Circuit Chautauqua
Circuit Chautauqua

Author: John E. Tapia

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 1997-01-01

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13: 9780786402137

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In the late 19th century the chautauqua movement became a popular form of adult education and entertainment in the United States. With noted lyceum speakers (such as Teddy Roosevelt and William Jennings Bryan) and local talent, the movement spread throughout the country and was particularly popular in the rural areas of the Midwest. An overview of the lyceum and of adult education in 19th century America is followed by an examination of the rise of the circuit chautauqua. Its popularity during the 1920s is detailed as is its demise, brought on by the Great Depression and the rise of the film industry.

The Chautauqua Moment
The Chautauqua Moment

Author: Andrew Chamberlin Rieser

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 417

ISBN-13: 0231126425

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More than a college or a summer resort or a religious assembly, the Chautauqua movement was a composite of all of these, and for five decades after it began in 1874, Chautauqua dominated adult education and reached millions with its summer assemblies, reading clubs, and traveling circuits. This critical study weaves the threads of Chautauqua into a single story and places it at the vital center of fin de siecle cultural and political history.

The Tight Booking of an Era
The Tight Booking of an Era

Author: Christopher J. Staggs

Publisher:

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 158

ISBN-13:

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The term 'Chautauqua' is prevalent across much of rural America, but many Americans are oblivious as to its origin. It originated in upstate New York, and circuit Chautauquas were very popular in rural areas; the movement was at its peak between 1907 and 1922. Typically, it was a multi-day civic celebration that introduced reasoned debate, current events, light entertainment, and legitimate theatre to smaller, rural communities that had previously had little exposure to any of these presentations. During this time, there were few communities in rural areas that did not have some sort of Chautauqua presence.The movement had vanished by 1933, and is commonly overlooked in theatre history texts. This thesis reviews the content and nature of the circuit Chautauqua movement. It explores how the movement emerged from the lyceums, county fairs, and travelling theater of the late 19th century. It examines how this movement evolved along with rural America during a time of great change, combined with improvements in education and infrastructure to improve the quality of rural life, and planted the seeds for the Little Theatre Movement. It explores how the movement was ultimately undone by an unprecedented convergence of developments in radio and film technology, sociological shifts, and economic events. The circuit Chautauqua played an integral role in the acceptance of the arts in rural America, and its importance in the development of an American theatre culture has been overshadowed by its brief existence, its often trivial content, and its rapid downfall due to once-in-a-generation societal development.

The Chautauqua Movement
The Chautauqua Movement

Author: Joseph Edward Gould

Publisher: SUNY Press

Published: 1961-01-01

Total Pages: 144

ISBN-13: 9780873950039

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From its inception in 1874 down to the close of World War I, the widespread popularity of the Chautauqua movement constituted one of the most dramatic episodes in the history of American adult education. Started by two Ohio men as a summer camp or assembly to train Sunday school teachers in pleasant surroundings on Lake Chautauqua in Western New York, the project grew to university proportions on its home grounds and during the height of its influence reached out to over 8,000 communities, which participated by means of correspondence courses, lecture-study groups, and reading circles. Providing a free platform for the discussion of vital issues and a means of bringing good music to people who previously had had no way of hearing it, Chautauqua was a major factor in the "great change" which brought to the Middle West the cultural standards of the Eastern seaboard. In so doing, it pioneered in introducing into American life many new concepts and ideas, including university extension courses, summer sessions, a university press, civic opera associations, and group activities such as the Boy Scouts, the Camp Fire Girls, and similar youth movements. The influence of Chautauqua upon the pattern of higher education in the United States was also great, due mainly to the action of William Rainey Harper--one of Chautauqua's leading personalities--in practically duplicating Chautauqua's organizational structure at the then new University of Chicago when he was chosen by John D. Rockefeller to head that institution. In this connection Dr. Gould has had access to the uncatalogued papers of Dr. Harper in the Archives of the University of Chicago. The net result is a book of value to the serious student of American education as well as to the casual reader whose knowledge of Chautauqua may have been confined hitherto to the relatively unimportant "tent show" era of the movement.

Music in the Chautauqua Movement
Music in the Chautauqua Movement

Author: Paige Lush

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2013-07-30

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 1476606196

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The chautauqua movement was a truly American phenomenon, providing education and entertainment for millions of people and employing thousands of musicians in the process. While scholars have previously explored various facets of the chautauqua movement, this is the first book to trace the place of music in the movement from its inception through its decline. Drawing upon the rich collections of ephemera left by several chautauqua bureaus, this study profiles several famous musicians and introduces the reader to lesser-known musical acts that traveled the chautauqua circuits. In addition, it explores music's role in defining the chautauqua movement as "high culture," legitimizing the movement in the eyes of community leaders and setting it apart from vaudeville and other competing amusements. Finally, it addresses music's role in establishing chautauqua's identity as an American institution, specifically in the years surrounding World War I.

The Most American Thing in America
The Most American Thing in America

Author: Charlotte Canning

Publisher: University of Iowa Press

Published: 2005-09

Total Pages: 287

ISBN-13: 158729592X

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Winner of the 2006 Barnard Hewitt Award for Excellence in Theatre History Between 1904 and the Great Depression, Circuit Chautauquas toured the rural United States, reflecting and reinforcing its citizens’ ideas, attitudes, and politics every summer through music (the Jubilee Singers, an African American group, were not always welcome in a time when millions of Americans belonged to the KKK), lectures (“Civic Revivalist” Charles Zueblin speaking on “Militancy and Morals”), elocutionary readers (Lucille Adams reading from Little Lord Fauntleroy), dramas (the Ben Greet Players’ cleaned-up version of She Stoops to Conquer), orations (William Jennings Bryan speaking about the dangers of greed), and special programs for children (parades and mock weddings). Theatre historians have largely ignored Circuit Chautauquas since they did not meet the conventional conditions of theatrical performance: they were not urban; they produced no innovative performance techniques, stage material, design effects, or dramatic literature. In this beautifully written and illustrated book, Charlotte Canning establishes an analytical framework to reveal the Circuit Chautauquas as unique performances that both created and unified small-town America. One of the last strongholds of the American traditions of rhetoric and oratory, the Circuits created complex intersections of community, American democracy, and performance. Canning does not celebrate the Circuit Chautauquas wholeheartedly, nor does she describe them with the same cynicism offered by Sinclair Lewis. She acknowledges their goals of community support, informed public thinking, and popular education but also focuses on the reactionary and regressive ideals they sometimes embraced. In the true interdisciplinary spirit of Circuit Chautauquas, she reveals the Circuit platforms as places where Americans performed what it meant to be American.