ASMS Student Collections of Primary Documents of Arkansas History

The Arkansas Memory Project is a student-produced archive of Arkansas History research and teaching materials. Begun in the summer of 1998, it was modeled after the American Memory Collection of the Library of Congress. It is a collection of official documents, publications, maps, letters, narratives, recordings, photographs, art, and other artifacts from Arkansas. The project includes a lesson plan for teachers explaining the process, and many of the collections feature lesson plans as well.

The students' job is to find and archive primary document(s) that capture family, local, or state history and then show the interplay between Arkansas and American history and personal experience. They are allowed to focus on:

• Family History
  
• Hometown History
  
• Arkansas "foxfire" (traditional art, customs, and celebrations of your community)
  
• Arkansas documents in existing archives
  
• Original documentaries
  

The students must be able to answer the following questions as well:

1. Is it interesting--to you, to other students, to other historians?
   
2. Is it significant--does it capture key events or important trends or central themes?
   
3. Is it useful--to students and teachers studying Arkansas/American history?
   
4. Is it analyzed--is your commentary insightful and accurate and supported?