Joseph Roy Ellison

(1875-1955) born at Friend, Saline County, lived in Crete. Management executive, became internationally known in lyceum and Chautauqua activity and organization from 1897 to 1927, operated and managed over 1,000 Chautauquas in the United States, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand; co-founded Ellison White Chautauqua in Portland, Oregon, one of the largest of the circuit systems in the western United States and Canada. Consult Donald L. Graham, "Circuit Chautauqua: A Middle Western Institution," Doctoral dissertation, University of Iowa, 1953, pp. 94, 113, 264-265, 277-278, 302-305 and Victoria Case and Robert Case, We Called It Culture (Doubleday, 1948) and Portland Oregonian obituary, January 8, 1955, p. A-39 and Who Was Who in America, Vol 5 (1973) 213.

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