Entries - Starting with W

Woman Who Wouldn’t Talk, The

After enduring a harsh national spotlight for several years—almost two of them while she was confined in a series of seven different prisons—for refusing to furnish evidence in the historic Whitewater investigation led by Republican federal prosecutor Kenneth Starr, Susan McDougal of Camden (Ouachita County) wrote a book titled, The Woman Who Wouldn’t Talk: Why I Refused to Testify against the Clintons & What I Learned in Jail. The book had an unexpected impact, owing mainly to the second part of the subtitle—her descriptions of the conditions and treatment of women inmates in federal lockups. Written with lawyer Pat Harris (her friend and former fiancé) and published by Carroll & Graf in January 2003, McDougal’s book received laudatory reviews, made …

Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU)

aka: Arkansas Woman's Christian Temperance Union

The Arkansas chapter of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) was established in 1879 in affiliation with the national WCTU, which originated as a state organization in Ohio in 1873. The Arkansas WCTU advocated for the abstinence of alcohol in Arkansas as well as supporting the state and national movements to prohibit the sale, manufacture, and consumption of alcohol. The organization also provided a political outlet for women in Arkansas through its campaigns, local option petitioning, and its newsletter, the Arkansas White Ribboner, which ran from 1888 to 1984. In 1876, Lydia Chase, a national union member from Ohio, moved to Arkansas and gave a lecture on temperance to a group of women at a Presbyterian church in Monticello (Drew …

Woman’s Chronicle

On March 3, 1888, in Little Rock (Pulaski County) three women—Catherine Campbell Cuningham, Mary Burt Brooks, and Haryot Holt Cahoon—published the first issue of the Woman’s Chronicle, a weekly newspaper dedicated to women’s interests, particularly suffrage. Cuningham was listed as the editor, Brooks and Cahoon as associate editors. The previous year, the short-lived Little Rock publication the Southern Ladies’ Journal had ended its run, leaving a void that it appears these women sought to fill. The founding meeting of the Arkansas Equal Suffrage Association had been held the month before, likely generating some of the motivation as well. The Woman’s Chronicle focused on women’s primary day-to-day interests at the time—cooking, fashion, and literature—in addition to social gatherings, events, and the …

Woman’s Progressive Club (Wynne)

The Woman’s Progressive Club, located at 333 Merriman Avenue in Wynne (Cross County), is a one-story public building designed in a subtle treatment of the Colonial Revival style of architecture and constructed between 1935 and 1937 with assistance from the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a Depression-era federal relief program. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on March 27, 1990. The Woman’s Progressive Club was established by five charter members in 1913, the first civic organization formed in the Cross County seat of Wynne. The group organized and promoted educational, social, and cultural events, meeting in the homes of members. The formation of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal agencies during the Great Depression led them to …

Womble District Administration House Number 1

The Womble District Administration House Number 1 is located east of Mount Ida (Montgomery County) and was constructed to house the administrative headquarters of the Womble Ranger District of the Ouachita National Forest. Constructed in 1940 by members of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), it was added to the National Register of Historic Places on October 20, 1993. The CCC established companies throughout the country to offer unemployed men a way to provide for their families while also constructing needed facilities and structures. CCC Company 741 was established at Camp Pike (which later became Camp Joseph T. Robinson) on May 1, 1933. Moving to Crystal Springs (Garland County), near Black Springs (Montgomery County) in the Ouachita National Forest on May …

Women

From prehistoric times through the French and Spanish colonial eras, from the territorial period through statehood, secession, Reconstruction, and modernization, women have played major and defining roles in the development and history of Arkansas. Women of every race, ethnicity, religion, social class, and legal status have been instrumental in shaping the culture and social structure of Arkansas, even as they have been forced to struggle for equal rights, political and legal equality, economic and social independence—even the most basic human right of freedom. Prehistory The first women in Arkansas were likely the descendants of Asians who crossed the land bridge to North America between 18,000 and 10,000 BC. During the Paleoindian, Woodland, Archaic, and Mississippian periods, women farmed, hunted, and …

