The Theater: The Happy Ham

* Chautauqua began in 1874 as a summer training camp for Methodist Sunday-school teachers. When cultural lectures were added to the religious curriculum, thousands flocked to the outdoor "God's temple" on the shores of New York's Lake Chautauqua. After the turn of the century, lecturers, singers, Swiss bell-ringers, dramatic troupes and dancers were touring a circuit of 200 Chautauquas in 31 states. In 1924, Chautauqua's peak, summer brought brown Chautauqua tents to 12,000 towns. More than 30 million people heard such singers as Galli-Curci and John McCormack, such politicians as Al Smith, Senator Bob La Follette and Socialist Eugene Debs. Russell H. Conwell gave his famous "Acres of Diamonds" speech nearly 6,000 times, and another spellbinder, William Jennings Bryan, was able to draw "40 acres of parked Fords." Movies and radio combined to finish off Chautauqua: in 1925 it quickly and quietly faded away.

* Etymologist Joseph Shipley concurs, but also points to a close relationship between amateur and ham. Amateur stems from the Latin, amare, to love. The cockney version—h'amateur was later blended with Hamlet (a play that is often "h'amateurly" performed), to coin the actor's meaning of ham.