A Splendid Piece of Work author finds ‘amazing story’ at end of long journey

July 1, 2014

Fast Facts:

Elizabeth Hill is the author of A Splendid Piece of Work: One Hundred Years of Arkansas’s Home Demonstration and Extension Homemakers Clubs
She will be speaking at Legacies & Lunch event, Wednesday, July 2, at noon at 100 Rock Street, Little Rock

(435 words)

LITTLE ROCK – Sifting through 11,000 digital images, driving hundreds of miles in pilgrimages to the National Archives at Fort Worth, Texas, and months spent poring through documents in a darkened room helped author Elizabeth Hill unfold a story of Arkansas’ unsung heroines.

“Although the documents were old, difficult-to-read carbon copies, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing,” Hill said. “It was the history of Arkansas’s rural women – and it was nothing less than amazing.“

Hill, who worked at the University of Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service editing intern from January 2007-December 2008, has brought that amazing story to life in her book A Splendid Piece of Work: One Hundred Years of Arkansas’s Home Demonstration and Extension Homemakers Clubs.

Hill’s work will be presented twice this month. Once on July 2 at the Central Arkansas Library Systems’ Main Library at 100 Rock Street, as part of the Legacies & Lunch event, sponsored by the Arkansas Humanities Council. Copies of her book will be for sale and Hill will sign books after her talk.

Legacies & Lunch is the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies’ monthly lecture series, held on the first Wednesday of each month. Attendees are invited to bring a sack lunch. Drinks and dessert are provided.

On Friday, July 11 from 5– 8 p.m., excerpts of her book will be exhibited at the Butler Center Galleries, 401 President Clinton Ave. This is part of the Second Friday Art Night.

Admissions to both events are free to the public. To learn more, visit www.butlercenter.org or call (501) 918-3033.

The Arkansas Extension Homemakers Club is a volunteer organization in partnership with the Cooperative Extension Service of University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture. It works by providing aids to people in need through community service works, education on health and money management, donations, and leadership development.

Arkansas Home Demonstration Clubs started in 1912. Two years before its centennial, Hill volunteered to write the legacy that rural Arkansas women have done for the organization. This was part of her thesis while she was attending a graduate program at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.

Hill did a great job on her book due to “the fact that she has documented so much of the history and she has brought out the true leadership of this organization early on,” said Betty Oliver, the AEHC volunteer coordinator.

Some of the highlights of the legacies of the AEHC, covered in Hill’s book, include the aid it provided for residents of Arkansas Children’s Home and Hospital during the Great Depression and the victims of the flood of 1927.

To learn more about the Arkansas Extension Homemakers Council, visit http://www.uaex.uada.edu/life-skills-wellness/extension-homemakers/default.aspx or contact your county extension office.

The Cooperative Extension Service is part of the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture and offers its programs to all eligible persons regardless of race, color, national origin, religion, gender, age, disability, marital or veteran status, or any other legally protected status, and is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer.

By Kezia Nanda
For the Cooperative Extension Service
University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture

Media Contact: Mary Hightower
Dir. of Communication Services
U of A Division of Agriculture
Cooperative Extension Service
(501) 671-2126
mhightower@uada.edu

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