Arts + Humanities Arkansas

Arts + Humanities Arkansas The annual Fusion: Arts + Humanities Arkansas educator institute enriches the teaching of our heritage, culture, and human achievement by weaving the arts and humanities together to provide a unique interactive experience. The theme for Fusion 2019 is The Mighty Mississippi: A Mosaic of America’s Growth. The Mississippi River, through centuries of history and up to present day, has played an integral role in shaping our nation’s commerce, agriculture, politics, environment, culture, and much more. The Fusion 2019 educator institute includes a variety of captivating performances, insightful lectures, informative panels, and collaborative discussion. Highlights include an original score, Jazz Journey up the Mighty Mississippi, performed by the Arkansas Symphony Youth Orchestra Jazz Ensemble; a lecture by Dr. Tom Rankin, nationally acclaimed photographer, filmmaker, and folklorist; a performance ofLiterature Inspired by the Mighty Mississippi by the North Little Rock High School Theater Department; a lecture and performance by Grammy-award winner and 2018 Grammy nominee Dr. David Evans; and remarks by numerous subject matter experts. The Fusion 2019 exhibit explores the influence of the Mississippi River on commerce, specifically in the transportation of commodities to market; on the growth of agriculture and its expansion to markets across the globe; on the environment, evidenced by floods, disasters, and other historic markers; and on culture, as captured in popular literature, music, and art. Visitors will take a journey down the Mississippi River as they view dozens of artifacts and ephemera, including first editions of Mark Twain’s novels,The Prince and the Pauper and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, original Normal Rockwell lithographs from Twain’s works, the Epiphone guitar and playing knife of Helena native and famed blues guitar player Cedell Davis, and a scale model of the infamous Sultana side-wheel steamboat, among much more. Timeline of Notable Events on the Mississippi River To talk of the Mississippi River’s discovery is an ethnocentric endeavor. Spanning more than 12,000 years, to Native Americans, the great river called the “Messipi” or “Big River,” was also known as the “mee-zee-see-bee” or “Father of Waters” in the Algonquian language. It was a well-known as a local freeway and was their daily and seasonal highway. They fished, hunted, gathered plants, planted crops, swam, and prayed in or near the river. The contrast between European discovery and Native American familiarity are complete contrasts. 1541 Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto first traveled the river and discovered the junction of the Arkansas with the Mississippi River. French Jesuit missionaries and explorers Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette and 1673 other French Europeans were the first to establish European settlements in the river valley. They founded New Orleans, LA; St. Louis, MO; and several other sites including Arkansas Post. 1682 Frenchman Robert de La Salle reached the mouth of the Mississippi and claimed the entire valley in the name of France. 1716 Fort Rosalie, now Natchez, MS, was established by the French on the Mississippi River. The western portion of the Mississippi Valley was purchased by the United States April 30, 1803 resulting in the largest real estate transaction in human history - The Louisiana Purchase. This opened the Mississippi River for commerce. The first steamboat, the New Orleans, reached its namesake city after a four-month voyage on the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers from Pittsburgh, PA. The golden era of January 1812 steamboats on the Mississippi continued until the 1870s, when railroads surpassed the river as the major commercial transportation mode for the central U.S. Congress passed the Indian Removal Act, which entitled President Andrew Jackson to 1830 negotiate with the eastern Indian nations to effect their removal to tracts of land west of the Mississippi River. July 4, 1863 Following victory in the Battle of Vicksburg, the Union gained control of the Mississippi River, effectively splitting the Confederacy in half. The SS Sultana exploded on the Mississippi River near Memphis, TN. It became April 27, 1865 America’s greatest maritime disaster, killing an estimated 1,800 passengers. Congress established the Mississippi River Commission to develop plans to “improve the condition of the river, foster navigation, promote commerce, and prevent June 28, 1879 destructive floods—perhaps the most difficult and complex engineering problem ever undertaken by the federal government up to that time.” March 1903 The Mississippi River flooded in West Memphis, AR. The Mississippi River flooded again causing the largest flood to ever strike the nation. April 15, 1927 It covered 23,000 square miles, including the eastern third of Arkansas; killed almost 100 people, and left thousands homeless. Late Spring & The largest flood since 1927 struck the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers, the