Holiday Hours

The Arkansas Studies Institute will close at 6:00pm on Wednesday, November 25 and will remain closed Thursday, November 26 and Friday, November 27 for the Thanksgiving holiday.

We will reopen on Saturday, November 28 with our regular hours.

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National Day of Listening: Butler Center, KUAR-FM, and StoryCorps

The Butler Center is partnering with KUAR-FM and StoryCorps, a national oral history project, to promote the National Day of Listening on Friday, November 27, 2009. The Butler Center will make the new Butler Center interview studio in the Arkansas Studies Institute available one day a week for four weeks for the public to come in and record oral history interviews. The interview studio will be available for 40-minute recording sessions, and CDs of interviews will be available immediately following the sessions.

The interview studio will be available to the public on the following dates and times:

Saturday, November 28 — 10 a.m. through 4 p.m.
Friday, December 4 — 9 a.m. through 5 p.m.
Friday, December 11 — 9 a.m. through 5 p.m.
Friday, December 18 — 9 a.m. through 5 p.m.


Contact Sara Thompson at sthompson@cals.org or 501-320-5718 to book an interview session or for more information.

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Korean War Project Recognized by OCLC

FORGOTTEN: The Arkansas Korean War Project has been selected as one of OCLC's featured digital collections for November.
See the full announcement here.

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Women's Educational Aid Society (Little Rock, Ark)

The Women’s Educational Aid Society was organized in Little Rock in 1887. According to the organization’s constitution, the “object of this Society is to assist worthy young unmarried women to obtain an education.”


Membership was limited to fifty, with a waiting list of three women and annual dues of $2 each. Women whose father, husband, or brother was "connected with the liquor traffic” were not eligible for membership.


From October to June, the Society met every other Wednesday for business and a program. Below are some examples of the types of programs at club meetings taken from the 1924-1925 Society yearbook. Click on the images to view a larger version.




This item can be found in MSS 00-22, Women's Educational Aid Society Materials. Box 1, File 4.

Contributed by Stephanie Bayless, Manuscripts Department

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FOCAL Book Sale

It is that time again!

A record number of gently read books await shoppers for the final FOCAL book sale of 2009. The sale, which will begin Friday, November 6 and continue through Sunday, November 8, offers shoppers $.50 paperback books and $1 hardback books in the Main Library basement.

Volunteer coordinator Linda Halbrook also noted that more than 300 boxes of prepackaged books are available for $1 each. "These dollar boxes are sorted by genre and each contains 25 books," she said. FOCAL members can shop the Main Library basement from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Friday and Saturday; the sale opens to the public at 10 a.m. Sale hours on Sunday are 1 to 4 p.m. for everyone.

FOCAL members will get special deals on great books as well as a sneak peek at the expansion of River Market Books & Gifts during a book sale preview party Thursday, Nov. 5 from 5-7 p.m. Books will be housed on the second floor of the Cox Creative Center as well as the first floor and the basement level, transforming River Market Books & Gifts into Little Rock's only three-story bookstore. Public sale hours at River Market Books & Gifts will be 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday.

FOCAL memberships will be available at the door at River Market Book & Gifts as well as the Main Library. Memberships will be valid through 2010. The Main Library is located at 100 Rock Street, and River Market Books & Gifts is located at 120 Commerce Street. If you would like more information about the sale, please call 918-3000.

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Event Reminder: Legacies and Lunch, November 4

Jan Ziegler and Ronnie Walker of Project REACH
Wednesday, November 4, 2009, noon - 1 p.m.
Darragh Center - Main Library
The Butler Center's Legacies & Lunch program will present Project REACH (Restoring Early Arkansas Culture and History), a project of Black River Technical College on November 4, from noon to 1pm at the Main Library in the Darragh Center (100 S. Rock St.).

Project REACH is working to restore two of Randolph County's historic structures, the 1828 Rice-Upshaw home — believed to be the oldest log structure of its type in Arkansas — and the 1833 Looney Tavern. Both have been nominated to be on the National Register of Historic Places.

Jan Ziegler and Ronnie Walker of Project REACH will discuss their important work in historic preservation.

Bring a sack lunch; drinks and dessert provided. This event is free and open to the public. For more information, call 501-320-5717.

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Featured Manuscript Collection: November/December

Union National Bank Records
MSS 02-07
Finding Aid
Union National was one of the city's largest locally-owned banks throughout most of the twentieth century.

In 1885, William J. Turner, a former chief clerk and deputy in the Arkansas State Treasurer's office, established his own private banking business, W. J. Turner and Company. The company's first location was 223 West Markham Street in Little Rock. After Turner's death in 1893, two brothers, Sydney J. Johnson and Allen M. Johnson, bought the business and changed the company name to S. J. Johnson Company.

S. J. Johnson purchased Guaranty Trust Company in 1899. In January of 1902, the two merged companies were incorporated as Union Trust Company with Allen M. Johnson as president. In 1919, another Little Rock bank, Mercantile Trust Company, was merged into Union Trust Company, forming Union and Mercantile Trust Company. In 1923, the word "Mercantile" was dropped from the company's name.


The Directors of the Union Trust Company, 1915.
Employee record for Celsus P. Perrie, undated.
Both items located in Box 1, File 6.
After facing numerous challenges and possible failure during the Depression, the bank reemerged as Union Bank in 1933. The following year, the company received a national bank charter and became Union National Bank. Union National Bank was merged into the Worthen Banking Corporation in 1993.

Union Trust Company Bulletin for Special Arkansas Bankers' Convention, July 7, 1927.
Employees of Union Trust Company. An excerpt from Union Trust Company Bulletin for Special Arkansas Bankers' Convention, July 7, 1927.
Located in Box 1, File 26
The Union National Bank Records contains the financial records and publicity scrapbooks of the Little Rock, Arkansas-based Union National Bank. The collection is arranged topically and chronologically in sixteen boxes.

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