page_title: History of Arkansas
section_title: Growth and industrialization
hierarchical_section_title: History of Arkansas / Growth and industrialization
caption_attribution_description: Augustus Hill Garland. Library of Congress description: "Garland, Hon. A.H. Attny General"
context_page_description: The history of Arkansas began millennia ago when humans first crossed into North America. Many tribes used Arkansas as their hunting lands but the main tribe was the Quapaw, who settled in the Arkansas delta upon moving south from Illinois. Early French explorers gave the territory its name, a corruption of Akansea, which is a phonetic spelling of the Illinois word for the Quapaw. This phonetic heritage explains why "Arkansas" is pronounced so differently than "Kansas" even though they share the same spelling. What began as a rough wilderness inhabited by trappers and hunters became incorporated into the United States as part of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 and became the Territory of Arkansaw in 1819. Upon gaining statehood in 1836, Arkansas had begun to prosper under a plantation economy that was heavily reliant on slave labor. After the American Civil War, Arkansas was a poor rural state based on cotton. Prosperity returned in the 1940s and it became famous for its political leadership, including President Bill Clinton, and as the base for the Walmart Corporation.
context_section_description: When Congress voted to approve Augustus Garland as governor a year after a corrupt 1874 election, Arkansas and other Southern states began to envision a revolution in which the old Confederate states could update their economies using Northern capital and industry to replace plantation agriculture. Contemporary Arkansans also believed cultural and social change could come with this transition. Although changes did take place, the state suffered from agrarian revolt, segregation, public corruption, resistance to change and disfranchisement instead of benefiting from a new diversified economy.
  The "New South" progressive ideals were especially evident in the era's business leaders such as Lee Wilson and Henry Grady. Wilson became one of the most influential Arkansans of his time by exploiting the land, labor and resources available to him. His company towns in northeast Arkansas such as Wilson and Marie attracted poor sharecroppers to his logging and farming operations. Amenities such as company housing, a town doctor, and other company-funded businesses not normally found in small towns drove his empire to grow to be the "World's Largest Plantation". After Wilson's son, Wilson Jr., and his wife returned from their England honeymoon enthralled with the Tudor style in 1925, all subsequent public buildings were built with Tudor architecture, including retrofits to all existing public structures. The town incorporated in 1959, selling the houses to the renters living in them and gaining access to tax income it was previously excluded from as a company entity. As technology advanced on the farm, fewer employees were needed and many moved from Wilson to seek other employment.
  The growth in industrial jobs in the Northeast and Midwest attracted many blacks from the South in the first half of the 20th century. Their migration out of the South was a reach toward a better quality of life where they could vote and live more fully as citizens. Agricultural changes also meant that farm workers were not needed in as great number. Thousands left Arkansas. During the years of World War II, blacks also migrated to the coastal communities in the Western United States, where good jobs were expanding in defense industries.
caption: Augustus Garland
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