Entries - Entry Category: Media

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 …

The X-Ray was one of Arkansas’s first “underground” newspapers. Circulated in 1912 at the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville (Washington County), the X-Ray was known for criticizing not just the university and its policies but also its faculty. The X-Ray sparked a wave of social change in Fayetteville that affected how the university was run. Ultimately, a group of students was expelled for printing and distributing the X-Ray, triggering a dramatic student protest. In February 1912, thirty-six students attending UA formed a group called the Iconoclasts. On February 24, 1912, they printed and distributed the first issue of the X-Ray. The paper touted itself as the “Paper Without a Muzzle,” and the editors had their names printed plainly below …

Jean Yarbrough was a film and television director and producer who worked on numerous low-budget films, or “B-movies,” mostly for Hollywood’s so-called “Poverty Row” studios beginning in the 1930s. In the 1950s, he transitioned successfully to television, directing many episodes of several popular TV series, including The Addams Family, Death Valley Days, Gunsmoke, The Life of Riley, McHale’s Navy, and Petticoat Junction. Known more for his efficiency than his artistry, he may be best remembered for his directorial work with the Abbott and Costello comedy team on feature films as well as their 1952–1954 television series. Arthur Jean Wilker Yarbrough was born on August 22, 1900, in Marianna (Lee County). He was the only child of William T. Yarbrough and …