Women for Constitutional Government (WCG)

Women for Constitutional Government (WCG) was a conservative group that built upon the developing opposition to racial integration, especially in the schools, across the South in the early 1960s. It was active until the mid-1980s. The organization traced its beginnings to an effort in response to James Meredith integrating the University of Mississippi in the fall of 1962. Florence Sillers Ogden, Margaret Preaster, and Edna Whitfield organized the Women for Constitutional Government in an effort to present the growing opposition to the federal government’s support of the civil rights movement in a context broader than just racial segregation. Targeting white women, they sought to make people view the arrival of federal troops in Mississippi as a liberal federal government’s determination …

Women in the Civil War

In Arkansas, women supported both secession and Unionist movements, worked in war industries, nursed sick and wounded soldiers, and were involved in other innumerable ways on both sides in the conflict. The experiences of women in the state during the war varied widely, but all women in Arkansas at the time were impacted by the Civil War in some way. Women were involved on both sides of the secession movement in Arkansas. A group of Little Rock (Pulaski County) women gave Captain James Totten an inscribed sword to thank him for his leadership during the Arsenal Crisis in February 1861. Women filled the gallery during the Secession Convention, and Little Rock resident Martha Trapnall tossed Isaac Murphy a bouquet of …

Women in the Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union

The Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union (STFU) was an organization of tenant farmers formed in 1934 in Tyronza (Poinsett County). The union was notable for three things: racially integrating union locals in some areas, relying on evangelical church traditions in meetings, and utilizing the work of women at all levels of the organization. For many women involved in the STFU, the organization served as a springboard into other activism, particularly in the civil rights movement. Women in the union came from all social backgrounds. Society women were active throughout the country, raising money and promoting awareness for the STFU. Women were also crucial at the local level among the sharecropper class, partially because it was necessary for officers to have a certain degree of …

Women of the Ku Klux Klan (WKKK)

Headquartered in Little Rock (Pulaski County), the national Women of the Ku Klux Klan (WKKK) was formed on June 10, 1923, as a result of the exclusively male Ku Klux Klan’s desire to create a like-minded women’s auxiliary that would bring together the existing informal, pro-Klan women’s groups, including the Grand League of Protestant Women, the White American Protestants (WAP), and the Ladies of the Invisible Empire (LOTIE). However, the group was ultimately short lived, waning in influence with its male counterpart. Lulu Markwell, a civically active Little Rock resident and former president of Arkansas’s chapter of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) for twenty years, was the national organization’s first Imperial Commander, establishing its national office in Little Rock’s …

Women’s Action for New Directions, Arkansas Chapter

aka: Arkansas WAND

Women’s Action for New Directions (WAND) is a national nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering women in politics, particularly through social justice, peace, and nonviolence initiatives; Arkansas created its own chapter in the mid-1990s. The organization has its roots in the Women’s Party for Survival, founded by Helen Caldicott, and became known as the Women’s Action for Nuclear Disarmament around 1982, with a focus on denuclearization and reduction of U.S. spending on military and defense. Against the backdrop of the Cold War, the 1980s saw a number of women’s peace and anti-nuclear organizations forming in the United States, including Another Mother for Peace, Women Against Military Madness (WAMM), The Ribbon, Grandmothers for Peace, and Peace Links; the latter was formed by …

Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC)

Before World War II, Arkansas was predominately an agricultural state, and jobs for women were very limited. Serving in the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC) gave Arkansas women a chance to assist in the war efforts and to do jobs they never thought they could do. Women in the WAAC aided the war effort in a variety of roles across the state and nation. On May 28, 1941, as the United States was preparing for the possibility of becoming involved in World War II, Congresswoman Edith Nourse Rogers of Massachusetts introduced a bill to the U.S. Congress to establish the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps. Rogers used what women had done in the navy and marines in World War I as …

