13.    “As Long As Life Shall Last:” The Legacy of Arkansas Women Permanent Exhibit

Then…
The only room on the first floor of the West Wing whose original use we know is the inner gallery of As Long as Life Shall Last: the Legacy of Arkansas Women. Remnants of an exterior attached vault indicate that this was likely the Treasurer's Office. After 1885 it was the Records Room of the State Library.

Though plans indicate that both these rooms served as part of the Medical School's library, we also know that soup lunches were prepared here throughout the Great Depression. After the departure of the History Commission in 1979, these rooms served as the Old State House Museum's library and an exhibit gallery.

Now…
This exhibit offers a fascinating glimpse into the lives of both ordinary and famous Arkansas women. The exhibit focuses on letters, diaries, and journals written not just by articulate, well-educated women, but often by equally eloquent farm women struggling on the frontier. Private writings are featured alongside the work of Arkansas’s famous female journalists and politicians. The exhibit reveals the complex experiences of women of different ethnicity and classes over the past two centuries.

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