A World Writ Small

Spenser Polk family & house
Arkansas History Commission

Women played a prominent role in generating the folk life of their communities, creating lovely works of art and contributing substantially to the song and storytelling tradition. In frontier and isolated outposts throughout Arkansas, women took on the role of healer, and using instructional books to guide them, they turned to local herbs to concoct remedies for a variety of ailments. Thus through methods homespun and dramatic, early Arkansans families and households responded to the ills and accidents of a physically rough life. This folk world of women was a world writ small, centered on family and community, based on routines, on order formed from repeated cycles.

Scott & Gilbert family musicians
Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries, Fayetteville

It was handed down in a three generation cycle of grandmothers, mothers, and daughters. The activities assigned by traditional culture largely to women - cooking and sewing - are at the very center of sustenance. Food and clothing sustain the body's life. The singing and storytelling activities in which women have also played a prominent role nourish the family and community in a different way. They sustain the spirit's life.

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