Great Plains Chautauqua

From Sea to Shining Sea

Albion Sports Complex, July 7-11, 2006
Located on the Northwest edge of Albion, Nebraska
Schedule of Events

Daily Activities:

• Workshops For Both Children & Adults By Scholars
• Visual Exhibit -- Father Don Doll, S.J.
• "Photographing Historical Lewis & Clark Trail" Quilt Display and Discussions
• Black Powder Candy Cannon
• Boone County Historical Museum
• Dinner, Concessions And Local Entertainment Beginning at 5:00 pm
• 7:30 pm Evening Performance

The 2006 Great Plains Chautauqua explores "Sea to Shining Sea: American Expansion and Cultural Change 1790-1850" and features scholars portraying William Clark, York and Sacagawea of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, Tecumseh and John Jacob Astor, in programs moderated by Dolley Madison.

Chautauqua returns to Albion this summer for the first time since the 1920s with six scholars eager to offer their interpretations of  the American expansion and cultural change from 1790-1850.  Through this five-day residency program, scholars present  first-person characterizations of American historical figures in evening and daily performances.  Chautauqua audiences time travel each night to hear first-hand experiences of those who lived 150-200 years ago and to actively engage in dialogue with characters and scholars about the fears, hopes, compromises, and crises of an emerging United States.

All events are free and open to the public.

This program is made possible by the Nebraska Humanities Council, National Endowment for the Humanities through the We The People Initiative, Great Plains Chautauqua Society and the Albion Area Arts Council.

Scholars presenting characters at Great Plains Chautauqua 2006:

Charles Everett Pace presents York, the slave and childhood companion of William Clark who accompanied Lewis and Clark.

A Ph.D. candidate in anthropology at Purdue University, Pace is a long-time participant in Great Plains Chautauqua programs.  In previous years he interpreted the African American leader and writer W.E.B. DuBois, as well as Booker T. Washington, the black leader who at times was a DuBois critic.

D. Jerome Tweton presents John Jacob Astor who amassed a fortune in the fur trade, China trade, and New York real estate.

Senior consultant to the North Dakota Humanities Council and Chester Fritz Distinguished Professor emeritus from the University of North Dakota, Dr. Tweton is the author/editor of fourteen books and holds the Ph.D. from the University of Oklahoma.

Patrick E. McGinnis presents William Clark, the co-commander of the Corps of Discovery.

Dr. McGinnis holds the Ph.D. from Tulane University and for the last four years has held the rank of Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Central Oklahoma.  He has published Oklahoma's Depression Radicals: Ira M. Finley and the Veterans of Industry of America, in addition to several historical articles.

Jerome Kills Small presents Tecumseh, a Shawnee chief who fought with the British in the War of 1812.

Kills Small holds the M.A. from the University of South Dakota where he stayed to teach Lakota, American Indian thought, Siouan tribal culture, Lakota history, and a seminar on Black Elk.  Kills Small is an Ogallala Lakota from the Pine Ridge Reservation.

Tonia Compton portrays Dolley Madison, the wife of President James Madison and the Washington hostess for President Thomas Jefferson.

Compton is a history doctoral candidate at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, and holds the M.A. from Texas A&M.  Her research interest is nineteenth century women's history.  She moderates each evening program.

Cody Harjo presents Sacagawea, the young Shoshone woman who with her baby accompanied Lewis and Clark from the Mandan/Hidatsa villages to the Pacific Coast and back.

Harjo holds a B.A. from Dartmouth College in History modified with Native American studies.  A member of the National Society of Collegiate Scholars, she received the Nancy Boehm Cater Public Policy Grant to study with American Indian Research and Development Inc. and a Native American Studies grant to study Otoe-Missouria history from contact with Lewis and Clark to the present.

A Brief History of Chautauqua (the following is an excerpt from the Great Plains Chautauqua Society's "Chautauqua on the Great Plains")

The smallest village could look forward to an annual visit from a dusty canvas chautauqua tent.  While these visits offered some serious programs, much of it was entertainment.  Visitors were packed into the tent on rows of wooden benches to hear orators like Teddy Roosevelt, Clarence Darrow, and William Jennings Bryan, who gave a speech, "The Prince of Peace," more than 3,000 times on the Chautauqua trail.

Chautauqua's height was during WWI, when President Wilson called Chautauqua a major contributor to the effort.  At that time Chautauqua often presented military bands and wounded soldiers to tell their tales.  It ended at the same time the economy declined in the 1920s, but there were other factors as well: increased mobility, radio, photography, moving pictures, and a change in national attitude.