1908 Pictures and Poems of Arkansas by Bernie Babcock 1st Edition RARE 70 Photos

Description

Pictures and Poems of Arkansas Volume I. Compiled by Mrs. Bernie Babcock and O.C. Ludwig. With seventy illustrations by Arkansas photographers. Hardcover published in 1908 by Sketch Book Publishing Company of Little Rock, Arkansas. 160 pages. Good condition other than some soiling on front cover - see photos.
Bernie Babcock was an author and museum founder.  Born in April 1868 in Ohio, she moved with her family to Arkansas as a child.  Marrying and starting a family, she also continued to write, which had been a passion since she was younger.  When her husband died, leaving her with five children, she starting writing for money. She published several temperance novels and later wrote for the
Arkansas Democrat
.  She also published a magazine and a poetry anthology.
In 1927, after professional curmudgeon H. L. Mencken wrote derisively of Arkansas, she decided to start a museum. The Museum of Natural History and Antiquities was first located in a Main Street storefront.  In 1929, she “gave the City of Little Rock a Christmas present” by giving the museum to the city.  She was associated with the museum until her retirement in 1953.  She moved to Petit Jean Mountain and wrote and painted. After her death in June 1962, she was buried at Oakland Cemetery.
This is her poem “The Sun-Caressed Prairies of Arkansas” which is found in the 1906 book
Pictures and Poems Of Arkansas
which she co-edited with O. C. Ludwig.
The Sun-Caressed Prairies of Arkansas
From a line on the east
To a line on the west,
Where the green of the field
Meets the blue of the sky,
Stretching boundless and free
As the breast of the sea
The sun-caressed prairies
Of Arkansas lie.
Here acre bounds acre
In rich store of treasure;
Here the grain and the grass
In luxuriance vie;
Here the billowing rice,
For man’s toil pays the price
Where the sun-caressed prairies
Of Arkansas lie.
The Arkansas Museum of History and Antiquities is the original name of the
M
useum of Discovery in Little Rock, Arkansas. The museum was founded on Main Street in 1927 by Julia Burnell (Bernie) Babcock. The original artifacts were donated by missionaries. One of the most popular artifacts on display was the so-called "Head of a Chicago Criminal."
The
C
ity of Little Rock acquired the natural history museum at Christmastime in 1929. The City moved the museum to the
T
ower Building of the
L
ittle Rock arsenal in 1942. In 1964 the museum became the Museum of Science and Natural History. The name changed again in 1983 to the Arkansas Museum of Science and History In 1998 the museum officially became the Museum of Discovery: Arkansas' Museum of Science and History and reopened in its current location in the
R
iver Market District. The new museum cost .6 million.
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