Let’s talk about Chautauqua circuits - a brief history
Birdie, the protagonist in my debut novel, Whistling Women and Crowing Hens, joins a Chautauqua circuit to escape her overbearing sister.
Have you heard of Chautauqua or Chautauqua circuits?
I had never heard of Chautauqua before I opened my grandma’s box of keepsakes. (more on this in a later blog) As I held the brochure, its pages golden and thin with time, I had no idea how this program would change my life. When I opened the fragile pages I saw sepia photos and descriptions of lecturers, musicians, and actors in an elaborate theater production. It was one small oval photo that stood out to me—my grandmother, Verna Kurtz! Her hair was a Grecian bun at the base of her neck, her skin smooth and youthful, holding a trombone. Neither she nor my mom had ever mentioned this part of her life to me. With both sweet ladies gone, I had to find out more on my own. This simple program launched me down a research rabbit hole that grew into my novel. I hope you’ll indulge my history lesson in this blog. I want to share what I learned because I find it so interesting and it has indirectly affected all of us!
The Chautauqua Movement, an American phenomenon at the turn of the 20th century, began as a Sunday school teacher’s camp in upstate New York in 1874. Loosely translated from the Haudenosaunee indigenous people language, “chautauqua” meant “two moccasins tied together” which some say describe the shape of the nearby Lake Chautauqua. American history has appropriated the word Chautauqua to be defined as “any of various traveling shows and local assemblies that flourished in the U.S. in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, that provided popular education combined with entertainment in the form of lectures, concerts, and plays.”
“Mother Chautauqua,” The Chautauqua Institute, is still thriving today as an educational and recreational lakeside destination in upstate New York.(I visited there for research—another blog for another day!) President Teddy Roosevelt, who is one of four Presidents to visit the Institute, has been quoted saying that Chautauqua was “the most American thing in America.” Because of the popularity of the institute at Lake Chautauqua, several towns adopted their own independent autonomous sessions, known as “daughter Chautauquas,” often sharing the same lecturers and musical acts.
However, it was the traveling Chautauqua circuits that brought the arts, educational lectures, and cultural enrichment to small-towns all over North America. Chautauqua circuits, a network of these touring cultural events, were held in tents in rural communities all over America at the turn of the 20th century. These traveling Chautauquas were started by lyceum’s or universities or even enterprising businessmen. Their purpose was to stimulate thought and discussion on significant political, social, and cultural issues of the day. Any town could host a Chautauqua circuit, as long as the community leaders ensured the required number of season ticket sales. Circuits were a win-win for educating rural America—the circuits provided the tents, chairs, stage, talent, lecturers, and the town provided the ticket sales and people. And educate they did—in 1924, considered the circuits’ peak, there were over 1000 circuits in at least 10,000 towns providing culture to as many as 40 million people!
Media publications of the era considered circuit Chautauquas America’s “fourth great institution” in line with the trinity of “the Home, the Family and the Church.” Chautauqua upheld the Victorian morals that many communities clung to during a time where urbanization was threatening traditional values. Circuit Chautauqua’s highbrow entertainment and lectures are referred to as the forerunner to TED talks of today. They also influenced modern journalism, radio, television, and podcasts.
From around 1910 to 1930, circuit Chautauqua’s tents were set-up in tranquil areas – by a river, park or among trees and all daily activities were stopped so the townspeople could dedicate a week of their life to learn, be entertained, and connect with their families and communities. With the invention of the radio, the effects from the Great Depression, and how people’s interests changed, the Chautauqua circuits ran their course by the late 1930’s.
The fact that Chautauqua circuits influenced millions of people yet is a little known part of our American history still fascinates me. I hope you found it entertaining as well. I’m sure there are many more bits of history that are waiting to be re-discovered, researched, and written into an essay, short story or novel!
Is there some family lore, or story, or fact that you’ve heard? I challenge you to start researching it—who knows what could happen!
Stay curious!
~Melora Fern
If you want to get lost down your own Chautauqua rabbit hole – here’s a start to great links for further reading:
University of Iowa’s Travelling Culture: Circuit Chautauqua in the Twentieth Century
Library of Congress American Memory Project
Note: Program and photos are from my private collection