Women’s Community Club Band Shell

Built in 1933, the Women’s Community Club Band Shell is located at the northeast corner of Spring Park in Heber Springs (Cleburne County). It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on August 16, 1994. The band shell is important as a study of the cultural and social development of a central Arkansas resort community and provides a good example of a New Deal public works project. The Women’s Community Club was organized in 1921, and, by the early 1930s, it had decided that a band shell was needed to replace the entertainment pavilion located in Spring Park. Members of the club visited other cities to see their band shells and then contracted with Leo King for construction …

Women’s Foundation of Arkansas

The Women’s Foundation of Arkansas (WFA) is dedicated to the economic, educational, and social advancement of women and girls in the state, and is the only statewide foundation to focus solely upon women and girls. WFA’s mission is to promote philanthropy among women and to help women and girls achieve their full potential. To fulfill this mission, WFA serves as a grant-maker, a convener, and a resource on the status of women and girls. The organization was inducted into the Arkansas Women’s Hall of Fame in 2018. WFA’s programs and initiatives include Girls of Promise, an annual two-day science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) conference for eighth-grade girls; annual grants that support projects that assist Arkansas women and girls in achieving …

Women’s Intentional Communities

aka: Women's Land Communities

Women’s intentional communities emerged in the context of the second wave of the women’s movement, encompassing feminist values and environmentalism, as well as the back-to-the-land, hippie, and anti-war movements. The intentional women’s land communities discussed here were located in northwest Arkansas. There may have been others in the state, but their presence has not been documented. (There is no consensus regarding the definition and meaning of “intentional communities.” For the purpose of this entry, women’s intentional communities are defined as including a variety of communal living arrangements based on a shared set of explicit values. Intentional communities are often property based and include land trusts among other types of collective living. In the broader context of individualism, intentional communities are …

Women’s Library

The Women’s Library was formed in Fayetteville (Washington County) in 1982. Completely volunteer based and operated, the library lent books, musical recordings, and local and national periodicals that supported women’s rights and self-education. Many of these materials could not be found at Fayetteville’s public library or in local bookstores, and so the library was a central resource for early gender and women’s studies courses at the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville. The library sponsored special events like book and craft fairs, live music, and poetry readings in its space. In addition, it donated materials to women’s prisons and to the Women’s Project in Little Rock (Pulaski County). The library closed in 2000. The Women’s Library was created by a …

Women’s Project

The Women’s Project began in 1980 in Eureka Springs (Carroll County) as the Arkansas Women’s Training Project (AWTP) and was incorporated as the Women’s Project in 1985. It was founded by Suzanne Pharr, a VISTA volunteer, with Bob Torvestad and Freeman McKindra of VISTA providing its first staff: five VISTA volunteers who were located throughout the state. The organization was sponsored by the Northwest District of the United Methodist Church. Initial funding came from the National Women’s Division of the United Methodist Church and the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation. A feminist, anti-racist organization, the AWTP worked with women in small towns throughout Arkansas to gain skills to confront local issues. In 1982, the Women’s Project relocated to Little Rock (Pulaski County) in …

Women’s Suffrage Movement

After the Civil War, Arkansas leaders began advocating women’s right to vote. Women’s suffrage clubs started to organize, and an Arkansas women’s suffrage movement emerged. These suffragist leaders lectured at meetings, campaigned on street corners, and lobbied the Arkansas legislature for a women’s suffrage law. This campaign ended in 1920 with the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution giving women the right to vote. An Arkansas law proposing women’s suffrage was initially introduced by Miles Ledford Langley of Arkadelphia (Clark County), a representative to the Arkansas Constitutional Convention of 1868. On February 11, 1868, the Arkansas Gazette reported that he made a motion that “all citizens 21 years of age, who can read and write the English language, shall be …

Women’s Emergency Committee to Open Our Schools (WEC)

The Women’s Emergency Committee to Open Our Schools (WEC) was formed on September 12, 1958, to combat the governor’s closing of Little Rock (Pulaski County) high schools. The first meeting of the organization was held on September 16. During the summer after the 1957 desegregation crisis at Central High School in Little Rock, Governor Orval Faubus invoked a recently passed state law and closed the schools to prevent further desegregation. The WEC became the first organization to publicly support reopening the schools under the district’s desegregation plan. It remained active until 1963. Forty-eight women met in September 1958 in the antebellum home of Adolphine Fletcher Terry, the widow of U.S. Congressman David D. Terry and a local activist for libraries, …

