Chautauqua to spotlight Delaware and the Railroad Sept. 13-15
The importance of railroads to America’s economy and way of life, and their impact on Delaware, will be explored during the 20th annual Chautauqua tent show, All Aboard: Delaware and the Railroad, that will take place from Thursday to Saturday, Sept. 13 to 15, at two downtown Lewes locations. They are the Zwaanendael Museum, 102 Kings Highway, and the Lewes Historical Society’s Lewes History Museum, 101 Adams Ave. Admission is free and open to the public.
A unique mixture of education and entertainment, Lewes’ Chautauqua will be held under a large tent and will feature a model railroad display, lectures, music, films and an old-time radio show, capped off by re-enactors from the American Historical Theatre who will take on the personas of celebrated historical figures, educating and entertaining audiences as they bring the past to life.
Audience members are encouraged to ask questions and interact with the featured characters. They will include a Harvey Girl, one of the thousands of young women who were recruited to work as waitresses in Fred Harvey’s chain of restaurants located along railroad lines in the American West during the late 19th to mid-20th century; Joshua Lionel Cowen, founder of the Lionel Corporation which manufactured toy trains; and American author Mark Twain, who will share his humorous thoughts on railroads.
Chautauqua takes its name from a series of adult education programs that were first held at a campsite on the shores of Lake Chautauqua in upstate New York during the late 19th century. Chautauquas spread throughout America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries bringing speakers, teachers, musicians, entertainers, preachers and specialists of the day to a wide cross-section of the nation’s rural and small-town population.
Circuit Chautauquas, also known as Tent Chautauquas, were an itinerant manifestation of the movement. Programs would be presented in tents pitched in a field near town. After several days, the Chautauqua would fold its tents and move on to the next community. The popularity of Chautauquas peaked in the mid-1920s, after which radio, movies and automobiles brought about the gradual disappearance of the movement by the 1940s.
Reborn in the 1970s as a vehicle for humanities education, modern Chautauquas are organized around a core program in which re-enactors portray celebrated historical figures, speaking and interacting with audiences. Modern Chautauquas have been presented annually in Delaware since 1999 featuring a wide variety of historical figures including Woodrow Wilson, Teddy Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, Amelia Earhart, Dolley Madison, Eleanor Roosevelt, Edgar Allan Poe, the Lone Ranger, John Philip Sousa, and Delaware’s own Pvt. James Elbert, Maj. Allen McLane, F.O.C. Darley and Clifford Brown.
For more information and a complete schedule, go to https://history.delaware.gov/museums/zm/events/chautauqua/ or call 302-645-1148.
