Saturdays This Month
Saturday Programs
10 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.
Little Rock

Join us for special Arkansas history programs on Saturdays during the month of February. Admission is free. Call (501) 324-9685 for more information.

SCHEDULE:
10:00—The Knife Fight
Experience the comedic version of the famous 1837 duel.
(1836 House of Representatives Chamber)

11:00—Meet Ida Joe Brooks, First Female Doctor in Arkansas
(1836 House of Representatives Chamber)

12:00—The Knife Fight
(1836 House of Representatives Chamber)

1:00—Learn to play the popular Victorian game Skittles
(Whistle Stop Station)

2:00—The Knife Fight
(1836 House of Representatives Chamber)

3:00—Arkansas’s First Ladies Gallery Talk
(First Families of Arkansas Exhibit) 4:00—The Knife Fight (1836 House of Representatives Chamber)

Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Brown Bag Lunch Lecture - The Life of a Woodruff County Girl
Noon - 1 p.m.
Little Rock

Born on Big Dixie Plantation in 1926, Laverne Feaster will discuss her childhood spent on this eastern Arkansas cotton plantation during the Depression. She will also share her experiences of the private schools of the day. Attending private school allowed Feaster to advance beyond the 8th grade education available in the segregated public school system where her mother taught.

Laverne Feaster graduated from Arkadelphia Cotton Plant Presbyterian Academy in Cotton Plant, Arkansas, and received higher education from Swift Presbyterian Junior College in Rogersville, Tennessee, before earning a BS degree from Tennessee State University in Nashville, and a MED degree from the University of Arkansas - Fayetteville. She taught in eastern Arkansas high schools from 1950 to 1963. In 1963 Feaster began her twenty-nine year career with the University of Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service, serving as a District Agent and becoming the first African-American woman in the United States to hold the position of State Leader of 4-H. She was also appointed by Governors Clinton and Tucker to the Commission for Arkansas’ Future and the Keep Arkansas Beautiful Commission.

Admission to Brown Bag Lunch Lectures is free. Participants are encouraged to bring a sack lunch; beverages are provided.

Friday, February 10, 2012
2nd Friday Art Night
5:00 – 8:00 p.m.
Little Rock

The Old State House Museum is one of several downtown locations that hosts this evening of entertainment and exhibits. While here, shop the Museum Store and enjoy refreshments. Celebrate Valentine's Day early with decadent chocolate treats and a reading of love poems. Visitors may ride the trolley to visit other participating venues. Admission is free.

Begins Wednesday, February 15, 2012
2012 Little Beginnings Toddler Program
10:30 a.m.
Little Rock

The Little Beginnings Toddler Program is for children ages 2 through 4 with parent. Each month the class will highlight a different topic and promote learning through hands-on activities, music making, movement and storytelling. Admission is free. No day care or school groups please. Call (501) 324-9685 for more information.

2012 SCHEDULE: February 15: Valentines; March 21: Weather; April 18: Earth Day (Jane Jones-Schulz); May 16: Flowers; June 20: Box Turtles (Jane Jones-Schulz); July 20: Flags; August 17: Transportation; September 21: Trees; October 19: Halloween; November 16: Thanksgiving; December 21: Winter Holidays around the World

Thursday, February 16, 2012
Brown Bag Lunch Lecture & Booksigning: Growing Up in Arkansas
Noon - 1 p.m.
Little Rock

Dr. Bolsterli will discuss her new book and the related exhibit, Things You Need to Hear: Memories of Growing Up in Arkansas from 1890 to 1980. Bolsterli also wrote two books about Arkansas, Born in the Delta and During Wind and Rain, all published by the University of Arkansas Press. Admission is free. Participants are encouraged to bring lunches; beverages are provided. Books are available in the Old State House Museum Store.

Wednesday, February 22, 2012
A Walk through History - Brown Bag Lunch Lecture
Noon - 1 p.m.
Little Rock

This presentation will offer a deeper understanding and appreciation of the struggle of the Little Rock Nine to gain equal access to education by desegregating Central High School in 1957. Photographs and letters will provide a context to this historic event.

Presenter Kimble Talley is the Education Specialist at Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site. Talley started her career as a classroom teacher for the Pulaski County Special School District before joining the National Park Service in 2009. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in history, a Master's Degree in Secondary Education, and a Master’s Degree in Learning Systems Technology. She serves on the board of the Arkansas Council for the Social Studies and the Arkansas Curriculum Conference.

Admission to Brown Bag Lunch Lectures is free. Participants are encouraged to bring a sack lunch; beverages are provided.

Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Brown Bag Lunch Lecture - African-American Fraternal Headstones in Arkansas: Identification and History
Noon - 1 p.m.
Little Rock

Arkansas’s African-American cemeteries are dotted with monuments from fraternal organizations like the Supreme Royal Circle of Friends, Knights and Daughters of Tabor, and Mosaic Templars of America. The monuments reflect a strong interest and need for burial insurance among African Americans at the turn of the century. This presentation, by Dr. Blake Wintory, will discuss fraternal history and show examples from throughout Arkansas.

Wintory is the Assistant Director and Facilities Manager of Lakeport Plantation. He has published articles in the Arkansas Historical Quarterly, including an article on William Hines Furbush, an African-American legislator and sheriff in Lee County, Arkansas, and a biographical analysis of Arkansas’s 84 nineteenth-century African-American state legislators.