Wonderland Cave

Wonderland Cave is a natural underground cavern in Bella Vista (Benton County) about a mile east of U.S. Highway 71 up Dartmoor Road, near Cooper Elementary School. Clarence Andrew (C. A.) Linebarger, general manager of the resort of Bella Vista, developed it as a tourist attraction and place for local entertainment, opening it on March 1, 1930. The cave was added to the National Register of Historic Places on January 1, 1988. About 300 feet into the cave from the entrance is a large, naturally vaulted chamber with a concrete floor. That is where dances were held for decades, with an alcove for a ten- to twelve-piece band, a thirty-foot bar at the opposite end, and wooden and stone booths …

Woo Pig Brie

Woo Pig Brie is a pig’s milk cheese produced in Arkansas starting in 1969. It is a product licensed with the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville (Washington County), with the name “Woo Pig Brie” being a pun on the famous “hog call”—Woo Pig Sooie—associated with UA’s Razorbacks football team. Woo Pig Brie is probably the most successful dairy product in the nation licensed with a college football team. (Morehead State’s “Morehead Cheese” is not technically a cheese, despite the name.) Woo Pig Brie had its genesis in one of the Razorbacks’ most memorable games, the 1969 contest with the number-one Texas Longhorns later dubbed “The Big Shootout.” The game was attended by such national figures as President Richard M. …

Wood v. Strickland

Wood v. Strickland is the title of a U.S. Supreme Court decision that grew out of a local dispute over a teenage prank perpetrated by three high school students of the Mena Special School District. This case has attained an importance far beyond its origins, helping to define the constitutional rights of public school students and the parameters under which public officials may be sued for monetary damages in federal court. On February 18, 1972, three students—Virginia Crain, Peggy Strickland, and Jo Wall—at Mena (Polk County) confessed to spiking the punch at an extracurricular function with twenty-four ounces of a flavored malt liquor beverage. Principal Duddy Waller suspended the three students for a week. The same day, meeting in a …

Wood, Carroll D.

Carroll D. Wood was an important figure in Arkansas legal history. Although he served on the Arkansas Supreme Court for over thirty-five years, he is arguably best known for his unsuccessful candidacy for governor in 1904. Carroll D. Wood was born on July 8, 1858, in Ashley County; he was the son of Baptist minister John S. Wood and Martha Bussey Wood; Wood’s mother died when he was very young. The Reverend Wood remarried, and his second wife, Mary Kelsey Wood, provided the future jurist’s earliest education. Wood also attended local Hamburg (Ashley County) schools before pursuing a degree at what is now the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville (Washington County). Following graduation in 1879, he read law with …

Wood, Forrest Lee

Forrest Lee Wood was known worldwide for his success in the sport fishing industry. In 1968, he founded Ranger Boats, which became the largest manufacturer of bass boats in the nation. Wood thus became known as an “outdoor legend” and the father of the modern bass boat. Forrest Wood was born in Flippin (Marion County) on June 9, 1932, to Ervin and Beulah Wood; he had one younger brother. His father served for a time as a game warden, and he and Wood worked on the construction of the Bull Shoals Dam. On April 21, 1951, Wood married Nina Kirkland; they had four daughters. The couple began raising cattle early in their marriage, but cattle prices dropped, and Wood found …

Wood, John Shirley

Drew County native Major General John S. Wood served for over thirty years in the United States military. He fought in both world wars and is considered by many military experts to have been one of the best divisional commanders of World War II. John Shirley Wood was born to Arkansas Supreme Court justice Carroll D. Wood and Reola Thompson Wood on January 11, 1888, in Monticello (Drew County). While attending the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville (Washington County), he was the quarterback and captain of the football team. He graduated in 1907 with a BS in chemistry. In 1908, he entered the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, lettering in football, wrestling, and boxing. After his 1912 graduation, …

