Summer may be all about escaping into hazy laziness (if you are so lucky), but during the late 1800s in western New York, people were eager to attend summer school. Or, as it was called at the time, Chautauqua.
Chautauqua was an adult education movement that launched at a picturesque lake of the same name near the city of Buffalo. What started as a training camp for Sunday school teachers quickly caught on as a destination for families eager to season some summer vacation with stimulating, improving input from cultural celebrities of the day: lecturers and preachers, musicians and thespians, scientists and philosophers. The popular summer-camp format wound up copied by numerous “Chautauqua assembles” all over the nation, and a traveling Chautauqua movement blossomed in the early 1900s.
Participant and fan President Theodore Roosevelt called Chautauqua “the most American thing in America.” The movement faded again by the 1940s, but there’s still a working Chautauqua organization at the original location in New York. And, the Chautauqua idea is resurgent right here at Fort Vancouver and the Providence Academy, which will host a six-day festival of history, music, art and literature this week. The educational fun runs today through Saturday, Aug. 6 through 11, and everything is free.
With a nod to this area’s diverse history and cross-cultural connections, sponsor The Historic Trust has titled the event COMMONGround.
“We are calling it COMMONGround in recognition that this land has been home to many groups of people over time, from Native Americans, to early pioneers, to the U.S. Army, to present-day Vancouverites. They are all a part of Vancouver’s story,” said Richard Burrows, The Historic Trust’s director of community outreach. (The Historic Trust is the renamed Fort Vancouver National Trust, best known for its annual Fourth of July fireworks show and an ongoing preservation project at the Providence Academy building.)
Here’s what’s on tap during COMMONGround: The Vancouver Chautauqua. Please preregister at www.thehistorictrust.org; some of the arts workshops have limited space. Call 360-992-1811 for more information.
History
• Walk-and-Talk tours of the Fort Vancouver National Historic Site and Providence Academy. Daily, 10 a.m. to noon and 2 to 4 p.m. Tours are one to two miles in length and participants must be able to walk (or roll) for approximately 45 minutes unassisted.
Monday: General O.O. Howard, Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce Wars. Meet on the front porch of O.O. Howard House, 750 Anderson St.
Tuesday: Medal of Honor recipients in the Post Cemetery. Meet at Vancouver Barracks Post Cemetery, main entrance, East Fourth Plain Boulevard near O Street.
Wednesday: Officers Row — Architecture, People, and the Times. O.O. Howard House.
Thursday: Providence Academy, Mother Joseph and her legacy. Providence Academy, 400 E. Evergreen Blvd.
Friday: World War I and World War II at the Vancouver military post. Artillery Barracks, 600 E. Hatheway Rd.
Saturday: Aviation history at Pearson Field. Pearson Field Education Center, 201A East Reserve St.
• “Providence Academy Journey.” Anytime, anywhere. Use a handy downloadable app, designed by the students at Washington State University Vancouver, to explore the history of one of Vancouver’s most historic buildings, an orphanage and school designed by Mother Joseph herself. Download the app from the App Store for an immersive experience; view buildings now gone from the site, trace Mother Joseph’s pioneering travels and even virtually ring the Providence Academy bell.
• Military history exhibition by the Lower Columbia Veterans Coalition. Daily, 12 to 5 p.m., O.O. Howard House. Memorabilia, uniforms, weaponry, artifacts, photos and documents.
• “Six Degrees of Marshall” exhibition. Daily, 12 to 5 p.m., Red Cross Building, 605 Barnes St. On special loan from the George C. Marshall Foundation in Lexington, Va., this display highlights Gen. Marshall’s leadership in war and peace. Marshall lived at Officers Row and commanded the Vancouver Barracks from 1936 to 1938.
Art
• “Vet Ink”: Military-inspired tatoos exhibit. Daily, 12 to 5 p.m., Artillery Barracks. Eleven local service members answered the call of local photographer Kate Singh to model their tats and tell their tales. Clark County Historical Museum staff created panels containing the stories.
• “Make Art!” workshops. Sponsored by Arts of Clark County. Each three-hour workshop is presented twice daily, at 10 a.m. and again at 5 p.m., in the Providence Academy ballroom. Free; a $10 donation to Arts of Clark County is suggested.
Monday: Monotype printmaking with Jason Mayer. (This is already full, we’re told.)
Tuesday: Collaborative crochet with Bonnie Meltzer. Crocheters of all abilities will work together on a unique large-scale sculpture using Pendleton blanket salvage scraps and other unusual materials. Supplies provided, but participants are invited to bring large crochet hooks (sizes P-Q) and scissors.
Wednesday: Figure drawing with Alder Suttles. Live models, short and long poses. Bring drawing boards and preferred materials (pencil, charcoal, ink).
Thursday and Friday: “Monster Felt” with Janice Arnold. Six years in the making, Arnold’s massive (15 feet by 32 feet) ceremonial carpet features map lines of Clark County drawn by her mapmaker father, Phil Arnold, and transferred to silk. Help stitch the lines into place while Arnold describes ancient traditions of nomadic feltmaking. No experience necessary.
Saturday: Dance and exhibition, 11 a.m. and 2 p.m., Providence Academy Ballroom. Explore all the “Make Art!” creations and enjoy dance performances of works in progress by the Washington Dance Creative at 11 a.m. and of “Under the Moonlight” by Jackie Genis and Russell Capps at 2 p.m.
• Fort Vancouver Tapestry exhibition. Daily, 12 to 5 p.m, Artillery Barracks. This 108-foot-long, wool-on-linen document tells the history of Clark County in 70 panels that were created with 100,000 hours of volunteer time over six years, 1999-2005.
Music
• Opera in the chapel. The dedicated popularizers of Opera On Tap Portland will sing classical favorites from 6 to 7 p.m. Monday, Wednesday and Friday; and Broadway musical-theater favorites from 6 to 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. All in the historic chapel at Providence Academy.
Literature
• Read-Alouds at The Marshall House. Daily, 10 a.m. and 3 p.m., 1301 Officers Row. Join Fort Vancouver Regional Libraries for a special display of popular youth literature from the Victorian era, the 1930s and today. Each day at 10 a.m., library staff will progress through “Young Mac of Fort Vancouver” (1940), a Newberry medal winner about fort life in 1832, beginning the book Monday and finishing it Saturday. At 3 p.m. each day it’ll be a grab-bag of literature. Bring a pillow, a blanket or a mat and relax into great stories.
