Keene Library Announces Summer Chautauqua Programming

This summer, the Keene Public Library, the Horatio Colony House Museum, and the Historical Society of Cheshire County present Keene Chautauqua. Chautauqua offers a unique learning experience for the residents of Monadnock region to explore critical issues in American history, and to explore them in ways that bring them to life. The main Keene Chautauqua event takes place in Heberton Hall on Wednesday, July 28 at 6:30 pm with historical re‐enactments of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass.

The Chautuaqua and library combination makes sense. The first Chautauqua was held at Lake Chautauqua in western New York in 1874. In 1878, the New York Chautauqua initiated our country's first book club. Chautauquas were immensely popular for many years. Reborn as a public humanities program in 1976, today's Chautauquas feature scholars portraying significant historical figures in first-person performances followed by a question and answer period with the character and then questions and answers with the scholar. Several years ago, the New Hampshire Humanities Council brought the modern Chautauqua movement to New Hampshire. When this popular statewide activity was cut, three local cultural institutions took it up.  Although, Keene Chautauqua is planned locally, our state Humanities Council has continued to provide financial support and guidance.

This year our Chautauqua performers are Dennis Boggs and Charles Everett Pace. Dennis Boggs will portray Lincoln. He has performed for schools, colleges and universities, churches, civic groups, political events, conferences, television, on the stage of the world famous "Grand Ole Opry," and at The Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. Frederick Douglass will be portrayed by Charles Everett Pace who has undergraduate and graduate degrees from The University of Texas at Austin (B.A., biology) and Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana (M.A., American studies: history and anthropology). Bringing together Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass in a Chautauqua is wonderfully effective way of exploring and illustrating crucial issues confronting nineteenth-century America.

To provide an opportunity for further community involvement the project includes book discussions on the following related books:

• Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane on Wednesday, July 7 at 7 pm, Horatio Colony House Museum;
• Walking to Gatlinburg by Howard Frank Mosher on Wednesday, July 14 at 7 pm, Keene Public Library,
• Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Ann Jacobs on Wednesday, July 21 at 7 pm, Horatio Colony House Museum

Young Chautauqua performances take place on Friday, July 30 at 7 pm in Heberton Hall. At that time, young people will take the stage and portray historical figures from the Civil War period. Throughout the summer, these students will have met at the Keene Public Library under the direction of Keene Public Youth Librarian Lesley Arnold.

These programs, funded in part through a grant from the New Hampshire Humanities Council, are part of the library's "Forever Free" programming. 'Forever Free: Abraham Lincoln's Journey to Emancipation' has been organized by the Huntington Library, San Marino, California, and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, New York City, in cooperation with the American Library Association Public Programs Office.  This exhibition was made possible by major grants from the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission, created by Congress and charged with planning the national celebration of Lincoln 's 200th birthday. For more information about the Chautauqua series, please contact the library at 603-352-0157.