Arkansas/Arkansaw: A State and its Reputation
- Ongoing: until Sunday, March 4, 2012
- Sunday: 1:00pm
- Monday: 9:00am
- Tuesday: 9:00am
- Wednesday: 9:00am
- Thursday: 9:00am
- Friday: 9:00am
- Saturday: 9:00am
- Where: OLD STATE HOUSE MUSEUM, Little Rock
- Cost: Free
- Age limit: Not available
Though many Arkansans left their mark on international popular culture—musicians Al Green and Louis Jordan; politicians J.W. Fulbright, Winthrop Rockefeller and Bill Clinton; athletes Brooks Robinson and Scottie Pippen; and movie stars Alan Ladd and Mary Steenburgen—the state is often better known as a place of hillbillies, rednecks, moonshine, and double-wide trailers.
An upcoming exhibit at the Old State House Museum will shed new light on the evolution of Arkansas’s backwoods, hillbilly image. The exhibit entitled, Arkansas/Arkansaw: A State and its Reputation, explores both the favorable and unfavorable parts of this history.
Perhaps best symbolized by the story of the Arkansas Traveler, the exhibit reveals the early development of a dual image, with Arkansawyers being portrayed as coarse, illiterate, and violent backwoodsmen on one hand, while also lifted up as noble frontiersmen—independent, honest, and humble. The exhibit examines why Arkansas became the focus for such depictions, and how some Arkansans defended their state against the popularization of this stereotype.
Arkansas/Arkansaw is not a defense of the state; instead it lays forth the real and romanticized versions of Arkansas’s hillbilly image. The exhibit curator, Brooks Blevins, believes it is important to confront these portrayals of the state, as well as one’s acceptance or denial of them, noting that “the defenders of Arkansas have not surprisingly reacted most strongly to the many negative products of the [hillbilly] image, ironically generating even more bad publicity….” One example of this tendency was the over-reaching boosterism of former Governor Charles Brough who once got into a war of words with the famous satirist H. L. Mencken in defense of Arkansas’s reputation. But just as some of the state’s residents continue to harbor this inferiority complex, the author notes that many Arkansans take pride in the hillbilly image and have long shown a willingness to tell jokes about themselves. Much of this humor is reflected in the modern-day “You know you are from Arkansas…” satire, for instance.
The exhibit also shows that the hillbilly image is not always slanderous. Bill Clinton’s election to the White House in 1992 put Arkansas in a positive light. “One of the things that Clinton’s presidency did was to reinforce the notion that Arkansas wasn’t just a hillbilly state,” Blevins said. “We had a Rhodes scholar, Yale-educated governor, who went on to become a two-term president of the United States.”
Arkansas/Arkansaw uses a variety of artifacts, as well as video, to explore Arkansas’s hillbilly reputation. Among the artifacts included in the exhibit are souvenirs from the Ozarks; a lithograph, A Slow Train to Arkansas, by Thomas Hart Benton; Black Oak Arkansas’ washboard; Frederick Gerstaecker’s 1859 book, Wild Sports in the Far West; Grandpa Jones’ banjo; an almanac from Lum and Abner’s “Jot’em Down Store;” and a rare 1900 recording of the Arkansas Traveler tale.
Arkansas/Arkansaw: A State and its Reputation will be on exhibit at the Old State House Museum from April 2, 2010, through March 4, 2012.
About the Curator
Arkansas/Arkansaw: A State and its Reputation is curated by Brooks Blevins, a native Arkansan and Ozark Studies professor at Missouri State University. Blevins is also author of the similarly titled book, Arkansas/Arkansaw: How Bear Hunters, Hillbillies, and Good Ol’ Boys Defined a State. Recently published by the University of Arkansas Press, the
book grew out of research Blevins conducted for the exhibit. Blevins’ book can be purchased at the Old State House Museum Store.
About the Old State House Museum
The Old State House Museum is a museum of the Department of Arkansas Heritage and shares the goal of all seven Department of Arkansas Heritage agencies, that of preserving and enhancing the heritage of the state of Arkansas. The agencies are Arkansas Arts Council, Arkansas Historic Preservation Program, Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission, Delta Cultural Center in Helena, Historic Arkansas Museum, Mosaic Templars Cultural Center, and the Old State House Museum.
This event was posted April 16, 2010 and last updated Sept. 15, 2010
