The Beginning of the Assembly

The first Chautauqua season was held in the summer of 1874 at the Methodist camp meeting grounds on the shores of Chautauqua Lake.  It was organized by a special committee of the Sunday School Union of the Methodist Episcopal Church, headed by two men: an Ohio industrialist and educator, Lewis Miller, and a Methodist Clergyman, John Vincent. The purpose was to hold a two-week, outdoor normal school for Sunday School workers. Unlike other such programs, the Chautauqua Lake Sunday School Assembly was to be a national affair, bringing visitors from across the United States and Canada to one place to hear the very best speakers on the bible, on bible history, on teaching methods, on science and on current social issues. Worship, music, and wide range of recreations and entertainments filled out the day.  The program proved immensely popular and a second season was in the planning even before the first had finished.

The CLSC and the Chautauqua Movement

Chautauqua’s success has always depended on meeting a need. At the end of the fifth season, in 1878, John Vincent announced a year-round correspondence reading program, to be called the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle, or simply the CLSC. It was open to al people of any age, sex, religion or race. The purpose of this four-year course of study was to guide one’s reading so as to allow one the opportunity of obtaining the equivalent of a College education in one’s own leisure time. This allowed people to continue their education who unable to attend college, either because they were too busy with work, too poor or simply lived too far from any school. To keep interest and share the cost of books, CLSC students were encouraged to form reading circles in their communities, and in time these circles began to put on their own chautauqua-like programs.  At one time or another, there well over 250 such “Daughter Chautauquas” in the United States and Canada, some of which still exist today.

In 1904, agents who provided speakers and entertainers for theses platforms staring to put their own chautauqua programs on the road, sending a string of performers, preachers and speakers from one town to another. Over the next three decades, these “circuit chautauquas” (also known as traveling or tent chautauquas) reached millions of Americans and Canadians. They stopped in the United States by 1933, but remained active in Canada up to the Second World War.

With the rise of the circuits, and the decline of the CLSC, the Chautauqua Movement began to dissipate. There had never been any unified administration over the various chautauquas, but there had been a shared agenda to reform society particularly through prohibition,  women’s suffrage and the extension of education. But with the attainment of these reforms and the disillusionment that followed, along with changes to the social and economic structure of American society, the movement separated into two camps. From the late 19^th century into the 20^th,  the original Chautauqua in the Southern Tier of New York was politically leaning towards internationalism, the ‘gold-standard,’ progressivism and the Republican Party.  Socially, it gravitated to the rising urban middle class, and its religious outlook took a sharp turn towards modernism.  Meanwhile many of the other Chautauquas were more inclined towards populism, silver and the Democratic Party. Increasingly, these chautauquas resisted the new urban dominance and took up the cause of the struggling small town and rural community. Regarding religion, they rejected modernism and moved closer to fundamentalism.  In the 1920s, many newspapers and magazines were poking fun at the circuit and rural chautauquas, portraying them as being out of step with modern ideas and culture. This image led the Chautauquans in New York and elsewhere to distance themselves further from other chautauquas. Soon each went its own way. Fortunately, through the work of Alfreda Irwin and others, contact between existing chatuaquas has been restored through the Chautauqua Network.

The Depression and Recovery

With the Chautauqua Movement already in decline, the Great Depression led to the closing of many of the surviving daughter sites. The Chautauqua Institution nearly closed as well. New building and improvements to the grounds carried out in the first three decades of the century increased the capital depreciation and debt; and, with a loss of gate revenues caused by a failing economy, the Institution went into receivership in 1933.  To try to save the Institution, cottage owners offered to buy their long-term leases at a percentage of assessed value. (Up to this point, they owned the structure but not the land on which their cottages stood.) Through efforts such as this, along with tireless and creative fundraising, the Institution was able to buy back its debt in 1936.  The program was not compromised – it remained the broad program combing recreations with worship education and the arts. The opera and symphony were kept alive, as were the schools and the lecture platform, but there were changes to the manner in which the Institution was managed, and great care was taken to avoid incurring debt in the future. At first, there was not much difference in owning or leasing the cottage lots; but, in time, the value of the property began to increase, leading many property owners to demand improvements in services, public buildings, even the program, and, by the end of the 1960s, Chautauqua began to recover its former confidence and energy.

Today, the Chautauqua community continues to gather each summer to reacquaint themselves with one another, to meet and welcome new members, and to experience the same broad and diversified program that is at the heart of Chautauqua’s identity and history.