Tag Archives: Historic Arkansas Museum

Racial Etiquette and Civil Rights Struggle focus of UALR talk tonight

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NashvilleWayDr. Benjamin Houston of Newcastle University and author of the new book, “The Nashville Way: Racial Etiquette and the Struggle for Social Justice in a Southern City,” will give a lecture on racial change at 6 p.m. Thursday, September 5, at the Historic Arkansas Museum.

Houston’s talk, “A Manner of Segregation,” is an opportunity for dialogue about how people in the South reacted to the dismantling of segregation as a way of life in the 1950s and 60s.

The event is free and open to the public and is sponsored by the museum and the UALR Department of History.

Houston is a lecturer in modern U.S. history. His research interests include civil rights, the African American freedom struggle, history of the U.S. South, 20th century U.S. history, and oral history.

For more information, contact Dr. Barclay Key, professor in the UALR Department of History at 501.569.8782.

Labor Day Museum Monday: Historic Arkansas Museum

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hamlogoSeveral Little Rock museums are offering a break from the heat on this Labor Day.

Historic Arkansas Museum is kicking off its new touring experiences today from 10am to 4pm.

Someone’s always home.

There’s a brand new way of doing things at Historic Arkansas Museum. Come see what it’s all about on Labor Day, September 2, 10 am – 4 pm.
Self-guided tours at your own pace include more hands-on activities, more pioneer demonstrations and more fun.
Bring a picnic to enjoy on the grounds. HAM will be making lemonade in the kitchen of the historic Brownlee House and we’d love to share!
There’s a brand new way of doing things at Historic Arkansas Museum. Visit the Museum from Wednesdays through Sundays and create your own experience when you visit the historic houses and grounds. Everything is at your pace as you guide yourself through the past. And there’s more going on! More costumes, more cooking, more pioneer demos, more hands-on activities.

Over the past few years, HAM has added a few new things—big things—like a working kitchen, a blacksmith shop and a two-story print shop. They are putting those big things to great use. Some days there are costumed staff working in the kitchen, perhaps pickling or maybe cooking with a Dutch oven. Other days there may have the blacksmith forging nails and chain links in the shop. Or maybe there is someone in the print shop helping visitors seal letters with wax. Or all of those things on one day, along with a rotating cast of 19th century characters who will greet you like it’s 1849 (or ’27, or ’19). Each day will offer different hands-on and interactive experiences, with no two days being exactly the same.

The staff-guided tours are still offered on Mondays and Tuesdays, but even they have changed—they are now offered every half-hour, instead of on the hour (except during the noon lunch hour). We also offer cellphone audio tours, and 360 degree visual tours on your computer or smartphone, every day.

 Historic Arkansas Museum is an agency of the Department of Arkansas Heritage.

Frontier Fourth at Historic Arkansas Museum

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FrontierFourthBy George! This year’s Historic Arkansas Museum Frontier Fourth of July is all about George Washington, in honor of his signed family bible featured in the exhibit, Treasures of Arkansas Freemasons.

Amid all the frontier fun and pioneer games, there will be a traveling sideshow barker displaying his amazing, “authentic” relics from the great George Washington, including his powdered wig, wooden teeth and the “actual” axe he used to cut down his father’s cherry tree.

Others will regale visitors with stories of Washington, his Inauguration in New York and his involvement with Freemasons. As always, there will be crafts, music, games, a parade and refreshing watermelon and lemonade. During a reading of the Declaration of Independence, watch out for Red Coats who have nothing good to say about it.
Thursday, July 4 from 2pm to 4pm.  There is no charge.

June 2nd Friday Art Night is busting with Fun

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2nd Friday Art NightJune is Busting Out All Over with great art and music downtown on 2nd Friday Art Night.  Visual art, music, refreshments, a trolley for transportation can all be yours for the low price of FREE.  The festivities run from 5pm to 8pm, unless otherwise noted.

