Blake Wintory: “The Unionist Demby Family”

CALS Butler Center for Arkansas Studies Presents LEGACIES & LUNCH

Speaker: Blake Wintory

Using a range of artifacts and documents from the Old State House Collection, the Butler Center, and other institutions, Blake Wintory will provide insight into the lives of James W. Demby and his son Josiah Demby, two Arkansas Unionists during the Civil War. The Dembys are also documented as watchmakers and jewelers in Historic Arkansas Museum’s Arkansas Made project. Attendees will gain insight into the Demby family’s unique experiences and perspectives as Unionists in Arkansas during the Civil War and Reconstruction.

Blake Wintory is the director of museum services for the Division of Arkansas Heritage. Prior to his current position, Wintory served as the director of preservation at the Heritage Foundation of Williamson County, Tennessee, and spent a decade as the director of the Lakeport Plantation house, an Arkansas State University Heritage Site in Chicot County.

Wintory is the author of Chicot County (2015) in Arcadia’s Images of America series and has contributed articles on Arkansas history to the Arkansas Historical Quarterly, Arkansas Review, CALS Encyclopedia of Arkansas, and Biographical Database of Black Women Suffragists. His publications on Arkansas’s nineteenth-century African American legislators have helped document and elevate their important contributions to the state’s history.

Register for Webinar

Legacies & Lunch is a hybrid program—offering participants the opportunity to attend either in person or virtually via Zoom. To participate in person, join us at – NEW LOCATION – UA Little Rock Downtown (333 President Clinton Ave). Parking is available in the surface lot or the CALS Parking Deck which you can access from Rock Street. Parking will be validated. Bring your lunch; we will provide drinks and cookies. To participate virtually, register for the webinar using the button above.

This program will be live-streamed to YouTube and the recording will be available immediately following the event.

Legacies & Lunch is a free monthly program of CALS Butler Center for Arkansas Studies about Arkansas-related topics.

Past Legacies & Lunch Events