Entries - Entry Category: Recreational Organizations - Starting with A

The Aesthetic Club is one of the oldest women’s clubs west of the Mississippi River. It began when a group of young women wishing to start a reading club organized on January 16, 1883, in Little Rock (Pulaski County). Aesthetic Club founders Cynthia Polk, Sallie Martin, Ida Martin, Fannie Jabine, Jane Georgine Woodruff, Mary Knapp, Gertrude Hempstead, Harriet Jabine, and Virginia Hamilton immediately expanded their objectives “to present programs of a literary, artistic, musical, and timely trend” in order to “assist in educational uplift, and to bring its members together for social enjoyment.” The name, proposed by Knapp, was borrowed from the Aesthetic Movement, which was “emulous of cultivating ‘the beautiful’ in all things.” Inspired by Oscar Wilde’s comments on …

The Arkansas State Society, United States Daughters of 1812 (often abbreviated as USD 1812) is affiliated with the National Society, United States Daughters of 1812. It is a non-profit, non-political women’s service organization for descendants of patriots who aided the American cause during the War of 1812. The national organization was founded on January 8, 1892, marking the seventy-seventh anniversary of the Battle of New Orleans, which began on January 8, 1815. The American victory in the clash at New Orleans was the last major battle of the War of 1812. With a motto of “Liberty, Fraternity, and Unity,” the National Society USD 1812 is headquartered in Washington DC. In the organization’s forty-three state societies, there are more than 6,000 …

The Arkansas Unit of The Herb Society of America (AU-HSA), founded in Little Rock (Pulaski County) in 1966, has approximately forty members spread from the Little Rock area throughout the state. Its logo incorporates a cotton boll, symbolizing the regional historic importance of this herbal plant. AU-HSA is dedicated to promoting the knowledge, use, and delight of herbs through educational programs, research, and sharing the experience of its members with the community, and it lives up to this mission partly through its three gardens. The Territorial Medicinal Garden at the Historic Arkansas Museum features plants used in Arkansas’s territorial days, such as boneset, ground ivy, garlic, native senna, pokeweed, and selfheal, as researched by Mary Worthen. The Garden of Exploration …