Among the highlights:

  • Old State House Museum (300 West Markham) will feature Geoff Robson and David Gerstein performing duets for violin and cello.
  • Historic Arkansas Museum (200 East Third) will celebrate the opening of its new Arkansas Made Gallery; in addition there will be live music by Parkstone.
  • Edge Gallery (301B President Clinton Ave) will be featuring contemporary art.
  • Butler Center Galleries (401 President Clinton Ave) is showing Creative Expressions; Arkansas Arts Educators; From the Vault: Works from the CALS Permanent Collection; and Old School: Remembering the Brinkley Academy
  • Courtyard Marriott Downtown (521 President Clinton Ave) is teaming up with Spirited Art Little Rock and hosting a painting class in its cafe beginning at 6:30pm.
  • Hearne Fine Art (1001 Wright Ave, Suite C) will host an opening reception for Reflections In Silver: Silverpoint Drawings by Aj Smith & Marjorie Williams-Smith.
  • studioMain (1423 South Main Street) they are featuring a UALR Student Furniture Showcase.  This has become an annual exhibit of furniture pieces created by students of the UALR Applied Design program.

40th Annual Territorial Fair at Historic Arkansas Museum

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Today from 10am to 4pm, Historic Arkansas Museum is hosting the 40th Annual Territorial Fair.

A festive family event, the Territorial Fair delights all with pioneer music, Maypole dancing, lots of crafts for kids, stilt-walking, hoop-rolling, sack-racing and other frontier fun.

In its 40th year, this year’s Territorial Fair celebrates the 2013 Heritage Month theme, “Saving Our Heritage: Arkansas’s Historic Structures,” with activities highlighting the museum’s historic properties, including the oldest house in Little Rock.

Visitors will be taken back in time, when the now historic houses were brand new or being built. Guests can take part in many hands-on activities, like making bricks and whitewashing a fence, or watch as pioneers shave wooden shingles and forge nails for their houses. It took a lot to build, furnish and care for these early homes and the hard work still shines more than 150 years later.

Art Abounds Downtown during 2nd Friday Art Night

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2FAN logo Font sm2Among the various sites featured tonight from 5pm to 8pm as part of 2nd Friday Art Night are:

The Central Arkansas Library System Butler Center Galleries (401 President Clinton Avenue) is opening three new exhibits:

Creative Expressions (which will run through August 25)

This exhibition features artwork from the Creative Expressions Program at the Arkansas State Hospital.  Creative Expressions is a non-profit organization that uses the visual arts to promote and support the self-awareness and growth of individuals with mental illness.

Arkansas Art Educators State Youth Art Show (which will run through July 27)

Arkansas League of Artists Spring Members Show (which will run through June 28 at the Cox Creative Center).

 

studioMAIN (1423 South Main Street) will open a new exhibit – “From Bauhaus to our Haus”

studioMAIN invites you to join us this Friday for our exhibit celebrating the Bauhaus movement. Come learn about that history of the movement and its influence on today’s architecture, design, and education. Several local examples of building inspired by the Bauhaus and International style will also be highlighted.

This will be a great opportunity to learn (or be reminded) about this amazing transition in the history design before the opening of the Arkansas Arts Center’s upcoming exhibit, Bauhaus twenty-21: An Ongoing Legacy (May 24 – September 1).

As part of the member’s opening for the AAC, studioMAIN will be hosting a lecture and panel discussion, stay tuned for further information in the next couple weeks.

 

Historic Arkansas Museum (200 East Third Street)

In addition to the opening of two new exhibits, HAM will have live music by the Rolling Blackouts and an opening reception for two new exhibits. Opening in the Trinity Gallery is Reflected by Three: William Detmers, Scott Lykens and G. Tara Casciano. Opening in the 2nd Floor Gallery will be Painting in the Open Air: Day and Night, with plein air paintings by Jason Sacran.

 

Old State House (300 West Markham)

Up-cycled Jewelry. Create an artful bracelet from unexpected found supplies: safety pins, buttons, charms and fabric. These bracelets make great Mother’s Day gifts.

May 7 Architeaser

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hamMay is Arkansas Heritage Month.  As a way to celebrate it, the next few Architeasers will focus on facilities connected to the Department of Arkansas Heritage.

Today’s Architeaser features architecture from the past and present.  These structures sit side by side on the city block which is home to part of Historic Arkansas Museum.  The center of the photo is anchored by the 2001 expansion to the museum which was designed by the firm of Polk Stanley Yeary (now Polk Stanley Wilcox). Framing the building on either side of the photo are some of Little Rock’s oldest structures.

Historic Arkansas Museum opened in July 1941 as the Arkansas Territorial Restoration.  It includes Little Rock’s oldest structure, the Hinderliter Grog Shop, built in 1827.  In 2001, the name was changed to Historic Arkansas Museum in conjunction with the opening of a 51,000 square foot museum center which capped off a three phase capital building program.