The Arkansas Historical Association is hosting its 85th annual conference in Monticello, April 9-11. Historians, researchers and scholars from around the region will gather to explore the theme "Arkansas at Work: Histories of Labor, Land and Learning." For a preview of the event, Ozarks at Large's Jack Travis reached board member and former president Tim Nutt, who is also the archivist for the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock. Their conversation began by talking about Nutt's ties to the association, and as it turns out, his personal history with the group runs deep.
A: I have been a member of the association since 1990 — so what is that, 36 years? Almost. And I joined in college, in my junior year in college. I had started a position at the UA archives and my boss there, Tom Dillard, who was also a former president of the Arkansas Historical Association, encouraged me to join the association. And so I did, and I've been a member ever since.
Q: Tell me about the organization. Why did you want to join and continue to be a member?
A: The association is the only statewide organization that's really devoted to the preservation and study of Arkansas history. It was founded in 1941, and it just has a really stellar reputation as an organization with historians — academic historians, public historians, armchair historians — all of these people who are interested in Arkansas history and want to preserve that history in the written form through articles and interviews and things like that. And then also, it's just a good way to network with other people who share your interest in Arkansas history. You can connect with people, and more than likely there's another person in the organization that shares your interest. And so you can really trade ideas and get new ideas and new hints about your research. So that's what I've really enjoyed about being in the organization.
Q: It's not just professional historians, though. It's like you said, armchair historians, amateurs.
A: Right, right. It's open to anyone who is interested in Arkansas history. So our membership does include academic historians, historians who work in the Department of History at U of A Fayetteville, all over the state. But we also have historians who are interested in the state's history who are not currently living in the state. So it's really open to anyone — the genealogist, armchair historians, students like I was back in 1990. It's just a good way to enter the field of Arkansas history, connect with your colleagues and others with similar interests, and just learn more about Arkansas history.
Q: I'd love to hear an anecdote or a fond memory that you have with the Arkansas Historical Association — maybe a connection you made or a discovery that came about through your work.
A: Well, personally for me — I was interested in Augustus Hill Garland, former governor of Arkansas. There's been a lot of material already, a lot of articles already written on Augustus Hill and his time as governor, his time serving in the president's cabinet. But I was more interested in his family and the dynamics of his family relationships and really the tragedy and the tragic lives of his children. He had, I think, maybe four or five children. And one of them died of a cocaine overdose. One of them died by suicide. And so that was just this really tragic part of his history. And I was interested in that aspect of it. And it was so interesting because I was doing research and I had discovered that one of Governor Garland's children had moved out to New Mexico. And so I was trying to follow up with Garland's descendants. And it turned out that I actually discovered one of his descendants. And so I wrote to that person and the person wrote back and they said, "You really need to connect with this person in Arkansas," who I knew and who was a member of the Arkansas Historical Association. So I was able to just talk with him and say, "Hey, I'm interested in this." And he said, "Oh yeah." And so we were able to trade information about Garland's children. And it was just sort of a serendipitous thing coming full circle — literally full circle — contacting someone in New Mexico and then coming back to Arkansas.
Q: Those in-person connections — people are going to have a chance to make those in April. Can you tell us about your annual conference?
A: I'd love to. So every year the association has an annual conference, and it is someplace different — we travel around Arkansas. It's not always in the same place. This upcoming conference will be in Monticello, down in south Arkansas. And every year the conference has a different theme. This year's theme is going to be labor and all aspects of labor, whether that includes labor strikes, farm workers, unions, anything that deals with labor and labor-related topics. And so I'm really excited about that. I believe this is going to be the 86th conference for the association. It's always a three-day conference. It starts on Thursday afternoon, so April 10 in the afternoon. And we'll start that with a session where different archives from around the state are going to be presenting on their holdings and what they have in their holdings that relate to labor. So that'll be a really good introduction to our theme and to the conference. And then we always have an opening reception, just sort of a networking gathering, a "get to know each other, hi, haven't seen you for a long time" type of thing.
And then Friday is the day that we have most of our sessions. So it starts in the morning and it goes through the afternoon, to mid-afternoon. And so we have, I think, three concurrent sessions before noon and then a couple after the lunch. Just a variety of topics, as I mentioned. I think there's a session on labor unions. There's a presentation on farm workers. I'm doing a presentation on Dr. Charlie, or Charles, McDermott, who is the founder of Dermott down in southeast Arkansas. He was a doctor, but he was also an inventor. In the 1860s, he patented a flying apparatus. And so later on, the Wright brothers, when they had their first flight in 1903, they actually credited Dr. McDermott for what he had done in research as regards to flying machines. So that's just one.
And then we have two great keynote speakers on Friday. We have Dr. Jeannie Whayne, who's a university professor at U of A Fayetteville, and she's going to be talking about the Sunnyside Plantation in southeast Arkansas in Chicot County and the Italian laborers that were brought over from Italy. This was in the 1890s. And the health conditions that they lived under while they were working at the Sunnyside Plantation — of course, the conditions were just horrible down there. And so most of those workers down there left and found a tiny town up in northwest Arkansas.
And then on Saturday, we have morning sessions again, just a variety of topics. And then we have our ending luncheon on Saturday. And Mike Pierce, who's an associate professor of history at U of A Fayetteville, he's going to be talking about how governors Bumpers and Pryor and Clinton dealt with labor relations in the state during their time as governors in Arkansas. So it's going to be a really exciting conference. And I'm excited — I'm always excited to attend, not only to see my colleagues and friends, but also just to learn new things. I don't know personally a whole lot about labor history in Arkansas because that's not my area of research. So I'm really looking forward to learning more at the conference.
Q: It sounds like a fascinating weekend.
A: It always is. It's what they call "nerd fun" — just learning everything you can about Arkansas history. It's really, really lots of fun.
Q: What do people need to know? Where can they go to sign up for the conference and get more information?
A: Well, if you go to the association's website — it's arkansashistoricalassociation.org — there's a tab under "conference." And folks can just go there and the registration form will be up. The program will be up so they can go ahead and start planning which sessions they want to go to. You know, if you're there like me, it's always a sort of a conundrum because you have a topic in one session and a topic in another session at the same time. So you have to choose which one to go to and hope that you run into somebody who's like, "Hey, how did that other presentation go?"
But if they go to the Arkansas Historical Association website, they'll have all the information there. Of course, if your listeners are members of the association, they'll receive in the mail the program and the registration information, and that should be going out soon. And then they can always call the Department of History or the Arkansas Historical Association office on campus at Fayetteville if they need additional information.
I would like to encourage anyone, if you're not a member of the association, to please join. We always say it's the best deal in Arkansas history because the dues are, I think, $25 for an individual, and you get four issues of the Arkansas Historical Quarterly, which are just packed full of articles and you'll learn things that you never knew about Arkansas. I would encourage everyone to join the association if they're not members. But also just come join us in Monticello. It's going to be a lot of fun.
Tim Nutt with the Arkansas Historical Association talking about their annual conference, which takes place in Monticello, April 9-11. More information is available at arkansashistoricalassociation.org. Tim Nutt talked with Ozarks at Large's Jack Travis.
