Related Resources

This page includes additional resources on Arkansas from the Library's website.

American Folklife Center State Resources

American Folklife Center Collections: Arkansas
The collections of the American Folklife Center contain rich and varied materials from Arkansas that document the diversity of the state's folk traditions. Arkansas's Local Legacies Projects, an exploration of local traditions and celebrations is available on the Center's Web page.

Bibliographies and Guides

Primary Documents in American History: Louisiana Purchase
The territory that became the state of Arkansas was part of this transaction between the United States and France.
Primary Documents in American HIstory: Plessy v. Ferguson
This U.S. Supreme Court decision ruled that separate-but-equal facilities were constitutional, upholding racial segregation laws. This negatively affected Black residents of Arkansas.
U.S. Presidential Inaugurations: A Resource Guide / Bill Clinton
This research guide features unique primary source materials from the Library of Congress for presidential inaugurations, 1789 to the present, including inaugural addresses, letters, diaries, photographs, prints, and sheet music.
U.S. State Poets Laureate: A Resource Guide
This site provides the names of all current state poets laureate of the United States. It also includes a history of the laureateship in each state, as well the District of Columbia, and attempts to provide a comprehensive listing of all prior state poets laureate. Included is information on the position of State Poet Laureate in Arkansas.

Exhibitions Featuring Arkansas

The African American Odyssey: A Quest for Full Citizenship

This online exhibit explores Black America's quest for equality from the early national period through the twentieth century.

View the African American Odyssey: A Quest for Full Citizenship Exhibition

Selected highlight:

Daisy Bates and the Little Rock Nine
Arkansas-born Daisy Bates worked as a crusading newspaper owner-journalist, becoming president of the Arkansas NAACP. After the 1954 Brown school-desegregation decision, Little Rock school board officials decided to begin desegregation of Central High School in September 1957.

Language of the Land: Journeys Into Literary America

Using the metaphor of a journey, Language of the Land: Journeys into Literary America examines literary heritage through maps, photographs, and the works of American authors from a variety of periods.

View the Language of the Land: Journeys Into Literary America

Selected highlights:

"With an Even Hand": Brown v. Board at Fifty

The exhibition examines precedent-setting court cases that had laid the ground work for the Brown v. Board decision, explores the Supreme Court argument and the public's response to it, and closes with an overview of the profound decision's aftermath.

View "With an Even Hand": Brown v. Board at Fifty

Selected highlight:

The Little Rock Nine

Historic Newspapers

Chronicling America
Search America's historic newspaper pages from 1777-1963 or use the U.S. Newspaper Directory to find American newspapers published between 1690-present. Chronicling America is sponsored jointly by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress. A list of Arkansas digitized newspapers is also available..

Law Library

The Guide to Law Online: U.S. Arkansas
The Guide to Law Online, prepared by the Law Library of Congress Public Services Division, is an annotated guide to sources of information on government and law available online. It includes selected links to useful and reliable sites for legal information on U.S states and territories, including Arkansas.

Resources for Teachers

The Library of Congress offers classroom materials and professional development to help teachers effectively use primary sources from the Library's vast digital collections in their teaching. Find Library of Congress lesson plans and more that meet Common Core standards, state content standards, and the standards of national organizations.

Primary Source Sets

Arkansas: Selected Library of Congress Primary Sources
The Library of Congress has rich documents and artifacts from every state, the U.S. territories, and the District of Columbia

Lesson Plans

Creating a Primary Source Archive: All History Is Local
Examine the interplay between national, state, local, and personal history. Students produce a digital collection of primary sources from their family or local community based on the Digital Collections.
Exploring Community Through Local History: Oral Stories, Landmarks and Traditions
Students explore the local history of the community in which they live through written and spoken stories; through landmarks such as buildings, parks, restaurants, or businesses; and through traditions such as food, festivals and other events of the community or of individual families.
Local History: Mapping My Spot
Students create their town’s history for coming generations and place themselves on the map in a literal as well as figurative sense, by producing portions of an updated version of an early twentieth century panoramic map from the Digital Collections.

Today in History

The following dates in history feature significant events in Arkansas's history as highlighted in the Library of Congress' collections.

May 18
This U.S. Supreme Court decision deeply affected Black residents of Arkansas as evidenced by the separate relief policies offered after the devastating floods in 1937.
June 15
On June 15, 1836, Arkansas became the twenty-fifth state. Native Americans first inhabited the state and created a thriving culture along the Mississippi River around 500 A.D. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, both the Spanish and the French explored the region. The United States acquired the land from France as part of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803.
October 20
The Louisiana Purchase included land that became the state of Arkansas.
December 21
On December 21, 1946, Louis Jordan’s single, the fast paced and humorous “Ain’t Nobody Here But Us Chickens,” debuted on the rhythm and blues (R&B) charts. Born in Brinkley, Arkansas, in 1908, Louis Jordan started playing saxophone at age seven. As a teenager, he toured with the famed Rabbit Foot Minstrels; his father was its bandleader. Jordan majored in music at Arkansas Baptist College.

Veterans History Project

The Veterans History Project (VHP) collects and preserves the remembrances of American war veterans and civilian workers who supported them. Click on the link below to locate veterans from Arkansas.

Veterans History Project: Arkansas

Arkansas: State Resource Guide

History, Humanities & Social Sciences: Ask a Librarian