The Oregon Council for the Humanities offers opportunities for civic dialogue and humanities learning to all Oregonians, including those who might not otherwise have access. OCH strives to be responsive to timely issues and concerns across the state and provides a broad context for conversation.
Chautauqua lectures borrow their name from the Seneca word for a lake in New York where summer training sessions for Sunday school teachers began in 1874 at an old Methodist Church campsite. The program rapidly grew into an educational and cultural gathering place for adults, and classical music, literary readings, and physical education were added to the curriculum. Chautauqua circuits formed throughout the country as part of the populist adult education movement of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. William Jennings Bryant, Edgar Bergen, Booker T. Washington, Carrie Nation, and Eugene Debs were among the personalities who traveled the circuits. Today the Chautauqua Institution in New York offers educational programs and lectures year-round, many of which are broadcast on public radio stations throughout the country.
Portland was home to the Ellison-White Chautauqua System, the center of Chautauqua circuit activity all along the Pacific coast. Influential local Chautauqua societies were also popular in Ashland, Corvallis, and Gladstone. Abigail Scott Duniway, Joaquin Miller, and Ida Tarbell participated in programs here. The Oregon Shakespeare Theatre in Ashland is located on the old Chautauqua site, and there was an astounding open-air structure in Gladstone until 1959.
OCH's Oregon Chautauqua is a statewide speakers bureau offering an annual catalog of humanities programs to nonprofit organizations in Oregon, free of charge. For twenty-eight years our scholars have traveled to communities of all sizes across the state, bringing more than 100,000 Oregonians together to learn, talk, argue, and share their ideas. Topics and scholars in the 2008-09 catalog are listed below. Please visit the "Calendar" page to see when Oregon Chatauqua programs will be offered in your community in the coming months.
OCH funds scholars' honoraria, mileage, and per diem costs. Sponsoring community organizations also receive support materials for public relations, event planning, and evaluation. Our goal is to fulfill every organization's program request, but each year the demand is more than we can meet. Please visit our "Support" page for information to learn how you can help support this vital community resource.
OCH is proud to celebrate Oregon's sesquicentennial by partnering with Oregon 150. The following Chautauqua programs have been designated as special Oregon 150 presentations: Out of the Ordinary Oregon, presented by Connie Battaile; Women Photographers in Oregon, presented by Carole Glauber; Justice in Frontier Oregon, presented by Diane Goeres-Gardner; Innovators & Traders, presented by Pat Courtney Gold; Sojourners, Settlers, and New Immigrants, presented by Erlinda Gonzales-Berry; Becoming Oregon, presented by Robert Hamm; The Portland Trail Blazers' Championship Season, presented by Matt Love; True Stories & Other Fictions in Northwest Oral History, presented by Tom Nash; Place and History, presented by William Robbins; and Jewish Pioneers in Eastern Oregon, presented by Jack Sanders.
These programs will be offered all across the state through August 2009. Please visit our Calendar page for dates, times, and locations.
| Submit Applications: | For Programs to be held in: |
| June - August 2008 | September - December 2008 |
| October - December 2008 | January - April 2009 |
| February - April 2009 | May - August 2009 |
If you are sponsoring an Oregon Chautauqua program and need copies of the required forms and supplementary resources, you can download them here. Please contact Program and Development Coordinator Annie Dubinsky at (503) 241-0543, ext. 116, or adubinsky@oregonhum.org if you have trouble downloading the forms.