Fanfare for fifty: A brief history of the Central States Speech Association to 1981

Communication Studies, Spring 1999 by Reid, Loren

LOREN REID

I

In the beginning only a few people wanted a-what did they call it? "Federation of Central States Speech Associations"

Every other region had an association, but the Upper Mississippi Valley was unorganized, unstructured. Its block of thirteen unclaimed states looked like a huge bird with no feet; the broad rear was shaped by the Great Plains states of the Dakotas, Nebraska, and Kansas; the head with its sharp beak was Ohio. This strange bird included the rich, populous, industrial, agricultural, cultural, inland area loosely called the Central States.

Why were we the last to launch a learned society, instead of the first?

A major reason was that we had such close kinship with the national organization, then called the National Association of Teachers of Speech (NATS). We had supplied fifteen of its seventeen founding fathers. Of the three most distinguished founders, James M. O'Neill, Charles M. Woolbert, and James A. Winans, the first two were from Central States' institutions. Six of its first ten presidents and three of its first five editors came from our area. We practically owned the national association. Most of its conventions were in our front yard: Chicago, Cleveland.

Those who thought about a new regional group frankly said: "We don't need a regional. We can meet so easily at the time of the national convention." Or: "If we do form a regional, we don't need a special convention except during those rare years when the national doesn't meet in our area."

As it is time to mention a date, here it is: 1930.

Even then, however, forces were shaping that pointed to the founding of an organization for the Central States.

One came from the region's existing state associations, now behaving like colonies looking for a central government. These state groups were driven by pressing needs to deal with professional problems confronting elementary and secondary teachers as well as college and university staffs. Why shouldn't elementary school pupils get attention to their speech needs and abilities? Why were high school speech and drama classes and extracurricular activities so often assigned to teachers of English or social studies who had had little or no speech education? Why shouldn't the rapidly growing junior college segment offer competent instruction in speech? Why did institutions of higher learning often not accept speech credits for admission? Why shouldn't state departments of education establish minimum requirements for certification in speech and drama? And why shouldn't there be a journal dealing with problems of teaching these subjects?

The new state associations were facing these issues head-on, but teachers realized that an organization could do more for them than they could for themselves when facing strong, established, teacher-education divisions and state departments of education.

Despite its good intentions, the National Association of Teachers of Speech and the Quarterly Journal of Speech gave most of their attention to collegiate interests. Conventions drew few high school teachers, even from the convention city area, and Journal articles rarely considered problems of instruction at elementary, secondary, and junior college levels. To its immense credit, however, the Journal did print generous sections of news about state and regional association meetings. You cannot pick up one of those early volumes without reading about the formation of a new speech organization as well as about debate tournaments, play festivals, and personal notes. Thus it made teachers aware of what was happening.

Another factor beckoning a Central States association was that NATS decided, in 1930, to admit the president of each regional association to membership on its policy-making Executive Council. Presidents of the Eastern, Western, and Southern groups immediately took their seats. At once the lack of a representative for the Central States was evident.

In 1930, departments of speech were not themselves altogether on a solid footing. Few colleges could offer as much as a minor; majors were available only in the larger institutions. On most campuses, speech was a small corner in departments of English. In the whole country were perhaps two dozen Ph.D.'s. including those who, like Giles W. Gray and Woolbert, had taken their degrees in psychology. Only seven institutions, nationwide, offered the doctorate. Speech clinics were just beginning to appear. Some departments had trouble getting approval for courses in technical theater; professors in other areas thought it was mere carpentry. Courses in radio were being approved, rarely, but well-equipped radio studios were scarce. Only occasionally would a university division require all its students to take speech.

The early '30s were a time when if you attended a convention, you could get a room for $2 without bath; $2.50 if you thought you needed one. Add a dollar if the convention were in a large city. Your convention fee would be $1.50. You could plan an alumni luncheon for 50 to 755. You could belong to almost any of our learned societies for one to three dollars a year.