Wood, Wendy Scholtens

Wendy Scholtens Wood, who later became an attorney in Little Rock (Pulaski County), was one of the greatest women’s basketball players in Arkansas history. Earning All-American honors for her play at both Southside High School in Fort Smith (Sebastian County) and Vanderbilt University, she also played professional basketball in Japan before pursuing a legal career. She was later elected to a seat on the Arkansas Court of Appeals. Wendy Scholtens was born on June 25, 1969, to John Dennis Scholtens and Carol Anne Scholtens in Geneva, Illinois, where her grandparents lived, but she grew up in Fort Smith, graduating from Southside High School in 1987. While the 6’4″ Scholtens also played volleyball and ran track, it was her basketball skill …

Woodland Period

The Woodland period is a label used by archaeologists to designate pre-Columbian Native American occupations dating between roughly 600 BC and AD 1000 in eastern North America. This time period traditionally is divided into Early, Middle, and Late subperiods, which refer to intervals characterized in very general terms by the first widespread use of pottery across the region, the rise and then decline of a vast exchange network throughout eastern North America,and finally, a period of increasing agricultural intensification and population growth in many areas. During the Woodland period, sedentism, population, and organizational complexity dramatically increased. Around 600 BC, Native Americans in Arkansas were probably living in small groups tied together by collective ritual, including burial that sometimes involved the …

Woodman, Joe (Lynching of)

On July 6, 1905, an African-American sawmill worker probably named Joe Woodman (one newspaper identifies him as James Woods) was hanged in Dumas (Desha County) for eloping with a local white girl. According to the Arkansas Democrat, Woodman was the only African American working at a sawmill near Rives, which is on the border between Drew and Desha counties. Woodman allegedly left home on July 5 at the same time the sixteen-year-old daughter of a local man, J. S. Small, was found to be missing. After investigating the girl’s disappearance, authorities determined that a couple fitting the description of Woodman and Small was seen on a northbound train. Authorities notified Jefferson County sheriff James Gould, and he located the couple …

Woodruff County

Woodruff County, a level, fertile plain watered and drained by the White and Cache rivers, was once home to many Native Americans who inhabited the area when the first white settlers arrived. Little is known about the early inhabitants, but the mounds they built for worship, burial, and living can be found in many areas of the county, particularly near Cotton Plant and McCrory, though farming operations have leveled most of the sites. The White River forms most of the western boundary of Woodruff County. The Cache River and Bayou DeView, confluents of the White River, also cut through the county. The five incorporated towns in Woodruff County are Augusta (the county seat), McCrory, Cotton Plant, Patterson, and Hunter. Louisiana …

Woodruff County Courthouse

The Woodruff County Courthouse is located in Augusta (Woodruff County), on the northern end of 3rd Street not far from the White River. The Woodruff County Services Center stands behind the courthouse, and the historic Augusta Memorial Park is less than a mile away, but it is the residential homes from different eras that define the local identity. The Arkansas Historic Preservation Program recognizes the Woodruff County Courthouse as historically and architecturally significant, and it was added to the National Register of Historic Places on December 22, 1982. In November 1862, the Arkansas General Assembly officially established Woodruff County with Augusta as its county seat, although the ongoing Civil War complicated plans. Many residents joined the Confederate army, the state …

Woodruff County Historical Society

On June 8, 1972, a group of citizens met in Augusta (Woodruff County) to plan the organization of a county historical society to gather and publish historical information about Woodruff County and its people. A nominating committee was selected, and the committee met on July 12. At the second meeting, officers were elected, and articles of incorporation were prepared and adopted. The board of directors met at the Woodruff County Library on July 25 and approved the constitution and by-laws of the newly formed Woodruff County Historical Society. The papers of organization were filed with the Secretary of State’s office on August 28, 1972. The first publication of the society, Rivers and Roads and Points In Between, was published in …

