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According to the Canadian Encyclopedia online Chautauqua was "the name given to travelling tent shows which originated in the USA and flourished in Canada 1917-35.

A summer school, established in 1874 on Lake Chautauqua, NY, with an eye to combining adult education and morally uplifting recreation, adopted the name from its location, and gradually the name came to represent the type of recreation offered. In Canada a similar type of organization - a Methodist camp - had been established in 1859 at Grimsby Park in Lincoln County, Ont, but by 1900 interest had declined and by 1909 it had ceased. In the USA, however, 'chautauquas' flourished: by 1900 there were some 200 independent chautauquas serving 31 states, almost all held in permanent pavilions close to lakes and offering lectures, plays, and concerts of religious, classical, and popular music."

The notion of making the chautauquas more accessible by sending them on the road was conceived by the US entrepreneurs Keith Vawter and J.R. Ellison, and in 1904 the first of the 'circuit' chautauquas, housed in portable brown tents, began its tour in the mid-west. The second circuit took place in 1907, and from then until 1932 the tours were annual. Charles F. Thiele and his family performed on the US circuit."

"Ellison left the Vawter-Redpath bureau in 1912 and joined Clarence H. White in establishing the Ellison-White Chautauqua Bureau headquartered in Portland, Oregon" (Tapia, 81).

The Ellison-White Chautauqua Bureau was also known as the Ellison-White Lyceum and Chautauqua Association.

The bureau was known in Canada as Dominion Chautauquas. The firm may have also been incorporated as the Elwyn Concert Bureau, Inc.

[Source: http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/articles/emc/chautauqua]

[Source: John E. Tapia. Circuit Chautauqua: From Rural Education to Popular Entertainment in early twentieth century America. North Jefferson, Carolina: McFarland and Company, Inc., 1997. Pg 81.]