Our Chautaqua events officially begin tomorrow, Wednesday, June 16, 2010 with a “Dust Bowl Photography Exhibit” at the Columbus Family YMCA from 5 a.m. – 10 p.m.

Then, plan to join us for a great kick-off event at 6:30 p.m. at Frankfort Square featuring a re-enactment of President Roosevelt’s visit to Columbus on September 28, 1935. In addition, meet the Chautauquans and enjoy an ice cream social.

We hope to see you there!

The Pre-Chautauqua events continue Thursday, June 10, 2010 at  Frankfort Square in Columbus, NE. Bring your lawn chair and enjoy a Chautauqua Sampler, featuring music from the thirties. This is a “Lawn Chairs on the Square” event.

Also, enjoy the “Dust Bowl Photography Exhibit,” in the lobby of the Columbus Family YMCA beginning June 10 – 20, 2010.

Traveling Chautauquas in the late 19th and early 20th centuries brought the world to rural communities in Nebraska.

Back then, Chautauquas combined programs of political oratory and lectures about health, science, and the humanities with entertainment such as opera singers and stage performance of Shakespeare.  Audiences heard about national issues and discussed their views with their neighbors.  For many rural Nebraskans, Chautauqua week was the most important week of the year.

Chautauqua Tent, photographed in Kearney, NE

The first Chautauqua program in Nebraska was held in Crete on June 26, 1883.  By 1884 the Crete Chautauqua Association had acquired 109 acres along the Blue River and by the summer of 1885 had built two lecture halls and a dining hall.  Trains transported culture-hungry participants from Lincoln and Hastings.  One day in 1888, over 16,000 people streamed into the campgrounds.

By the turn of the 20th century, Chautauqua circuits had been created and travelled all over the nation.  Chautauquas would roll into town, put up a big canvas tent, and overnight the town would be transformed into a bustling cultural center.

Several factors led to the decline of traveling Chautauquas, such as increased mobility, radio and film entertainment, and the economic decline of the 1920s. 

The Nebraska Humanities Council rekindled the Chautauqua tradition in 1984  with a modern Chautauqua that used public forum and discussion to focus on a particular historical era or theme.  This year, the Humanities Council is honored to continue its Chautauqua tradition with the 2010 Kansas-Nebraska Chautauqua in Columbus and North Platte.  

The theme will be “Bright Dreams, Hard Times: American in the Thirties”.  Five important historical figures of the 1930s will be portrayed by talented “re-enactors”.  The personalities of the past include:  Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Will Rogers, Huey Long, Aimee Semple McPherson, and Zora Neale Hurston.  (check elsewhere on this site for more biographical information on each of these personalities)

The Chautauqua runs Wednesday through Sunday, with a different scholar portraying his or her character each evening.  Workshops for adults and children are held during the day.

Adult audiences will examine four themes that were important during the Depression era and have particular relevance today:  The changing relationship between Americans and their national government, the flowering of artistic and intellectural activity, the role of religion in public life, and the democratization of Amercan culture through radio and sound movies.