Research Guides: ARHS 4973: Planes, Trains, and Automobiles: Special Collections

How to find images in Special Collections

Several resources available in special collections can yield images suitable for research and publication.

Photograph Collection
Digital collections
Manuscript Sources
Unpublished research projects such as theses and the Mary Parler Folklore class reports
Broadsides
Rare books and lithograph collections
Journals, monographs, and reference works
University publications such as the Razorback yearbooks and The Arkansas Traveler newspapers.

Travel, Commerce, Myth, and Preservation: Images of Arkansas Rivers

The Big Picture in the Ozarks (ArkColl F417.09 B5 v.1 no. 27)
Neil Compton's wife, Laurene at the Ponea Low Water Bridge on the Buffalo River, April 1965 (MC1091,
Dams on Arkansas Rivers as pictured in the WPA Arkansas Guidebook (F411 W8)
Scenes of Personal and Commercial Fishing in Arkansas from the WPA Arkansas Guidebook
Looking Northwest toward Helena and the Mississippi River, 1863, from the Thomas E. Tappan Scrapboo
Neil Compton and friend during his first trip on the Buffalo River at age eighteen (MC1091, Box25, F
Caption reads: "Second day out. Dr. Neil Compton as a lad--standing in boat, making a float on Buffalo River in the Ozarks, about 18 years of age."
Construction on the White River as pictured in the Otto Ernest Rayburn Papers (MS19, 13, loc101, no7
Scene of visitors at Petit Jean State Park as Pictured in the Otto Ernest Rayburn Papers (MS19, 13,
Birth of a Painting," showing "Thomas Benton Sketching on the Buffalo River..."
Included in Enchanted Ozarks by Otto Ernest Rayburn.
A Washed Out Gravel Road Pictured in the Otto Ernest Rayburn Papers (MSR19 13 loc101 No 3)
"Where I First Saw Arkansas," an engraving in Strange Scenes of the Ozarks by M.E. Oliver.
"Who Owns the Mississippi," a poem shown on broadside B2-420.
White River bridge, Rogers, Arkansas, ca. 1920, from the William Simeon Campbell Papers (MC 1427, Bo
"Sunk Lands Looking North from Deep Landing," plate E in Second Report of Geological Reconnoisance
The 1860 book is included in the Arkansas Collection and came from the collection of Mary Hudgins.
Clipping about Red River Log Jam from the Thomas E. Tappan Collection (MC 416)
Arkansas River near Pendleton during 1927 Flood, from Joe T. Robinson Papers (MSR563-18, B431, F6, P
Carroll County Baptizing, c1910 (PC3836)

Here is a selection of images of Arkansas rivers from resources available in special collections. The rivers depicted include the Mississippi, Arkansas, White, Buffalo, and Red. The images are taken from postcards, fine art, personal photographs, journals, and scholarly studies.

Special Collections at the University of Arkansas

Library Special Collections include items that are rare or unique, relevant to specific research areas, and made available with an interest in preserving and protecting the materials. Here at the University of Arkansas Libraries that includes:

Manuscript Collections
This is the web page to listing collections in Special Collections.
Arkansas Collection
This page describes the comprehensive collection of Arkansas-related printed materials available in Special Collections.

Index Arkansas This link opens in a new window
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Covers: dates of coverage vary by title. Indexes periodical and newspaper articles and book chapters on Arkansas topics. In some cases, journals are indexed back to the first date of issue through current.

University Archives
This page describes the mission and holdings of the University Archives, the repository for non-current official materials of enduring value that document the institutional memory of the University of Arkansas Fayetteville campus.
Vertical File
This is an alphabetical listing of the vertical file at Special Collections which provides ephemeral materials such as news clippings and articles that support the Arkansas and Manuscript collections.

River Images in Special Collections

Library special collections offers numerous sources of historic and contemporary images including photographic collections, photographs included in manuscript collections, rare books, published items in the Arkansas Collection, broadsides, and maps.

The resources listed below are just a few places to begin for studying the relationship between rivers, navigation, and visual culture in Arkansas.

The valley of the Mississippi illustrated in a series of views.
Reproduction of the serial edited by Lewis Foulk Thomas. Painted and lithographed by J. C. Wild. Accompanied with historical descriptions. First from 1841-1842.
Enchanted Ozarks and other writings by Otto Ernest Rayburn
Rayburn was a prolific collector and promoter of Ozark history and culture. His published and unpublished reference guides include numerous images. Volume 1 of Enchanted Ozarks includes a biography of Thomas Hart Benton and images of Benton visiting the Ozarks.
The navigator, containing directions for navigating the Monongahela, Allegheny, Ohio and Mississippi Rivers....
The Navigator was an essential guide book for explorers and settlers navigating the rivers of the Mississippi Valley in the first decades of the 19th century.
MC 416: Thomas E. Tappan, Jr, Steamboat Collection
Photographs and scrapbooks documenting the history of steamboats on the Mississippi River, 1811- 1930. Includes indexes and material related to travel and commerce along the Red, Arkansas, and White Rivers.
MC 1091: Neil Compton Personal and Professional Papers, 1912-1998
Includes variety of materials related to Dr. Compton's decades-long work as an environmental activist, including co-founding the Ozark Society and his work to preserve the Buffalo River.
Arkansas: a guide to the state.
The original published guidebook compiled by the Federal Writers Project of the Works Projects Administration (WPA). It includes several photographs taken by WPA artists such as Arthur Rothstein.
MC 1427: William Simeon Campbell Photograph Albums and Papers, 1896-1960
The collection includes eighteen photograph and scrapbook albums along with a limited amount of loose photographs, correspondence, family history notes, memorial books for W. S. and Blanche Dora Campbell, depicting family life, school and community activities, buildings and landscapes, and automobile trips. There are many pictures of the University of Arkansas.