Woodruff Print Shop

The Woodruff Print Shop is a meticulous 2010 reconstruction of the original Little Rock (Pulaski County) print shop built in 1823 for William E. Woodruff, founder of the Arkansas Gazette, the first newspaper in Arkansas. It is located on the grounds of Historic Arkansas Museum in Little Rock. After having established the Arkansas Gazette in 1819 at Arkansas Post (then the capital of the Territory of Arkansas), Woodruff moved his printing press and newspaper operation to Little Rock in 1821. Many of the city’s skilled craftsmen advertised their services at this time, including brickmakers Benjamin Clements and Christian Brumback. Woodruff likely contracted with local brickmakers, carpenters, cabinetmakers, and blacksmiths to construct the two-story building for his business. Woodruff announced the …

Woodruff, William Edward

William Edward Woodruff’s life spanned the years of Arkansas’s territorial days, statehood, Confederacy, and Reconstruction. Although best known today as the founder of the Arkansas Gazette, the state’s first newspaper, Woodruff became one of the state’s most important and colorful historical figures through his other business interests, political connections, and efforts to promote Arkansas. William Woodruff was born on December 24, 1795, on a small farm at Fire Place on Long Island, New York, the oldest of five sons born to Nathaniel Woodruff and Hannah Clarke Woodruff. His father died when Woodruff was twelve; two years later, his mother apprenticed him to Alden Spooner, a Sag Harbor, New York, printer who published the Suffolk Gazette. His original indenture document still …

Woods Colt, The

Thames Williamson’s The Woods Colt, published by Harcourt, Brace and Company in 1933, was the first Ozarks-based novel to be a significant popular and critical success. The novel was a selection in the Book of the Month Club for October 1933 and was praised by several critics, including an anonymous reviewer who, in the October 1933 issue of Time, argued that it was worthy of a Pulitzer Prize. Set in the early 1930s, The Woods Colt (a regional term for an illegitimate child) tells the story of Clint Morgan, a young man who was brought up fatherless and shunned by many members of his community. He is now a jealous and rowdy hill man courting the voluptuous and flirtatious Tillie …

Woodson (Pulaski County)

Woodson is a community in southern Pulaski County, north of Hensley (Pulaski County) and east of Interstate 530. Although it was incorporated on January 17, 1882, as a timber town and a stop on the Little Rock, Mississippi River and Texas Railroad, Woodson continued to operate as an unincorporated area, leading to confusion eighty years later. William D. Pennington acquired land in the area that would become Woodson in 1843. His son, William Q. Pennington, established a post office called Pennington’s Mills in 1855. In 1860, James Jones and John Little also purchased land in the area. The Civil War had little direct impact upon the area during the course of the fighting, but the conclusion of the war reshaped the …

Woodward, Comer Vann

Comer Vann Woodward was arguably the twentieth century’s foremost Southern historian. Although published in the 1950s, his Origins of the New South, 1877–1913 and The Strange Career of Jim Crow remain vital interpretive narratives. C. Vann Woodward was born November 13, 1908, to Hugh (Jack) and Emily (Bess) Woodward in Vanndale (Cross County). During Woodward’s youth, his father was a school administrator in Wynne (Cross County), then Arkadelphia (Clark County), and subsequently Morrilton (Conway County). Woodward graduated from high school in Morrilton in 1926 and enrolled at Henderson-Brown College, a small Methodist institution in Arkadelphia. After two years, he transferred to Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, graduating in 1930 with an AB in philosophy. Inspired by his uncle and namesake, …

Woodward, John Wesley

John Wesley Woodward was a pioneer in the education of deaf children in Arkansas as well as an influential newspaperman and state government figure who, most notably, oversaw the relocation of state records during the Civil War. John Wesley Woodward was born on a Virginia plantation near Richmond to Dr. James Woodward and Virginia Woodward on April 20, 1820. He contracted scarlet fever at the age of three, causing him to lose his hearing. Around the age of ten, Woodward came under the care of an uncle, presumably because he was orphaned. Because few schools existed in the United States for the education of the deaf, Woodward’s uncle sent him to the world-famous Institut National de Jeunes Sourds de Paris …

Woodward, William (Lynching of)

