Old Sparky: Dina Tyler on Arkansas's Electric Chairs
5/23/2010 | 6:59 AM | Posted by
Josh Jenkins
As a sneak peak into our upcoming podcast on the Department of Correction Collection, here is a short clip from our interview with Dina Tyler, spokeswoman for the DOC. The topic of the clip is the death penalty in Arkansas, specifically the state's electric chairs - Old Sparky I and II. Just click the red play button below.
The chairs and many other objects in the Department of Correction Collection are currently on exhibit at the Old State House in an exhibit called "Badges, Bandits, and Bars: Arkansas Law and Justice."
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Petition to President Lincoln Nominating Isaac Murphy as Governor of Arkansas
As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I’ve been spending time over the past few months working on the Old State House’s Civil War and Civil War Reunion Collection. I’ve handled literally more than a thousand objects related to Arkansas in the Civil War and many, such as the subject of this post, deserve more attention. The image above is a portion of an 1863 petition to Abraham Lincoln signed by officers of various Arkansas regiments supporting Isaac Murphy as military governor of the state. Of course, Murphy was eventually named as the eighth Governor of Arkansas, the lone member of the General Assembly to refuse to support secession from the Union. The petition is signed by more than 160 Arkansas soldiers and includes a flattering account of Murphy’s loyalty to the Union. Below is an image of the first page of the petition, as well as links for more information regarding Isaac Murphy and the petition on our eMuseum site.
Construction of the Arkansas Capitol Building
While working on our upcoming podcast concerning the Department of Corrections historical collection housed at the Old State House Museum, I encountered a series of spectacular photographs of the construction of the state's current capitol building.The Old State House served as Arkansas's original capitol building, housing the Governor's Office, House and Senate Chambers and other government offices into the 20th century. Beginning in the 1890s, some elected officials began to call for the construction of a new capitol. In 1899, Governor Daniel Webster Jones suggested the site where the Arkansas State Penitentiary was located saying that land was "too valuable" for a prison. Work began shortly thereafter, with prisoners constituting the majority of the labor. The Old State House Museum has the collections of the Department of Corrections, including photographs of the construction. The photographs were taken in 1910, depicting the nearly finished capitol building.
Click the thumbnails below to see full-sized images.
Arkansas / Arkansaw Podcast featuring Brooks Blevins
This episode of the Old State House Museum Collection podcast deals with our most current exhibit, Arkansas / Arkansaw : A State and Its Reputation. We feature an interview with the curator of the exhibit, Dr. Brooks Blevins, a professor of Ozark Studies at Missouri State University. Through his research and book commissioned by the Old State House, Dr. Blevins explores the origins of the states image as a backwards hillbilly state. The podcast is embedded below in three parts (YouTube only allows 10 minutes per clip).
You can download this episode by clicking here, or subscribe to our podcast thru iTunes by clicking here.
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