Old State House Museum, Little Rock

The Old State House Museum occupies the former State House for Arkansas.  The use of an historical building (as opposed to the new, modern buildings created for other state history museums, such as North Carolina's and Oklahoma's) offers some advantages.  To begin with, the site is beautiful.  Visitors can admire the historical building itself, rather than relying on pictures or models.  There is also a certain privilege involved in sitting in and occupying the rooms where history happened.   Of course, there are some trade-offs.  Rooms have to be re-imagined from their original purpose to accommodate displays and lines of visitor traffic.  Rather than the stunning, open great room that newer museums have as an entrance, the Arkansas History Museum has a hallway followed by the admission desk.

Once inside, the museum has the more intimate feeling that one would expect from a well-used historical building.  Exhibits spread across several rooms explore the history of the State House itself, and the dedicated women who protected and preserved it.  At one point, the building housed a medical school, and artifacts and photographs highlight the use of the building and the state of medicine during its use in that capacity. Another room features memorabilia from Bill Clinton's years as governor and from his campaign for the presidency. Visitors can also view--and sit in--the room used by state legislatures in earlier years.

The museum also explores the state's ambiguous reputation.  A permanent exhibit titled "Arkansas/Arkinsaw: A State and its Reputation" takes an interesting look, as their website notes, at  "the early development of a dual image, with Arkansawyers being portrayed as coarse, illiterate, and violent backwoodsmen on one hand, while also lifted up as noble frontiersmen – independent, honest, and humble."  Cartoons, quotations, and artifacts--such as Grandpa Jones' banjo--explore, explain, and question the image of the Ozark Hillbilly.  I found this the most interesting part of the museum, since it looked at this material with a sense of humor even as it considered the perhaps more serious implications of the hillbilly stereotype.

Information from museum website:

Admission is FREE
Open 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Monday-Saturday; 1:00 to 5:00 p.m. on Sunday;
Closed Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas, & New Years Day

Location & Directions
The museum is located at 300 W. Markham, situated between the DoubleTree and Peabody Hotels.