President Theodore Roosevelt once called Chautauqua the “most American thing in America”. The traveling Tent Chautauquas were an outgrowth of the lyceum movement and evolved in the early twentieth century to bring to rural America the same quality of entertainment, history and culture that was available to city dwellers. The Circuit Chautauquas were modeled after the Chautauqua Institution in southwestern New York state, a community with summer long programs by politicians, writers, theologians, and musicians.

By the early 1930’s, Chautauqua had lost much of its appeal due in part to the growing availability of radio and motion pictures. The Tent Chautauqua was reborn in 1976 as a bicentennial project of the North Dakota Humanities Council. Since then, with the support of other humanities councils, the tradition has come alive in numerous states as a summertime tent program in which scholars take the stage and re-create the words of historical and literary figures through living history portrayals.

Modern Tent Chautauquas retain the spirit of the originals in that they focus on entertaining while educating and serve as a community’s central activity for a week.