The 1903 session continued many of the trends already
identified in the previous two or three years. The Florida Chautauqua was now eight weeks in length, a fact heralded in the opening
paragraphs of the program, which declared that this is “a period
surpassed by no other assembly in the United States, and equaled only by the Great Mother Chautauqua of New York” (The Florida
Chautauqua, 1903,1). This program continued the development of the
Florida assembly as an entertainment text. The opening page advertised over one hundred fifty entertainments with very limited mention of the educational or religious aspects once prominent in the programs. The printed program was written to appeal to a clientele in the middle to upper-middle classes or those who desired to be
considered connoisseurs of culture. This aim is evident in statements such as ‘T h e programme, diversified and carefully selected, responds to the taste of a refined and cultured people.. . (The Florida
Chautauqua, 1903, 1).
The opening paragraphs also presented the far-reaching effects of the Florida Chautauqua, creating the image of the Florida
Chautauqua as a cultural icon capable of transcending any impression a reader might have of a culturally, morally, or educationally deficient region of the country. The writers observed that the De Funiak Springs assembly had become “a rallying point for visitors from every part of the Union, and has been the means of uniting in a bond of closer
brotherhood the people of Alabama, Georgia, and Western Florida. Her growth has been phenomenal, her influence far-reaching, her teachings elevating. . . ” (The Florida Chautauqua, 1903, 1). In the opinion of Florida’s Governor Jennings, given during a speech at the 1902 session, the Florida Chautauqua was like a torch “whose ‘greater light shone over the State and adjoining States, uplifting and blessing the people’” (The Florida Chautauqua, 1903, 1). All of these
statements, presented at the opening of the written program for 1903, combined to create a text designed to inspire the readers to attain a new level of self-awareness, to expand their body of knowledge to heretofore unknown dimensions. The rest of the opening material in the printed program exactly matched previously printed materials in word and content.
The educational opportunities afforded during the 1903 session were similar to previous years. Departments included the standard department of Music, but for the first time with a separate department for Chorus, promising that “special attention will be given to the instruction of the Chorus this season, which will take a more prominent part in the concert work than in the past” (The Florida Chautauqua, 1903, 7). The Pianoforte department was repeated, as was the Art department, offering classes in oil, water colors, painting on china and glass,
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pyrography, carved leather, lace and needle work, basketry, and beadwork. The Physical Culture and Expression department included instruction in “vital center” work, dumbbells, club and wand exercises, with additional instruction in Delsarte gymnastics and Corrective gymnastics. The assembly again included a Kindergarten and a Sunday School, Normal and Bible study department with a daily Devotional and Bible hour. The last department, also frequently seen before, was the Round Table.
The major attraction advertised for the 1903 session was the inclusion of fireworks for the illumination of the Chautauqua grounds. Several Saturday evenings, in conjunction with the large excursions from Pensacola and other communities, featured large displays of fireworks. There were to be “over two hundred and fifty pieces
containing the largest and most elaborate prismatic, shooting star, and shower rockets, and bomb shells.. . “ (The Florida Chautauqua, 1903, 15). The program advertised that “[tjhis will be a sight never to be forgotten, and De Funiak will appear a veritable Fairy-land” (The
Florida Chautauqua, 1903, 15). This emphasis on the fireworks
displays only illustrates further the development of the entertainment text at the Florida Chautauqua.
The other forms of entertainment, namely musical, speech, and illustrated or entertaining lecturers, remained a major part of the program, with forty-two different entertainments, including Glee Clubs and Concert companies, and only twenty-nine different lecturers. The
1903 program scheduled fifty musical entertainments, nine speech/ reading entertainments, and twenty-six entertainments which combined
several forms of presentation. This number compares to only thirty-five religious events, all of which were on Sundays in conjunction with worship services or Vespers services. There were only thirty-one educational lectures, some of which might just as easily qualify as entertainment.
With the approach of its twentieth anniversary during the next session, the success of the Florida Chautauqua is obvious from its expanding program length as well as its increased activities and
entertainers. Also, one may conclude that the Chautauqua had at least met with moderate success in its quest to define and meet the cultural needs of its attendees. Both the performance text and the cultural text were now more entertainment-directed as opposed to the religious and/or educational direction evident in the earlier years of the assembly. The nature of the cultural text has also evidenced great change in the sense of what the Chautauqua has put forth as valuable to the attendees. An emphasis on classical music and what was deemed to be great literary texts had slowly (although not completely) been replaced with entertainments of a more vaudeville nature and with literary works serialized in the current periodicals of the day. This shift is traceable more to changing taste than to changing cultural standards. In an economic move the Florida Chautauqua started offering entertainments dictated by attendee’s taste instead of setting the standards and hoping the audience would adapt.