Old State House Museum Collections Blog

   This spring, the Old State House Museum opened a new exhibit entitled Arkansas/Arkansaw: A State and Its Reputation. The exhibit sheds new light on the evolution of Arkansas's backwoods, hillbilly image.  Curated by and based on a book by Brooks Blevins of Missouri State University,  Arkansas/Arkansaw will remain open to the public (for FREE!) until March 2012.

As part of the museum's efforts to promote the new exhibit, I interviewed Dr. Blevins over the phone to produce a video podcast. (If you haven't watched the podcast, I highly encourage it!)  We spoke for about an hour, but only 20 minutes of the audio made the cut to the podcast.  As a bonus, below is a 3-minute snippet from the interview in which Dr. Blevins discusses the irony behind the exhibit and some of the more nuanced aspects of Arkansas/Arkansaw.

Arkansas/Arkansaw: Brooks Blevins Interview (Bonus) by Old State House Museum

 
  With the sesquicentennial of the Civil War rapidly approaching, the Old State House Museum is gearing up for an ambitious slate of five exhibits over the next five years.  In preparation, the collections staff has been spending a significant amount of time scouring the collection for items related to Arkansas in the Civil War, researching their provenance, and improving the museum's knowledge of their history and former use.  Among these recently visited objects is a carpet bag from a U.S. Naval Surgeon.

 The carpet bag belonged to Martin L. Gerould of Canaan, New Hampshire.  On September 22, 1863, Gerould was appointed Acting Assistant Surgeon of the ironclad USS Eastport .  The Eastport was originally a Confederate vessel which was captured by Union forces and converted into an ironclad ram. The Eastport and Gerould would serve the next two years along the Mississippi River and its tributaries, patrolling and capturing supplies.

The interior of the flap on the bag contains the information which has enabled the museum to document this provenance.  Pictured below, the bag is stenciled in black ink, "Surg. M.L. Gerould, USN."