lunch program is free and open to the public, and supported in part by the Arkansas Humanities Council. Attendees are invited to bring a sack lunch; drinks and dessert will be provided.

The Butler Center for Arkansas Studies is a department of the Central Arkansas Library System. It was founded in 1997 to promote the study and appreciation of Arkansas history and culture. The Butler Center’s research collections, art galleries, and offices are located in the Arkansas Studies Institute building at 401 President Clinton Ave. on the campus of the CALS Main Library.

Museum of Discovery to Feature Annual Native American Event

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As part of its educational programming, the Museum of Discovery welcomes back the Dancing Eagles for its popular annual Native American event. Tribal Trails will be held November 15-17, 2012.

Mike and Lisa Pahsetopah, with daughter Heaven, will return to present their interactive, cultural programs for both school and general audiences. Mike is an award-winning Fancy Dancer who performs the Eagle Dance and Hoop Dance. Lisa and Heaven will present the Southern Cloth, Jingles and Fancy Shawl styles of dancing. Mike will serve as the program’s cultural historian, explaining the traditional, handmade costumes and customs. Also, he will play native music on a wooden flute.
Each performance will feature the Dancing Eagles in a first-person narrative of Native American culture. Students and other audience members will be exposed to a different culture, learning the customs and history of Native Americans, particularly the Osage, one of the four major tribes in Arkansas prior to their relocation to Oklahoma.
Public Show Times:
Thursday, November 15: 2:00 pm
Friday, November 16: 2:00 pm
Saturday, November 17: 11:30 am; 1:00 pm; 3:00 pm
Tribal Trails is made possible in part by a grant from the Arkansas Humanities Council.

Legacies and Lunch: Deering Discusses Fisher and Political Cartoons

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John Deering, Chief Editorial Cartoonist for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, will discuss the history and importance of cartoons created by George Fisher.  The talk takes place today as part of the monthly “Legacies & Lunch” program.

Fisher was a political cartoonist for more than 50 years whose work influenced and helped define Arkansas politics and politicians for a generation.

Among his legacies were Orval Faubus and the Farkleberry Tree (pictured at right), Bill Clinton graduating from buggy to tricycle to bike to pickup, David Pryor and his coon dog, Frank White and his banana and the Old Guard Rest Home.

Legacies & Lunch is sponsored in part by the Arkansas Humanities Council. Bring a sack lunch; drinks and dessert are provided.

It will take place in the Darragh Center inside the main library building.  The program starts at 12noon and ends at 1pm.  The program is free.

Legacies and Lunch: Roy Reed

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The first Wednesday of each month, the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies presents “Legacies and Lunch.”  This month features legendary newsman Roy Reed.

A native Arkansan who became a reporter for the New York Times, Reed begins his memoir with tales of his formative years growing up in Arkansas and the start of his writing career at the legendary Arkansas Gazette. The book Beware of Limbo Dancers will be for sale at the event, and the author will sign copies after the lecture.

The program will take place from 12noon to 1pm at the Darragh Center on the main campus of the Central Arkansas Library System.

The monthly Legacies & Lunch program is sponsored in part by the Arkansas Humanities Council. Bring a sack lunch; drinks and dessert are provided.

Museum of Discovery Hosts a Homecoming

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Museum of Discovery - Little Rock, ARThe Museum of Discovery will host a homecoming reception Saturday, September 15 at 2:00 pm in honor of a restored Japanese friendship doll, Miss Kyoto-shi, originally gifted to the Museum 85 years ago. Only a few such dolls remain in their original locations today.

Guests will have the opportunity to view Miss Kyoto-shi in the Museum’s Great Hall. A Hot Springs Village Japanese-American folk dancing troupe will perform in authentic dress. Little Rock Mayor Mark Stodola will welcome everyone. Alan Scott Pate, the foremost authority on antique Japanese dolls in the country, will speak about the history and significance of Japanese Friendship Dolls.

As a way to ease cultural tensions in the 1920s, Japanese Viscount Eiichi Shi-busawa initiated a program to send 58 Japanese Friendship Dolls to American museums and libraries. The best doll makers in Japan were commissioned to produce the dolls. Each doll was 32-33 inches tall and they were dressed in beautiful silk kimonos. Each doll also came with unique accessories. These Japanese friendship dolls represented specific Japanese prefectures, cities or regions. The dolls were sent to libraries and museums throughout the United States.

Miss Kyoto-shi Homecoming ReceptionMiss Kyoto-shi arrived at the Arkansas Museum of Natural History and Antiquities (now the Museum of Discovery) shortly after the museum was founded in 1927. Over the years, a few dolls were lost, but Miss Kyoto-shi remained in Little Rock although she left the museum briefly for an unexplained visit to a private home for several years. In 2011 she was returned to Japan to be restored. The grandson of the original artist lineage that created her agreed to restore her completely free of charge.

The Miss Kyoto-shi homecoming event is funded by the Arkansas Humanities Council, Louisiana-based Acadiana Babes Doll Club, and other private donations.

The Donald W. Reynolds Science Center at the Museum of Discovery’s mission is to ignite a passion for science, technology and math in a dynamic, interactive environment. The Donald W. Reynolds Foundation awarded the Museum a $9.2 million grant solely dedicated to the renovation. The money paid for the renovation of 44,000 square feet of existing space, a 6,000 square-foot addition and new exhibits throughout the facility.

Legacies and Lunch tomorrow

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The Butler Center’s monthly “Legacies and Lunch” series continues tomorrow.

Wednesday, August 1, 2012, noon to 1 p.m.
Darragh Center, Main Library
100 Rock St.
The Civil War in Arkansas

In conjunction with the Butler Center exhibition Invasion or Liberation? The Civil War in Arkansas, Dr. Carl Moneyhon will discuss opposition to the Civil War in Arkansas. Moneyhon, a faculty member in the University of Arkansas at Little Rock history department, is a specialist in the history of the American Civil War and the South and is widely published in the field.

Invasion or Liberation? will be on view on Concordia Hall (401 President Clinton Ave.) through October 27, 2012. Legacies & Lunch is sponsored in part by the Arkansas Humanities Council. Bring a sack lunch; drinks and dessert are provided.

Dr. Moneyhon joined the faculty in 1973 and holds a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. He is faculty liaison with the University History Institute, an organization that develops closer ties between the department and the community. He also serves on the editorial boards of the Arkansas Historical Quarterly and the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture. He was won the UALR Faculty Excellent Award for Research and the UALR Faculty Excellence Award for Teaching.

Dr. Moneyhon is a specialist in the history of the American Civil War and the South and is widely published in the field. His work has been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, and he recently received one of the first College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences Summer Fellowships for Research. He is a Fellow of the Texas Historical Association. He is working on a book on the connection of war-time experience and developed identity among Confederate soldiers.

Butler Center’s Legacies & Lunch: The Thousand-Year Flood

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The Central Arkansas Library System’s Butler Center for Arkansas Studies sponsors the “Legacies & Lunch” conversation each month.  November’s program features David Welky discussing his new book, The Thousand-Year Flood: The Ohio-Mississippi Disaster of 1937.

In this book, Dr. Welky, an associate professor of history at the University of Central Arkansas, discusses the 1937 deluge which was one of the biggest natural disasters in American history.

Welky

David Welky, associate professor of history at the University of Central Arkansas, specializes in 1930s America and has written several other books, including Everything Was Better in America: Print Culture in the Great Depression and The Moguls and the Dictators: Hollywood and the Coming of World War II.

Legacies & Lunch is sponsored in part by the Arkansas Humanities Council. Bring a sack lunch; drinks and dessert are provided. This event is free and open to the public