Chautauqua is a private label in Seth Thomas 18-size Model 5 and 6-size Model 14.
Chautauqua, coming from the Iroquois language, describes the narrowing shape of the water in an area of the local region’s Chautauqua Lake in southwest New York state. It correspondingly carries the meaning of the place where fish are taken.
The Chautauqua Institution was founded in 1874 on Chautauqua Lake as a training camp for Sunday school teachers, which evolved into a famous adult education and cultural movement. The Chautauqua movement through traveling tents brought music, lectures, and community learning to thousands of small American towns in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The Chautauqua Association of Swarthmore Pennsylvania was a specific traveling circuit that brought educational programs, music, and theatrical entertainment to communities across the eastern United States until it dissolved around 1930. A rare pocket watch fob manufactured by the Whitehead & Hoag Company is show below. Also shown below are attendee’s buttons from the 1905 Marshalltown, Iowa Chautauqua Conference and the 1907 Oakland, California Chautauqua Conference.
The Iroquois name Chautaqua, associated with social and cultural excellence in the United States, also found itself attached to the premium products distributed by the mammoth Buffalo New York based retail distributor, the Larkin Soap Company.
Top: Watch fob - The Chautauqua Association of Swarthmore, Pennsylvania
Left: Attendee’s button from Marshalltown, Iowa Chatauqua Conference - August 12-20, 1905
Right: Attendee’s button from Oakland, California Chautauqua Conference - August 17-25, 1907
The Larkin Soap Company offered premium products that could be obtained by redeeming “Larkin Premiums” which were earned by purchasing standard Larkin merchandise and/or organizing local Larkin purchasing clubs as a “Larkin Secretary”. The premium products included tableware, tea sets, jewelry, watches, clocks, lamps, furniture, suitcases, washing machines, books, beds, cribs, musical instruments, and many other items. The most refined and desirable version of many products carried the branding “Chautauqua”.
Below you can see a few mailer and catalog offerings of Larkin Soap Company Premiums. Seth Thomas pocket watches and clocks were illustrated in many of the mailers and catalogs documenting an ongoing, well-established working relationship between the Larkin Soap Company and the Seth Thomas Clock Company.
Based on documented use of “Chautauqua” branding for premium-tier goods, and the established inclusion of Seth Thomas pocket watches among Larkin premium offerings, it is reasonable to consider the possibility that the Seth Thomas Chautauqua-branded pocket watch may have been distributed within the Larkin premium system. However, no direct documentation has yet been identified linking this specific watch model to a confirmed Larkin premium offering.
Chautauqua
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