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Horner, Charles F.

 Person

Dates

  • Existence: 1878-1967

Biography

Charles F. Horner was born in Menomonie, Wisconsin, in 1878 and died in Kansas City in the early part of February 1967 at the age of 88. He is most famous for establishing the Redpath-Horner Chautauqua and Lyceum Bureau in 1906, which provided both educational and entertaining programs for hundreds of towns in the Midwest during the first third of the twentieth century. His programs featured many prominent speakers, such as William Jennings Bryan, Champ Clark, William Howard Taft, etc. A list of distinguished accomplishments include: founder of the Horner Institue of Fine Arts (1914), the Horner Junior college (1927), head of the speakers' bureau in both of Woodrow Wilson's campaigns, accepting an invitation from President Franklin D. Roosevelt to be executive assistant to the administrator of the National Recovery administration (1933), president of the National Aeronautics association, chairman of the Willkie clubs (1940), and chairman of the Herbert Hoover committee on food for small democracies (1940-41). He authored four books: Strike the Tents, The Story of the Chautauqua; The Life of James Redpath; The Road that Leads from Home and Other Poems; and a novel entitled, The Vanishing Prairie.

Found in 1 Collection or Record:

Charles F. Horner Papers

 Collection
Identifier: MsC0150.07
Abstract

Correspondence, book manuscript, clippings, incomplete brochures, talent prices having to do with traveling Chautauquas.

Dates: 1906-1925