Old State House Museum Collections Blog

By Katherine Benenati
LITTLE ROCK — Arkansas’ history is in a metal building off La Harpe Boulevard, across from a law firm and just outside the bustle of downtown Little Rock.
Confederate flags thin with age are carefully tucked in acid-free frames laid flat in drawers.
Souvenirs of governors’ past are cushioned in little green boxes with tags: “Gov. David Pryor items 1975-1979.”
Looking across gray metal row after gray metal row in the 8,066-square-foot building that houses the Old State House Museum’s archives, curator Joellen Maack paused.
“There are times you feel like it’s a mini version of the scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark,” she said, referring to a vast warehouse of artifacts in the Indiana Jones movie.
The carefully catalogued rows are home to some of Little Rock socialite Willie Oates’ hats and a Johnny Cash guitar.
“We just have the most wonderful things,” Maack said, standing in one row lined with portraits, watercolors, sketches and an autographed photograph of Gov. Jim Guy Tucker’s 1996 staff.
“We have beautiful paintings, beautiful flags, wonderful gowns and then we have items like this,” she said pointing to an old spin washer that predates washing machines and resembles a modern toilet plunger.
The Old State House, completed in 1842, was Arkansas’ first Capitol building. At any given time 10 percent or less of the 60-year-old museum’s collection is on display at 300 W. Markham St.
Many items are so delicate they are rarely displayed. Some date to 1819 - 17 years before Arkansas became a state.
“There’s just no way you can put your whole collection on exhibit,” Maack says.
In a sense, the museum has been trying to do just that since August when it began offering its online eMuseum, a part of the Gallery Systems software it has used since 2004.
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The ambitious venture is the latest example of how museums across the state are using Web sites to show off their collections. Online exhibits offer viewers an array of information and a glimpse, if not a taste, of the museum experience, museum employees around the state said.
Online galleries can be used as a teaching or research tool or show those who didn’t get to the museum a chance to see what they missed.
“Online galleries and activities are no substitute for being here, learning firsthand, interacting with a living-history actor, helping churn butter or card wool,” said Ellen Korenblat, communications director of the Historic Arkansas Museum. “Although we have 360-degree images of our historic homes’ interiors, our visitors also know that it is no substitute for actually stepping into the oldest home in Little Rock.”
Maack sees the Old State House’s eMuseum as a way to share the state’s history.
“This is the state,” she said. “This belongs to the state of Arkansas.”
“For years we’ve been trying to figure out how to show it,” Maack said of the museum’s collection as she opened a drawer with a framed flag from the 3rd Arkansas Infantry Regiment in the Civil War. The top of the dark flag is emblazoned with Woodsonville and Shiloh, and beneath, Farmington, Perryville, Murfreesboro, Chickamauga and Ringgold Gap. It was last displayed in 2001.
Textiles need rest. Hanging them too long - to limit the pull of gravity they’re actually displayed in slant boards, not hung - or exposing them to harsh light will hasten the inevitable decay. (A hole in the bottom of the flag is not from a Union bullet or a scrambled charge through a thicket, but more likely the vegetable dye used to color the flag eating away at the fabric, Maack said.)
The archives are temperature and humidity controlled and the overhead lights are covered in a yellow film to shield the collection.
Three employees measure, describe and photograph the items for the eMuseum, a process that can take a few minutes or hours.
Among the items the staff was working to catalog on a recent weekday were a United Confederate Veterans pin from 1902 and copies of Lefty Frizzell’s country songs and other sheet music. A nearby “to be scanned” bin held a wooden Razorback and a brown jug with the wording: “Freeman Bros. Hot Springs, Ark.”
By mid-October, the eMuseum included 10,713 items. The eMuseum updates each weekend and the goal is to list all 33,000 items in the collection.
“It’s an ongoing, never-ending process,” Maack said. “It’s never going to top out completely.”
Among unscanned items are thousands of drawings by architect Charles Thompson, who worked from 1885 to 1938 at what is today the Cromwell architects firm in Little Rock.
To navigate the site, viewers should start at the museum’s main page, oldstatehouse.com and click on “Collections” on the left side and then “View Our Collections Online.”
The collections are divided into 22 categories including “African American Quilts,” “Civil War and Civil War Reunion collection,” “First Families Exhibition” and even “Sam Dellinger: Raiders of the Lost Arkansas.”
Items in a given collection can be viewed as a list with thumbnail pictures or in a “light box,” which presents slightly larger pictures of the items in horizontal rows. One can also scroll through the items individually. The items can be enlarged and a zooming feature is in the works.
Maack said the online collection should also appeal to teachers, history buffs and the general public.
The museum is one of a handful of history museums that have their collections online, she said. The majority of online collections belong to art museums.