William Woodward, a white farmer, was lynched by a mob in Searcy County in June 1900 for killing his step-daughter, Lurena Thomas, after she apparently charged him with sexually assaulting her. At the time of the 1900 census, William Woodward, age thirty-five, was living in Richland Township with his wife, Margaret J. Woodward (thirty-nine), two daughters and four sons ranging from two to eleven, and step-daughter Lurena, then eighteen. (The census rendered the family name as Woodard, but all news reports give the name as Woodward.) According to the Marshall Republican, in a report reprinted in the Arkansas Democrat, Woodward was a farmer known for the ill treatment he afforded his wife and step-daughter, having reportedly whipped both on several …

Wool Hat Boys

The “wool hat boys” was the term used to refer to the broad-based populist group that was critical to the political career of Arkansas political leader Jeff Davis in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The term was intended to distinguish his supporters—white lower- and middle-class working people—from the wealthy, “silk hat” plutocrats whose interests Davis publicly derided. Indeed, it was Davis’s efforts on behalf of the wool hat boys and their compatriots, manifested in his opposition to the state’s economic elite, that cemented the electoral coalition that propelled the charismatic Davis to one term as a hard-driving state attorney general and three terms as governor; he was also elected to two terms in the U.S. Senate, although he …

Woolly Hollow State Park

Woolly Hollow State Park, located near Greenbrier (Faulkner County), is unique among Arkansas’s fifty-two state parks because it began as the first scientific study in North America of soil and silt erosion with a specific watershed. Originally built in 1935, the lake and the surrounding area opened as a state park on November 2, 1973. The refurbished Woolly Cabin, the homestead of the family after whom the park is named, still stands in the park about three-quarters of a mile from its original location. Woolly Hollow remains one of Arkansas’s most popular state parks and hosts a number of activities for children and adults each year. In 1851, William Riley Woolly and his family left Waynesboro, Tennessee, to homestead in …

Woolsey Farmstead Cemetery

The Woolsey Farmstead Cemetery is located in western Fayetteville (Washington County), near the Woolsey Wet Prairie Preserve. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on September 21, 2020. The small family cemetery, which covers less than one acre, is in the northeastern corner of an open field that was originally part of the farmstead of the Woolsey family, who were early settlers in the area of present-day Farmington (Washington County), arriving in 1830. There is a small grove of trees within the bounds of the cemetery, which causes it to stand out from the surrounding fields. The area around the cemetery that is not cultivated fields is densely wooded. Within the wrought-iron fence, there is a large …

Wooster (Faulkner County)

Wooster is a city in Faulkner County, seven miles north of Conway (Faulkner County) and four miles west of Greenbrier (Faulkner County). Although it was settled in the later years of the nineteenth century, it did not incorporate until 1958. Land grants were given to Frederick Campbell, Alexander Ferguson, John Lewis, and John Wiser in 1820 for the section of land where Wooster would be developed. Evidently, they farmed the land without developing a community, since the first recorded structure in the area was a store built by N. E. Adams around the middle of the nineteenth century. Adams also maintained a sawmill and a cotton gin. Adams sold his store to J. P. Wooster in 1881. The community was …

Wootton, Robert (Bob)

Robert (Bob) Wootton was a musician best known for having been Johnny Cash’s backing guitarist for thirty years. In addition to having played on most of Cash’s albums made after 1968, he released music with other members of Cash’s band, the Tennessee Three. He also worked as a driver for musical acts and as a stunt man. Bob Wootton was born on March 4, 1942, in Red Branch, which is a part of the town of Paris (Logan County). He was one of eight children of Rubin C. Wootton, who was a coal miner, and Noma Lucilla Moore Wootton. His father, who also played mandolin, taught him to play the guitar. Wootton’s first musical performances were in church. Among his …

