Henry Clark: lyceum and chautauqua lecturer and platform manager

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HENRY CLARK Lyceum and Chautauqua Lecturer and Platform Manager.
CHAUTAUQUA SEASON 1910


LECTURES:

Play Ball!
Stop!  Look!  Listen!
Boxes and others.




Over 1200 Lyceum, Chautauqua and other platform engagements successfully filled during the past six years.

MANAGEMENT
ALKAHEST LYCEUM SYSTEM,
ATLANTA, GEORGIA.




INTRODUCTORY.
Three successive seasons on this widely known Chautauqua Circuit.



THE ASSOCIATED CHAUTAUQUAS
FRED. W. BARTELL, GENERAL MANAGER.

THE BARTELL CIRCUIT

PRESENTING THE BEST CHAUTAUQUA PROGRAMS IN THE WEST—OPERATING SIXTEEN CHAUTAUQUAS IN KANSAS, MISSOURI AND ARKANSAS.

Siloam Springs, Ark., September 10, 1909.

Henry Clark has been on the circuit of the Associated Chautauquas for the last two seasons.*  We engaged him the first season as platform manager of one of our assemblies and to fill any unexpected vacancies which might occur on our other programs.

It is needless to say that his work as platform manager was all that could be desired—he is, in my estimation an ideal platform manager, but the popular lectures that he gives at those assemblies where the vacancies occurred gave such universal satisfaction that we engaged him for the '09 season for all of our assemblies.  To say that we were well pleased with his work this year is expressing it mildly.

It has been my good fortune to hear him in Play Ball and Stop, Look, Listen.  Both are really great lectures that will do good wherever delivered.

No Chautauqua manager can make any mistake in booking Henry Clark and featuring him as a strong popular lecturer, and any assembly that can secure his services as platform manager will be exceedingly fortunate.

(Signed)   FRED W. BARTELL, General Manager.  Associated Chautauquas.

* Since this was written, Henry Clark has been re-engaged by Manager Bartell for his circuit for the season of 1910.




Recent Personal Comments.

A. J. Hitt, Secretary Chautauqua, Maysville,. Mo.
Henry Clark came to us as a substitute platform manager, on short notice and unknown to us.  He appeared on the platform as a burst of sunshine would shoot from a blackened cloud; and from the beginning our large audiences, each day and at each performance, greeted him with loud and prolonged applause.  We want to thank you for sending us Mr. Clark.



How Henry Plays Ball.
When Henry Clark carried up on the platform that sugary smile and took charge as manager, the Trentonites stood up and yelled.  Such an ovation as he got the next five minutes ought to turn the head of even this casehardened campaigner.  In the language of the driller, he sure had struck Trenton.  Three years before he had been platform manager here, and on leaving they gave him some loving jewelry.  For Henry is a great double-barreled gun, great to lecture and great to manage.  The platform aspirant should study him as he speaks.  First, note the smile; it isn't the Taft kind, but sweeter.  Then he is a handsome soul and so well-fed.  And he stands with dignity, walks the stage with the reserve power that makes you feel he could pull four times the load, and his few gestures are graceful, manly ones.  It is a four-cylinder voice, and every word is decisive and sincere.  You feel that everything he says must be true, because he is saying it.  He seems to enjoy every word and give them to you as a special favor.  Then every few moments he makes a big point that starts the Clark smile.  It unfolds like a rosebud on the west side of his face around that gold front tooth and gradually melts away to the horizon.  That smile alone is Henry's fortune.

He is immediately on the spot as platform manager.  He makes you hungry in advance for each attraction, but not too hungry.  He doesn't waste an adjective.  He is boss.  His platform is dignified, and his powerful personality controls.  He keeps order, from the front row to the back, not with a club but with a look.  He has a dead-line ten feet back of the tent and not even the president of the Chautauqua can stand back there and talk, while the program is on.  And you like it all, because Henry moves mountains with a wave of his hand—and that smile.

—Ralph Parlette in Lyceumite and Talent,



Maynard Lee Daggy, University of Washington, Seattle, and Superintendent of Chautauquas
When Henry Clark lectures, the people listen, for they recognize in him the best type of the popular lecturer.  He is entertaining and he is eloquent.  His subjects are unique and they are developed with the skill that instructs and at the same time entertains.  Boxes and Play Ball were given at the Bloomington, Ill., Chautauqua, where the frequency and spontaneity of the applause attested the enthusiasm of the audience.  Clark belongs to the select return engagement class.



W. H. Wagner, Superintendent of Schools, Hebron, Nebraska.
The house was packed.  He made a great hit.  The audience was simply carried off its feet as they listened to Mr. Clark.  Play Ball is the finest thing I have ever heard.



Bishop Robert McIntyre.
I heard Henry Clark in lecture and sermon and I said he has the native ability, sterling character, gifts of heart and high purpose to make one of our leaders on the platform.  I commend him to all who want honest, original work.  The man and his message are strong and eloquent, and both leave deep impressions on the soul.





Recent Press Comments

New Orleans (La.) Times-Democrat.
Henry Clark, one of the most eloquent and pleasing of speakers, has entertained the Chautauquans for several successive evenings.  He filled every requirement by his wit, logic and flights of oratory.  He is a very rapid talker, covering much ground in little space, and his unique subject was dealt with in a most brilliant manner.


Quincy (Ill.) Daily Herald, Feb. 19, 1910.
A large audience gathered last evening at the Y. M. C. A. hall, at Ninth and State streets, to hear Henry Clark, a successful chautauqua and platform orator, deliver his excellent lecture Play Ball.  Mr. Clark is a speaker of exceptional ability.  His audience was captivated and he held the closest attention of all from the moment he stepped on the stage until he made his final bow, and as a result all who were present went home well pleased with the profitable evening they had spent listening to him.


Freeport (Ill.) Standard.
The program offered at the Chautauqua Assembly was one of the best ever given an audience anywhere.  A large crowd heard Dr. Clark's sermon, which proved to be one which stirred his hearers in a manner almost miraculous.  Mr. Clark also acted as platform manager and kept the crowd interested notwithstanding the inclement weather.  Such a man is an inspiration to everyone.


Bedford (Ia.) Republican.
Henry Clark's lecture was a masterly effort that should widen the intellectual horizon and strengthen the moral fiber of all who heard it.  There is a robust heartiness and spontaneous style of humor that so permeates Mr. Clark's utterances as to constitute the very essence of his personality.


Trenton (Mo.) Republican Tribune, July 6, 1909.
No, Henry Clark has never tried running a Chautauqua all by himself, but he could sell some season tickets in Trenton should he ever decide to make the experiment.  Clark is absolutely making good, despite any fears that his good qualities had been exaggerated during the three years that elapsed since his last appearance here, and he is the soul and life of the Chautauqua, as before.  He is the only platform manager that makes people glad when it rains, glad when some celebrity fails to appear and happy in the face of any discouragement.  Henry Clark is a Chautauquan who wasn't simply vaccinated.  It's in his blood and it's contagious.  Some Trenton folk just wonder how the institution managed to keep during the two years of his absence.