Was Chautauqua "an intellectual center," or "a place to go when your brain needs a vacation?"
By Silvia Pettem
Boulder's Chautauqua was part of a national educational and cultural movement
that combined speakers, entertainers, and films. Visitors (including whole families) came from mostly southern and midwestern states to revel in Colorado's relatively cool summer nights.
In the 1920s, and depending upon one's point of view, Boulder's Chautauqua was known either as the “intellectual center of the West" or "a place to go when your brain needs a vacation.”
A reporter from Chicago had stressed the association's non-intellectual attributes. "The brain
will very quickly tell you when it needs a vacation," he stated. "When it demands a change, it
will give you signs that cannot be mistaken."
Some of these signs, he stated, included "flying into a rage over merest trifles;" feeling "dull,
languid, and irritable;" and "your head aches, your eye loses its luster, and your step its
elasticity."
Visitors whose brains needed a vacation weren't interested in national issues that included
women's suffrage and prohibition. Both had been voted on and passed in 1920. They had
raised discussions in other parts of the country but didn't affect people in Colorado, as women
voters in Colorado were nothing new. Women had won the right to vote back in 1894, second
only to Wyoming.
Prohibition wasn't an issue, either, as liquor had never been publicly served at Boulder's
Chautauqua. The same could be said for the city of Boulder, as it had been "dry" ever since
the Better Boulder Party, with a teetotaler as mayor, came into power in 1907. (Laws remained
on the books outlawing the sale of liquor, wine, and regular beer within city limits until 1967!)
As to Chautauqua attracting intellectuals that included lecturers, philosophers, and "men of
ability," a sociology professor from Missouri spoke before the Boulder Commercial Association.
Taking the opposite approach, he stated, "You do not want the idlers of Newport and Atlantic
City here."
The professor also spoke of how well Chautauqua had been managed and said, "Thinkers
are a great deal more desirable to have in Boulder than the idlers of the smart set, or those
who come 'just to see.' "
In further defense, though, of giving one's brain a vacation, the Chicago reporter reiterated,
"Do not think of a vacation as a loss of time. It is the best kind of investment –– an investment
in fresh brains, in vigorous health, in increased vitality."
Likely, Chautauqua offered something for everyone.
Silvia can be reached at silviapettem@gmail.com or via her website, silviapettem.com.