The early twentieth-century United States was, by and large, a conservative culture, and Chautauqua organizers were careful not to include any material that might offend the delicate sensibilities of their rural audiences. Concomitant with its founding mission of uplift and education, early Chautauqua drama featured readings of morally sound excerpts from dramatic works.

In Chautauqua's early days, Shakespeare was considered too risque and high-brow for rural audiences, but individual speeches and edited versions of the Bard's plays were presented by dramatic interpreters. Once audiences became more accepting of full-length plays, several Shakespearean companies toured on the Chautauqua circuits. A search on keyword Shakespeare yields 100 documents including promotional materials for Bob Jones, Jr.:

Profoundly interested in Shakespeare and thoroughly cognizant of the literary and scholastic value of his works, Mr. Jones realizes that Shakespeare was himself an actor and a dramatist who wrote for the stage and not for the library. With this in mind, Mr. Jones has brought enthusiasm and youth to the interpretation of his characters and has combined the mind of the scholar with the temperament and heart of the actor.

• What qualities does the promotion promise that Mr. Jones brings to his presentation of Shakespeare? What does this suggest about the expectations of the audience and the role of drama in Chautauqua?
• What advantages does a program such as Mr. Jones's offer to promoters that a full production does not?
• Why might a Chautauqua agency be criticized for presenting edited or partial versions of plays?
• How could someone use the collection for research on Shakespearean drama?

Gay Zenola MacLaren attends the production of a modern play five times, and then, without ever having read the original book or dramatization, or, in fact, any of the lines in any way, can go upon the Lyceum or Chautauqua platform and give an imitative recital of the entire production, impersonating every character . . . In preparing for her recitals she attends only the great productions, sees the interpretations only by the best actors, and in the leading playhouses of her home city, New York.

• Why might Ms. MacLaren's method of learning a play have impressed her audience?
• What questions of authenticity does the excerpt raise?
• How might performances such as Ms. MacLaren's have bridged the divide between straight readings and full-scale productions?
• In what other art forms does dramatic monologue and character impersonation play an important role?

Following the World War I, the mood of the country changed and Chautauqua organizers began presenting full Broadway productions. Indeed, one of the chief claims of many postwar Chautauqua programs was that audiences could enjoy Broadway plays at discount prices without leaving their own Main Street. A search on keyword Broadway yields 100 pertinent documents.

Music was an essential component of a Chautauqua event. Over the course of Chautauqua week, audiences might hear opera, folk music, marching bands, classical orchestras, and world music performances to name but a few. The collection abounds with thousands of promotional materials for hundreds of musical ensembles and performers ranging from obscure Croatian tamburica orchestras to famous Chicago opera divas. These materials lend themselves well to categorical historical research in any one of several areas.

For instance, the Subject Index heading, Mandolinists, yields nine documents including materials for the Filipino Collegians. This document reflects not only the popularity of mandolin and banjo groups in the American universities of the 1920s and 1930s, but also the fascination with the music of the South Seas that burgeoned during that era.

• Why would variety be essential to a Chautauqua?
• Why might music often play a part in large gatherings of people?
  
• Why might people be drawn to music from the South Seas?
  
• How might the different manner in which people receive music today (that is, radio, television, and recorded material) affect the diversity of their tastes?

Cover of "Charles Ross Taggart : And His Old-Time Country Fiddlers."

This entertainment is entirely unique. It is not like any you ever attended. Charles Ross Taggart is a famous entertainer. He is not only a fiddler, but also a story teller, a pianist and a ventriloquist. So you will find a delightful variety in the entertainment. And when it comes to the fiddling part-O boy! How those fiddlers can fiddle the old-time jigs, reels and hornpipes! And if you want a good laugh you will get it in the comedy sketch "The Pineville Orchestra."

• Is this passage promoting the group on its merits as educators or entertainers?
• In what ways does the group promise to entertain?
• What passages from this excerpt indicate the degree to which the fiddlers were competing with similar acts?
• How has the method of promoting music changed since this passage was written? How has it remained the same?

William Davies, internationally known Welsh tenor and director of this ensemble, has brought together a group of outstanding artists and perfected a program which not only pleases the popular audience, but meets the unqualified approval of musicians as well. They have attained a perfection in ensemble singing seldom heard. Their musicianship is impeccable.

• What does this promotion assure the potential audience member?
• Why might an opera company feel that its reputation was impugned by participating in a traveling Chautauqua?
• In what language does the excerpt describe the members of the company?
• Why might it be to a company's advantage to make a distinction between musicians and the popular audience?
  
• What unique problems does writing about music present?

Prestigious writers and literary critics were mainstays of the Chautauqua rosters. Historians will find the collection useful in gauging the impact of literature upon the general American populace during the first half of the twentieth century. Moreover, the collection affords the unique opportunity to explore how early twentieth century writers were marketed to the general public and how Chautauqua impacted American literature.

A search on Subject Index heading, Poets, results in more than a hundred documents. Fred Emerson Brooks the "poet and humorist," Marshall Louis Mertins "the poet of the commonplace," and Anne Campbell "the poet of the home" are but a few examples of the more or less forgotten poets who appeared on Chautauqua platforms.

Carl Sandburg first appeared on a Chautauqua program in 1907 under the name Charles Sandburg. The poet returned at irregular intervals to deliver discourses and to read from selected works. One of his more popular early talks, "An American Vagabond" dealt with Walt Whitman. His press materials observe:

All that was striking, dramatic, and significant in his career has been grasped by Mr. Sandburg and marshaled into a lecture that ripples and glistens with human interest. About no other American writer is opinion so varied and extreme as about Walt Whitman . . . "An American Vagabond," as given by Mr. Sandburg, will put you close to, not an angel or a demi-god, but a great, warm, throbbing, very human personality.

But, brilliant and helpful writer though she is, it is perhaps, as a public speaker that Mrs. Stetson makes her most effective appeal. Sprung from the celebrated Beecher stock (a great-grand-daughter of Lyman Beecher and a grand-niece, therefore, of Mrs. Stowe and Henry Ward Beecher) . . . her gift of ready and eloquent speech seems inborn and almost more characteristic of her genius than is her writing. She speaks as she thinks, clearly, quietly, and in a perfectly straightforward and simple manner, but with something in her utterance so magnetic and out of the common that she wins a unique attention from all her hearers.

Among the most popular and well paid lecturers of the period was Russell H. Conwell who delivered his touchstone speech "Acres of Diamonds" more than 5,000 times. The secret to the popularity of "Acres of Diamonds" lay in Conwell's ability to alter his homespun stories to suit the special qualities of each crowd. Whether spoken to a Kenutuckian or Californian, however, Conwell's stories illustrated the advantages of steadfastness and the follies of unnecessary change.

A search on keyword Conwell yields two sets of promotional materials from 1908 and 1909. Also available under the Subject Index heading, Orators, the earlier of the two sets provides a telling comment on the nature of Conwell’s oratory:

Dr. Barker is well-known throughout the East as a very remarkable speaker, particularly well qualified to deal with the problems relating to health, physical education and sex hygiene . . . This is a very unusual opportunity to hear from a man of Dr. Barker's standing, the last word that science has to say on the prevention of disease and prolongation of life.