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Oliver Archives Center assistant Amanda Holt reads and organizes the Miller Family Papers before the collection is sent to Rutgers University to become part of the Thomas A. Edison Papers Project. Photo by Michelle Kanaar.

Miller Family Papers to add Chautauqua chapter to Edison project

Sometime in the next months, the 16 gray coffin-like archival boxes holding the Miller Family Papers will leave the Oliver Archives Center in Chautauqua, N.Y., and journey to Rutgers University, N.J., to become part of the Thomas A. Edison Papers Project at Rutgers.

A note of clarification is required. The Miller Family Papers are the collected correspondence, diaries and memorabilia of the family of Lewis Miller, one of Chautauqua Institution’s founders. The papers include the letters of Mina Miller Edison, the second wife of Thomas Edison. The Thomas A. Edison Papers Project is a research center based at Rutgers University, and it is described as “one of the most ambitious editing projects ever undertaken by an American university.”

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Alfreda Irwin, seated in front, with her staff in 1976, the 100th anniversary of the Daily. Third from left is Nancy Gibbs, current deputy managing editor of Time and author of The Presidents Club, which formed the basis for the 2012 Week Nine lecture platform. Standing sixth from the right is Mary Lee Talbot, who currently writes the Daily’s “Morning Worship” column. The newsroom was in the Post Office building where the Afterwords Café currently resides.

A history of The Chautauquan Daily through a peek inside the newsroom

In his book Chautauqua: A Center for Education, Religion and Arts in America, author Theodore Morrison presents a photo of the original 1876 staff of the Chautauqua Assembly Daily Herald. Among those seated in front of a building marked “Editorial Rooms – Assembly Herald” is the publication’s founder and editor, Theodore Flood.

The caption reads, “Anyone consulting the bound volumes of the Assembly Herald may well wonder how so much thoroughness and order emerged from these editorial quarters.”

Much has changed about Chautauqua’s newspaper in the 136 years it has been published — name, office, staff size and average age, tone, content and technology — but its mission has remained the same.

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President Thomas M. Becker gavels a previous season to a close.

Sacred Song provides fitting sendoff

Two short months ago, excitement, joy and greetings among old friends swirled through the Amphitheater as Institution President Tom Becker tapped the gavel three times to open the 2012 Season.

As the Sunday sun sets and the final note of the Massey Organ fades into the twilight hour, Becker will repeat the tradition in a totally different atmosphere. With three more taps, he will close the season during the final Sacred Song Service at 8 p.m. in the Amp.

“This is like the death of 2012 Chautauqua in a way,” said Jared Jacobsen, organist and coordinator of worship and sacred music. “We have to help people kind of get up to it and then get through it.”

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Victor Hallett

Youth is served

Each summer, hundreds of high school- and college-aged young people travel to Chautauqua to work. Their reasons for coming vary, but family ties and traditions play a large role for many. The allure in the region of working at the Institution is a significant attraction. Early career professional development counts for some.

Each has a story to tell.

Here are some of them.

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Ross Warhol and Alex Gray, the Athenaeum Hotel’s executive and sous chefs, review plans during preparations for the third “Praxis” dinner.

Chef brings art to culinary arts at Athenaeum Hotel

Though he has worked at the best restaurants in the world — from el Bulli in Spain to Alinea in Chicago — he hates eating his own food and detests cooking for himself after spending hours steeped in kitchen accoutrements. Instead, Executive Chef Ross Warhol snacks on Frank’s Red Hot with cottage cheese, gummy bears and Breyers black raspberry ice cream.

Managing the Athenaeum Hotel kitchen’s creation of three meals a day, Warhol rarely eats any full meals himself. He instead subsists on taste-testing his dishes and remains energized despite the fact that he averages only a few hours of sleep a night.

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Young Chautauquans play and ride bikes in the evening sun earlier this season in Lincoln Park. Photo by Adam Birkan.

Chautauqua’s parks provide space for community conversation, play

Leaves are faintly stirring on the mature trees in St. Paul’s Grove, the setting for the Hall of Philosophy. The sun’s rays filter through the leaves, dappling the dirt and lawn below. Humidity is at a reasonable level. It is a comfortable, pleasant summer Chautauqua afternoon.

Scattered around the upper grove and the Alumni Hall front yard across the street are exactly 52 lightweight and oddly insubstantial-feeling green plastic chairs, seven picnic tables, and several trademark slat- and-metal-frame Chautauqua benches, more portable than they look.

Professional opera singer, architect and Chautauquan Jane Foster is enjoying the serenity.

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Mac, Jolie and Tom McShane. Photo by Lauren Rock.

In Chautauqua, pair of rising stars find a place to find themselves

“There is just something about Chautauqua at 6 a.m. that cannot be described,” said Mac McShane, 16-year-old circulation manager of The Chautauquan Daily. “My route is my way to relax. It’s just me, the cool morning air, and a list of houses.”

The kid everyone calls Mac spends his summers working at the Daily, along with waiting tables at Intermezzo at Chautauqua.

En route, he delivers the paper on his scooter to people all throughout the grounds, including to Institution President Tom Becker.

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Fire, police departments urge homeowners to ID houses in case of off-season emergency

Here is something potentially quite important to add to that lengthy list of to-do items for after the season: Make certain your street address is visible from the street.

The Institution’s fire, police and operations departments, as well as all emergency service providers, join in this exhortation. Director of Operations Doug Conroe said there are several incidents each off-season where emergency or other service providers waste precious time hunting for addresses that have been removed or covered by canvas awnings.

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