The Most American Thing in America: Circuit Chautauqua as Performance

Introduction: Remembering the Platform

MarianCastle,reflectingbackonherexperiences asabookingagentandsuperintendentforCircuit Chautauqua during the 1920s, predicted in 1932: “But who can say that some future historian may not write: ‘The circuit Chautauquas, which flourishedfrom1904to1930 ,shouldberankedasone of the most significant indications of an awakeningAmericanculture ?’”1Chautauquawas“culture ” for Castle because it addressed how people understood their lives and what they wanted to make of that understanding. As one very poor community’s committee said to her when she abashedly had to ask it to make up the ticket sales deficit, “Bring out the new contract, Miss Superintendent. . . . Even though we may not eat very rich fare this year, we got to keep on with the Chautauquasowe’llhavesomethingnicetothink about, anyhow.”2 For that particular committee, and many others, Chautauqua was a place where American culture was made and remade. Those rural citizens could see their ideas, attitudes, and politics reflected back to them every summer on the Chautauqua platform, and that experience spoketothemforcefully.Forroughlythirtyyears, during the span of time Castle mentions, Circuit ChautauquatouredtheUnitedStates,performing almost solely in the nation’s rural precincts. It promised to inspire cultural, community, and individualimprovementthroughperformancesof various kinds. In the span of three days to a week, audiences could expect musical groups, lectures, elocutionary readers, special programming for introduction Remembering the Platform children, and leisurely socializing with other members of the community. In order to write the history of such performances, it is important to explain why that history needs to be written in the first place. Castle assumed that such a significant institution, which performed annuallytohundredsof thousands,perhapsevenmillionsof peopleandwhoseefficacywasproclaimedinnationalandeveninternationalperiodicals ,wouldnever be forgotten. In fact, quite to the contrary, the entire perspective of her article assumes she is writing for a posterity curious about a much discussed and revered past. She does not doubt that there will be continuing nostalgia for Chautauqua days gone by. All of those who share their Circuit Chautauqua memories with her have the same feelings of loss she does, as well as the sense thattheyparticipatedinsomethingof lastinghistoricalsignificance.Intheconclusion she admits that despite her own initial skepticism about Chautauqua, shecametorealizethat“thoseof uswhohavereallylivedandworkedunderthe big brown tents can never quite forget.”3 That nothing so defining, so affecting , could ever slip out of national memory was the consensus of those who had engaged with Circuit Chautauqua in one way or another. Seventy-two years after Castle wrote her article, in 2004, one is hard-pressed to find significant numbers of people who have ever heard of Circuit Chautauqua. The population of those who experienced the Circuits firsthand is vanishing, and it does not seem to have entered into the American mythos. Memoriesof Chautauquapresentthemselvesinunexpectedways.WhenIwould answer the question, “What are you working on?” the second most common response (after “What’s that?”) was: “Oh, right, from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.” Robert M. Pirsig’s 1974 book, the meditative account of a man’s journey across the United States by motorcycle with his son, casts itself asa“sortof Chautauqua.”Pirsigbelievesittobethebestevocationhecanimagine for something that deliberates matters of great import. “What is in mind is a sort of Chautauqua—that’s the only name I can think of for it—like the traveling tent-show Chautauquas that used to move across America, this America, theonethatwearenowin,inanold-timeseriesof populartalksintendedtoedify andentertain,improvethemindandbringcultureandenlightenmenttotheears andthoughtsof thehearer.TheChautauquaswerepushedasidebyfaster-paced radio,movies,andTV,anditseemstomethatthechangewasnotnecessarilyan improvement.”4 This romanticized view that something irreplaceable has been lost is probably what Castle expected to be typical. Instead, Pirsig’s book stands virtually alone in recognizing the important cultural role of Chautauqua. There are few such other examples to place beside Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. One is the Chautauqua Foundation, a nonprofit organization 2 : Introduction established in 1992 to “create public awareness of Texas Rivers and of existing and potential pollution problems by involving the public in various river-related activities.”5 When asked why he named it “Chautauqua,” founder Joe Kendall thought the term, which he understood to mean “combining education and entertainment,”fithisenterpriseexactly.6 ChautauquaAirlines,whichprimarily serves the eastern United States and was founded in western New York, echoes some of Chautauqua’s founding belief in its vision: “We believe that every employee, regardless of personal beliefs or world view, has been created in the image and likeness of God. We seek to become stronger from our diversity. We seekpersonalrespectandfulfillmentfromourwork.Mostof all,weseektorecognize the dignity and potential of our Chautauqua family.”7 It takes a highly knowledgeable reader to...