Little Rock Sketch Book

The Little Rock Sketch Book was a quarterly periodical of arts and letters edited by Bernie Babcock of Little Rock (Pulaski County) starting in July 1906. Babcock emphasized in the first issue that the periodical “is a home production. Its editor, contributors, artists, advertising manager and advertisers are of Little Rock.” The goal, therefore, was not only to foster an appreciation for the arts but also to promote local enterprises and successful individuals.

(A note on the title: the cover of each issue simply read Sketch Book, while the title page read, in the first volume, Little Rock Sketch Book. By the second volume, both cover and title page read simply Sketch Book, but the following year, Arkansas Sketch Book was featured on both cover and title page.)

Each issue contained an article highlighting some state institution—such as Forest Park in Little Rock (more specifically, its zoo), the Arkansas State Fair, and Subiaco Abbey—or a particular community or local legend. The first issue notably contained an autobiographical piece by prominent lawyer Uriah M. Rose. Also common were photographs of various female members of high society, such as Lulu A. Markwell. Everything was presented with an eye toward boosting the image of Arkansas. Short fiction and poetry were also featured; the first short story published was one of Babcock’s own, “The Stork’s Mistake,” and Fay Hempstead contributed an early poem. The periodical also occasionally reviewed books, such as The Crucial Race Question by William Montgomery Brown, Episcopal bishop of Arkansas, reviewed in the Autumn 1907 issue.

Every issue featured a wealth of advertising, with Babcock explaining in the October 1906 issue that “subscriptions, except in rare cases, do not pay for the cost of publication.” However, she insisted that all advertisements were “placed by men who appreciate the advantages offered by a strictly high-class magazine in a field exclusively its own.” Such advertisers included Democrat Printing and Lithographing Company, the office of Ida Joe Brooks MD, Vestal Nursery, Draughon’s Practical Business College, the Arkansas Democrat, and many more. Single copies were priced at twenty-five cents.

The journal was universally praised as handsome and a fine representation of Arkansas, but as an article on the publication in the February 9, 1908, issue of the Arkansas Democrat pointed out, Babcock started the magazine “without 5 cent capital,” which “was a very daring venture for a woman with a family to take care of, but to use her own words, she has coddled this baby magazine along, in spite of the fearful mortality among its kind.” The Democrat noted that Babcock alone served as “editor, business manager, collector and office boy.”

In 1910, Babcock announced that she had accepted a position in Chicago, Illinois. In a report on this, the Arkansas Democrat, which dubbed Babcock the “Sketch Book Lady,” described her magazine as a “pronounced success,” especially given that earlier efforts at magazine publication in Arkansas had ended in failure, with each issue “handsomer than the previous one.” The newspaper also announced that plans were underway to make the Sketch Book a monthly magazine, but in Babcock’s absence, these efforts seem to have fallen through.

For additional information:
“Enterprise of a Southern Woman.” Arkansas Democrat, February 9, 1908, p. 12.

Little Rock Sketch Book. Butler Center for Arkansas Studies. Central Arkansas Library System, Little Rock, Arkansas.

“Sketch Book Lady Goes to Chicago.” Arkansas Democrat, July 17, 1910, p. 2.

Staff of the CALS Encyclopedia of Arkansas