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Home My WebLink AboutClinton News Record, 2015-09-02, Page 19Chautauqua week in Clinton Chautauqua enter- tainment origi- nated in the Methodist Tem- perance revival meeting tradition in Chautauqua, New York in 1874. It grew to become the largest travelling tent show in North American his- tory. Lacking the racy humour and bawdy music hall songs of Vaudeville, Chautauqua entertainment billed itself as "an influence for national stability in good, clean, healthy education" for the whole family. Clin- ton, like small towns throughout Ontario, eagerly looked forward to Chautau- qua season to enjoy almost a week of culture, entertain- ment and religious instruction. The Girls' Auxilliary brought the first Chautauqua to Clinton in July 1920 as a hospital fundraiser. One could buy four days of comedy, music, lectures and education for $2 per ticket. The show's travelling man- ager told the Clinton New Era that ticket sales went "over the top" as the young ladies' brought to town "some of the finest artists and lecturers on the continent." Reinforcing the educational nature of the entertainment, the Chautau- qua's were held on the colle- giate grounds. The first show opened with a stirring Wagnerian Quartet followed by a lecture on "See- ing Life Whole" stressing "the moral and intellectual struc- ture of the community." Mr. Carvell Wells, enthralled audiences with his lecture "My Six Years in the Malay Jungles." Wells recounted his experiences as a U.S. railroad surveyor in the Malaya. He awed his listeners with stories of a world of tree climbing fish, singing worms and pygmy deer small enough to be fried in a pan. He called two boys and six girls to stage and dressed them in native costumes to represent a Malayan family. As women had just gained the right to vote in 1917, Miss Constant Boulton, a Toronto school trustee, in her talk "The Canadian Women in the World Today" advised her mostly female audience to take the vote seriously. She "urged" women to "read the newspapers, paying as much attention to the editorials as to the advertisements." A "capacity crowd" filled Huron History Dave Yates the big concert tent to watch Professor Pamahasika's pets show. The New Era won- dered that "one could not believed it possible" that exotic birds and animals could be "so trained" Prof. Pamahasika said his pets "training was entirely the result of kindness°" The 1920 Chautauqua ended with a grand concert of Old Song Singers and a patriotic lecture on "The Dominion and Its Destiny." Clinton's first Chautauqua week was a rousing success. Before the big Chautauqua tents were struck, the Girls' Auxilliary agreed to sponsor the event for the next year with even bigger tents. However, after the 1921 Chautauqua ended the New Era said that "the Girls' Aux- illiary will not need a heavy cash box to hold the pro- ceeds of the four days:' Apparently a theatre critic, the uncharitable editor was disappointed in some of the acts. He lambasted Mr. D. Lee Fitzpatrick's comedic lecture on "Community Nuts to Crack" calling the speaker "some nut" who gave the "weakest part of the program." Perhaps it was the subject matter that contributed to the editor's critical mood. A Brit- ish army officer gave a "dark picture" on conditions he had witnessed on a 22,000 mile sojoum in Bolshevik Russia British Labour M.P. Percy Alden delivered a bleak but touching account of the desti- tute condition of hundreds of thousands of British orphans left by the Great War, which "was not to be forgotten°" Alden's loudest applause came when he praised Can- ada for its freedom and loy- alty to the Mother Country (Alden was ldlled by a buzz bomb during World War II). Yet, despite the mixed reviews, the 1921 show made enough money that the Girls' Auxilliary engaged the Chautauqua for a return visit the following summer. Indeed, the 1922 Chautau- qua was deemed "a better program than offered last year." The only major change • 4. OFt, QTA.l'J.O.V.A rrpvvi I iura.i, Ink/el , Sant, - Yui Let 11J,.l kU Miars.4..a Env • J a.J 1a. • v.{ Ih 'Jam Imasi• ilml.ihxu Contributed photo Program of the last Clinton Chautauqua, 1926. was that the school board asked that the Chautauqua tents be pitched on the front of the collegiate so as not to interfere with the tennis courts. Unlike the grim lectures of the previous year, the program was improved with more music, a play It Pays to Advertise, which "was pure fun and much enjoyed by the large audi- ence present'; according to the News Record's discern- ing critic. 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