A big brown tent and Ch-what?
Palmerstonians were agog when ‘‘Chautauqua’’ came to town.
Early in 1919, a strange new word started buzzing around Palmerston North. It was ‘‘Chautauqua’’. Advertisements of an unusual coming attraction had piqued local interest by the time this Manawatu Standard article appeared on Saturday, February 22: ‘‘The word Chautauqua is destined to become most popular within the next few weeks, as this movement, bringing the best of music, speakers and drama, will begin its six days’ visit here in March… the Chautauqua movement has played a prominent part in American public life during the past 40 years, but this is the first time it has been introduced to New Zealand.’’
The newspaper added that in Australia, where the group had just finished its season, 90 per cent of the towns visited had asked it to come back the following year.
On February 26, townspeople again heard, via the pages of their afternoon paper, that the opening date of Chautauqua was approaching.
The entertainment would last for ‘‘six happy days’’ with admission prices kept affordable for all.
‘‘This is possible only because this large movement works on the circuit system, and is holding Chautauqua in six different towns at once. Palmerston’s season runs from March 7 to March 13.’’ The article described the right way to pronounce Chautauqua – ‘‘Sh-talkwa’’ with emphasis on ‘‘talk’’, and added that programmes were now available at the borough council office. The price of a season ticket was 10 shillings and sixpence, the sixpence being the war tax. ‘‘This admits the holder to every session of Chautauqua, and may be used by anyone within a family. Attendance at all sessions by single admission would amount to 28 shillings and sixpence.’’ Student admission for the season was six shillings and twopence, and four shillings and twopence for exsoldiers and children.
But, as most of the 16,000 or so residents of the borough must have wondered, what exactly was Chautauqua, and what was its American connection?
Back in 1874, while European immigrants were pouring into the village settlement of Palmerston, Manawatu, two enterprising men in America’s New York state joined forces to rent a Methodist summer camp for Sunday School teachers. John Heyl Vincent was a Methodist minister; Lewis Miller, a philanthropist and businessman who invented the combine harvester, would eventually become the father-in-law of Thomas Alva Edison.
The venue they’d chosen was on the shores of Chautauqua Lake, New York; its Iroquois name meant ‘‘two moccasins tied together’’ – roughly the shape of the lake itself.
Out of this first gathering, the non-denominational institution of Chautauqua was born, an adulteducation touring show aiming to inform and entertain working and middle-class audiences.
The 1919 New Zealand tour introduced their novel way of performing: with six different touring companies, each one entertaining for one matinee and one evening performance out of each town’s six-day season, then moving on to the next. So, season ticket-holders were assured of a different programme every day. The operation was run by New Zealand associates, with expenses covered by pre-arranged ‘‘guarantors’’ in each town.
Instead of a theatre or hall (except in bad weather) Chautauqua took place in a signature big brown tent. In Palmerston North, Chautauqua’s first day on a site in Broad St (now Broadway Ave) started hurriedly. The troupe’s train from Napier was late, and the audience – a small one – was already impatiently waiting.
The Standard noted: ‘‘The party did not arrive until nearly three o’clock and those assembled had to sit and watch the unpacking of the
The price of a season ticket was 10 shillings and sixpence, the sixpence being the war tax.
huge Apollophone and the rest of the paraphernalia. However, when the Apollo Concert Company (the group of the day) had once got to work, all fears were dispelled and it became fully evident that the Chautauqua were more than capable of delivering the goods.’’ In the evening, a full house was equally ‘‘delighted and enthusiastic.’’ The Apollo troupe personnel were two women and three men, singers and musicians, and Dr Andrew Johnson, a well-seasoned and polished lecturer. They introduced ‘‘instruments rarely seen in the Dominion’’ including a ‘‘leviathan instrument, a combination of the xylophone with several attachments, the addition of tubes like organ pipes allowing the effect of a grand organ. This was cleverly manipulated by all the company members – Mrs Wills, Miss Florence Hopper, Messrs Wills, Frances and Latimer.’’
At the end of the season, Chautauqua had been so successful that there was no lack of guarantors to bring the entertainers back the following year.
On March 10, 1920, the afternoon performance in Palmerston North was rained out; though the audience gamely sat under their umbrellas, leaks in the big brown tent caused a hasty retreat by all to the nearby Empire Hall to finish the matinee.
Not everyone was charmed by Chautauqua.
On March 18, a Letters to the Editor writer signing him or herself ‘‘Facts’’ grumbled: ‘‘It’s time some protest was raised about the Americanisation of this country. Let us thank our visitors for … their entertainment, but let us tell them now that we do not wish to do anything more to increase the American atmosphere in this, our British Dominion.
‘‘It seems extraordinary that we should not only be blindly submitting to the Americanisation of our young people, but actually inviting this state of affairs and paying for it to take root amongst us.’’
The Americans were back in town in 1921 and 1922.
But those were to be their last visits. Change was in the air … the new Workers’ Educational Association (WEA) was about to offer Palmerstonians the kind of adult education and mindbroadening that Chautauqua had aimed for.
In a few years, talking movies would arrive in town, and the radio would bring the world into everyone’s home.
The novelty of Chautauqua was fading, and would eventually be forgotten.