first time in Early Summer 1993 recorded history both rivers flooded at the same time. Some areas were under water for more than 200 days. The Mighty Mississippi: A Mosaic of America’s Growth Selected text and objects from the exhibit. Introduction to the River The Mississippi River has been called “the spine of our nation,” and “the lifeblood of American commerce.” No matter how you measure it – by size, habitat diversity, and biological productivity – the Mighty Mississippi is a major global river system. Measured from its original source at Lake Itasca, Minnesota, it flows approximately 2,330 miles through the center of the continental United States to the Gulf of Mexico, making it the second longest river in North America. With its tributaries, like the Arkansas, Illinois, Missouri, Ohio, and Red Rivers, creating a vascular system that covers forty-one percent of the continental United States, the Mississippi River watershed stretches across the heart of the nation, making it the largest drainage basin in terms of area in North America and the third largest in the Catchment area of the Mississippi River. Courtesy world. of the Archives of Pearson Scott Foresman. From the first settlements built by Native Americans to the major, modern-day cities that sit along its banks, the Mississippi River has been an integral part of the development and expansion of the nation for which it served as the western border until 1803. It is one of the world’s most important commercial waterways, is an important migration route for birds and fishes, marks the division for K and W radio call signs, and was the birthplace of water-skiing. The Mississippi River at Natchez, Mississippi. Picking cotton at Mileston Plantation, Mississippi Delta, Mississippi. Flooded farmland during the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927. Photographed by Marion Wolcott. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration. Sultana Disaster The The Sultana was a Mississippi River side-wheel steamboat. On April 27, 1865, the boat exploded in the worst maritime disaster in United States history. It was designed with a capacity for 376 passengers, but was carrying as many as 2,400 people when three of the boat’s four boilers exploded and it burned to the waterline and sank near Memphis, Tennessee. It is estimated some 1,800 passengers, many of whom were Union soldiers on their way home after the end of the Civil War, died. That’s more lives lost than when Painting of the Sultana steamboat consumed by fire in the Mississippi River. the Titanic sank. This disaster was overshadowed in Courtesy of the Sultana Disaster Museum. the press by other events surrounding the end of the American Civil War, most particularly the killing of President Lincoln’s assassin John Wilkes Booth. The wooden steamboat was constructed in 1863 by the John Litherbury Boatyard in Cincinnati, Ohio, intended for the lower Mississippi cotton trade. The steamer registered 1,719 tons and normally carried a crew of 85. For two years, it ran a consistent route between St. Louis, Missouri, and New Orleans, Louisiana, frequently commissioned to carry troops. Scale model of the Sultana steamboat. Courtesy of the Sultana Disaster Museum. Mark Twain No other artist is more unforgettably associated with the Mississippi River than Mark Twain. Born Samuel Clemens in Hannibal, Missouri, Twain grew up along the river, which is practically a character in his classic novels The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Clemens first signed his writing with the pseudonym in February 1863, as a newspaper reporter in Nevada. “Mark Twain” (meaning “Mark number two”) was a Mississippi River steamboat term: the second mark on the line that measured depth signifying two fathoms, or twelve feet, a safe depth for steamboat travel. In 1857, at the age of twenty-one, he became a “cub” steamboat pilot. The Civil War ended that career four years later by halting all river traffic. Although Clemens never again lived in the Mississippi valley, he returned to the river in his writing throughout his life. He visited a number of times, most notably in 1882 as he prepared to write Life on the Mississippi, his fullest and most autobiographical account of the region and its inhabitants, and again in 1902 when he made his final visit to the scenes of his childhood. Lithograph illustration of The Duke and Mark Twain sitting in a rocking chair. Mark Twain with an unidentified man. Courtesy of the Mark Twain the King with Huck and Jim on the Raft. By Courtesy of the Mark Twain Boyhood Home and Museum. Boyhood Home and Museum Norman Rockwell. Courtesy of the Mark Twain Boyhood Home and Museum. SUGGESTIONS FOR CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES Grades 5 - 8 Based upon Mark Twain’s book, Tom Sawyer 1. After students have read the book, have the students create a new book cover for Tom Sawyer. Pick a favorite scene or the scene that best represents what the book is about and create a picture of that scene.

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