Wordlaw, William

William Wordlaw (sometimes spelled Wardlow or Wordlow) was one of twelve men arrested and charged with murder following the events of the Elaine Massacre of 1919. After brief trials, the so-called Elaine Twelve—six who became known as the Moore defendants and six (including Wordlaw) who became known as the Ware defendants—were found guilty of murder and sentenced to death. Ultimately, the Ware defendants were freed by the Arkansas Supreme Court in 1923; after numerous legal efforts, the Moore defendants were freed in 1925. William Wordlaw was born to sharecroppers Edd and Georgia Wordlaw on August 19, 1897, in Pontotoc, Mississippi. William and his six siblings grew up helping their parents farm the land. According to his draft registration documents, he …

Works Progress Administration (WPA)

The Works Progress Administration (WPA), later called the Work Projects Administration, was the largest and best known of the federal work relief programs established by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to combat unemployment and stimulate a national economy ravaged by the Great Depression. During the eight years of its existence, 8.5 million people nationwide received WPA paychecks totaling nearly $11 billion. In Arkansas, the WPA provided much-needed social services and infrastructure improvements, while its salaries supported thousands of families and the merchants who depended on their business. The WPA began operations in Arkansas in July 1935. It carried on many of the functions of the earlier Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) while emphasizing work programs to a greater degree than its …

World Championship Quartz Crystal Dig

The World Championship Quartz Crystal Dig is held annually the second week of October in the Mount Ida (Montgomery County) area. According to Montgomery County: Our Heritage, “The Quartz Crystal Festival held October 24, 25 and 26, 1986, was attended by some two thousand residents and tourists from coast to coast.” The event was the idea of Paul G. Griffiths Sr. of the Mount Ida Area Chamber of Commerce and Sonny Stanley. The dig is a two-day event with two divisions: crystal points and clusters. The winners keep the crystal they mine and share in $1,500 in prize money. Contestants pay a $75 registration fee and compete in both divisions. On each of the three days of the dig, the …

World Services for the Blind

aka: Lions World Services for the Blind

World Services for the Blind (WSB), located in Little Rock (Pulaski County), offers career-path professional training for adults who are blind or visually impaired. The mission of the organization is to educate adults who are blind or visually impaired for careers and independent lives. Founded by Roy Kumpe and the Lions Clubs of Arkansas in 1946, the organization was first known as the Prevocational Adjustment Center for the Adult Blind. The passage by the U.S. Congress of the Randolph-Sheppard Act of 1936 created the first significant employment opportunities for blind individuals in Arkansas and throughout the nation. The Prevocational Adjustment Center’s original mission was to train Arkansans who were blind or visually impaired to operate vending stands in state and …

World War I

aka: The Great War

World War I had less impact on the state of Arkansas than the Civil War or World War II. Still, World War I did deplete the young male population of the state for a time, brought new institutions into the state that continue to the present time, and gave many Arkansans a new view of the world and of Arkansas’s place in an increasingly connected world community. World War I was the result of many complex factors, including a network of alliances linking the larger powers in Europe and the growing power of nationalism in some regions of the world. The Balkan region of southeastern Europe—which had been part of the Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and …

World War I Markers and Memorials

Arkansans began memorializing the state’s World War I troops even before the war ended, and many monuments can still be found across the state honoring the Great War’s dead. The first memorial in Arkansas, honoring the first three U.S. servicemen to die in the war, was dedicated on November 3, 1917, in Van Buren (Crawford County), but it was not until after the war that larger-scale efforts to remember Arkansas’s World War I veterans began. Some of the state’s memorials reflected a larger debate among progressives in the United States, who urged construction of “living memorials” as opposed to statuary—a reaction to the ubiquitous statues around the country honoring Civil War soldiers. In Little Rock (Pulaski County), this advice was …

World War II

During World War II, Arkansas underwent fundamental social and economic changes that affected all parts of the state. From the creation of ordnance plants to the presence of prisoners of war (POWs) and Japanese-American internees, the impact of the war meant that the Arkansas of 1945 was vastly different from the Arkansas of 1941. In some ways, this reflected issues particular to Arkansas, while in other ways it reflected the profound changes that the United States as a whole underwent during the war. Along with the lingering effects of the Great Depression, the transformations that were brought about by World War II were to form a clear break between prewar and postwar Arkansas. Industrialization, urbanization, and migration all dramatically transformed …