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Chautauqua: A Chronology On February 13th and 14th, you will have the opportunity to go back in time and visit America during one of America’s most traumatic times–the Civil War. General William Tecumseh Sheridan and Harriet Beecher Stowe will visit Enid during Winter Chautauqua’s "Love and War" celebration. Later in the year, June 1st through 5th, the City of Enid will remake itself in the image of Route 66 during its heyday as we celebrate "Chautauqua in the Park 2004," the 10th Anniversary of the rebirth of Chautauqua in Enid.. To help you understand this unique cultural and historical phenomenon, the Enid News and Eagle is running a five-part series to explain the history of Chautauqua and its rebirth in modern times. The traveling Chautauqua tent shows grew out of the efforts of one man, Keith Vawter, an owner of the Red Path Lyceum, who wanted to deliver quality lectures and entertainment to rural America. His created traveling tent shows that would move from town to town and named these shows "Chautauquas." They were modeled them after the Chautauqua institution in Southwestern New York State, which was an intellectual community with summer-long lectures, seminars, and workshops. Vawter started Chautauqua in 1904 and the tent shows rapidly spread across the country. For some thirty years, Chautauqua tent shows provided entertainment and education to small town America. Until their demise in 1932, Chautauquan Festivals were an integral part of small town Americana. |
| These tent chautauquas provided diverse cultural and historical entertainment by politicians, writers, and theologians and drew distinguished speakers and entertainers such as President Warren G. Harding, the young Edgar Bergen with his puppet Charlie McCarthy, Carl Sandburg, historian Ida Tarbell, aviatrix Lady Mary Heath, explorer Carveth Wells, and others too numerous to mention. From their inception, the tent chautauquas fed the appetite of small towns for lectures, musicals, and theater. For those who would rather listen then read, it was a way to keep up with the times. Star performers like Booker T. Washington virtually guaranteed packed houses. Then, as now, a tent chautauqua stayed in a community from five to seven days and offered a variety of cultural events morning, afternoon and evening. It then moved on to another community, where the process was repeated. By scheduling performances in surrounding communities, promoters were able to attract highly paid talent. Most shows were held in an oval tent ninety feet wide and 130 feet long which accommodated up to 1,000 people. Nowadays, the performers are individuals who have immersed themselves in the backgrounds and personalities of the famous personages they represent. They appear both in and out of character to give us a flavor of what it was like during the times in which their characters lived. Through this medium, we have been able to visit with and hear the thoughts and opinions of such distinguished Americans as Eleanor Roosevelt, Will Rogers, William Faulkner, H. L. Mencken and Theodore Roosevelt, to name just a few. In the next installment, we’ll discuss the growth of Chautauqua in Oklahoma and points west. |
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