Admission to Brown Bag Lunch Lectures is free. Participants are encouraged to bring a sack lunch; beverages are provided.

Thursday, March 15, 2012
- Heritage Event
Archaeologies of the Civil War in Arkansas - Brown Bag Lunch Lecture
Noon - 1 p.m.
Little Rock

This talk will outline how the archeology of the Civil War can improve our understanding of this most pivotal event in American history. Dr. Jamie C. Brandon will talk about work at battlefields and military sites such as Wilson's Creek, Prairie Grove, Pea Ridge, Cross Hollows, Dooley's Ferry and Helena. He will also talk about what archeology on civilian sites occupied during the war (Van Winkle's Mill, the Old State House and Historic Washington State Park) can tell us about the conflict in Arkansas.

Brandon is the Research Station Archeologist with the Arkansas Archeological Survey stationed at Southern Arkansas University in Magnolia, Arkansas. In this position he is responsible for conducting excavations and public outreach for 11 counties in southwestern Arkansas. He is also the Vice-Chairman of the Arkansas Civil War Sesquicentennial Commission and has served on that body since its creation in 2006. Brandon received his PhD in Anthropology from the University of Texas at Austin, his MA from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville and his BA from Memphis State University. He has over twenty- five years of experience as a professional archeologist and has conducted archeological investigations in 13 different southeastern states. He has recently been involved in the archeology of historic-period sites and has become a specialist in the archeology of the nineteenth century American South.

Admission to Brown Bag Lunch Lectures is free. Participants are encouraged to bring a sack lunch; beverages are provided.

Thursday, March 29, 2012
Brown Bag Lunch Lecture - The Young Women's Christian Association in Arkansas
Noon - 1 p.m.
Little Rock

Dr. Cherisse Jones-Branch will discuss the origins and the activism of the Arkansas YWCA. She will focus on the YWCA's role as an organization who’s largely Protestant, middle-class membership was dedicated to "Christian social work" among educationally and economically disadvantaged women. Dr. Jones-Branch will also highlight the limitations of the YWCA's activism in Arkansas as it often failed to overcome deeply entrenched racial segregation, even within its own organization.

Dr. Jones-Branch is associate professor of history at Arkansas State University-Jonesboro where she teaches courses in U.S., women's, and African-American history. She is the author the essays “How Shall I Sing the Lord’s Song?”: United Church Women Confront Racial Issues in South Carolina, 1940s-1960s in Throwing of the Cloak of Privilege: White Southern Women Activists in the Civil Rights Era; “Mary Church Terrell: Revisiting the Politics of Race, Class, and Gender” in Tennessee Women: Their Lives and Times, Volume I; and “I Cannot Be Bought and Will Not Be Sold”: Modjeska Monteith Simkins, 1899-1992, in South Carolina Women: Their Lives and Times, Volume III. She also recently completed a manuscript entitled "Repairers of the Breach": Black and White Women and Racial Activism in South Carolina, 1940s-1960s to be published by the University Press of Florida and is the co-editor of Arkansas Women: Their Lives and Times (in progress).

Admission to Brown Bag Lunch Lectures is free. Participants are encouraged to bring a sack lunch; beverages are provided.

Thursday, April 19, 2012
Brown Bag Lecture - Grandiose Schemes, Harsh Realities: The Civil War in Arkansas in 1862
Noon - 1 p.m.
Little Rock

Professor Thomas A. DeBlack will provide an overview the Civil War in Arkansas during 1862. DeBlack is a professor of history at Arkansas Tech University in Russellville, Arkansas. He is a graduate of Nashville (Arkansas) High School and holds a B.A. from Southern Methodist University (Dallas, TX), an M.S.E. from Ouachita Baptist University, and a Ph.D. from the University of Arkansas. He is co-author of Arkansas: A Narrative History (University of Arkansas Press, 2002), and author of With Fire and Sword: Arkansas 1861-1874 (University of Arkansas Press, 2003). DeBlack is currently working on a book on Lakeport Plantation in Chicot County and on a history of Arkansas Tech University for the school’s centennial.

Saturday, April 28, 2012
Seersucker Social
6 - 9 p.m.
Little Rock

Join us for the premiere of the Seersucker Social, a grand lawn party to benefit the Old State House Museum. Celebrate in vintage style; don your dashing seersucker for a dandy evening!
Libations & Appetizers * Croquet * Live Jazz Music
Tickets: $25/person or $30/person at the Door

Watch for more information to follow.

Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Brown Bag Lunch Lecture - A Look Back at Arkansas Politics a Century Ago
Noon - 1 p.m.
Little Rock

Brian Irby will focus on the 1912 gubernatorial race that pitted political veteran Governor George W. Donaghey against upstart Congressman Joseph T. Robinson in the Democratic primary to explore the major issues and personalities that dominated Arkansas politics a hundred years ago. The talk will also highlight the nature of campaigning in a time before radio.

Irby is on staff as a library tech at the Arkansas History Commission. He received his BA and MA in history at the University of Central Arkansas.

Admission to Brown Bag Lunch Lectures is free. Participants are encouraged to bring a sack lunch; beverages are provided.