Category: CALS Roberts Library Blog

Recently, I went to the memorial service for Grif Stockley, a well-known Arkansas lawyer, writer, and historian who died in January in Virginia, where he had been living to be close to his daughter. As we all told stories about the experiences we had had with Grif, it occurred to me that no biography,

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) in Arkansas is best known for its work on state highways and parks during the Depression era. Lesser known is its municipal work.

The CCC was created as the result of U.S. Senate Bill 8.598, which was signed into law on March 31, 1933. Those enrolled in the corps had to be between eighteen and twenty-five years old (later adjusted to seventeen through twenty-eight),

Moments in history sometimes stand out because of the audaciousness of the action. Looking beyond the moment to examine the root reveals fascinating facts, placing that moment in a new context.

One such moment is the Central High Desegregation Crisis that was spotlighted around the world in 1957–58. The pioneering Black teens were highlighted in news programming as they attempted to attend the supposedly desegregated Little Rock Central High.

Women’s Equality Day is observed in the United States each year on August 26 to recognize the day in 1920 that the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was officially certified and became law, guaranteeing women the right the vote. In 1971, Representative Bella Abzug of New York championed a bill in the U.S. Congress to designate August 26 as “Women’s Equality Day.”

The resolution reads as follows:

Joint Resolution of Congress,

Elizabeth Findley Shores, an independent historian living in Little Rock, received this year’s Booker Worthen Literary Prize, presented by the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies on behalf of the Central Arkansas Library System, for her book Shared Secrets: The Queer World of Newbery Medalist Charles J. Finger. Published by the University of Arkansas Press,

Ron Robinson was a Little Rock businessman, a friend of the Central Arkansas Library System, and a collector of many things related to the state of Arkansas. A previous post described his assortment of postal curiosities related to Arkansas, but Robinson also preserved hundreds of postcards depicting the state over the years.

In his 1998 book The User Illusion: Cutting Consciousness down to Size, Danish science writer Tor Nørretranders introduces the concept of a “tree of talking.” The idea is that if I want to communicate something to you, I have to take my disparate ideas and images and distill those into a narrower term or phrase,

The Arkansas Broadsides Collection (BC.MSS.99.35), covering years 1877 to 1940, contains a variety of broadsides that were used to announce and advertise such events as land sales, estate sales, musical performances, public auctions, and the openings of the tax books in various counties across the state. Since notices of this nature are ephemeral and usually have been discarded over time,

As I’m writing, we’re fully immersed in summer; there was no slow dipping our toes in the water first—we got the full effect all at once. We’ve learned to expect the heat, but I can’t say I ever look forward to it!

This summer will be like none that the Roberts Library building and staff have seen before,

Now that everyone else has written think pieces about AI, it’s time that the CALS Encyclopedia of Arkansas weighed in. But first, let’s talk about soap.

I like to buy handmade soap when there are vendors selling it at the local farmers’ market. I won’t argue that some homemade artisanal goat milk soap is necessarily better than the mass-produced stuff I also keep on hand.