"Chautauqua -- an institution that flourished in the late 19th and early 20th centuries providing popular education combined with entertainment in the form of lectures, concerts, and plays often presented outdoors or in a tent."Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary
"Theodore Roosevelt termed it "the most American thing in America." William Jennings Bryan spoke on its platforms for thirty years. And in hundreds of communities throughout the United States, people waited all year to experience it.They called it "Chautauqua," after an Institute in New York State, itself named for the picturesque lake where it was situated. But in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, "Chautauqua" meant more than a place. It meant education. It meant culture. It meant wholesome entertainment. And most of all, especially for people in rural communities, it meant a connection with the wider world.
The Chautauqua movement was a social and cultural phenomenon that began simply enough in 1874, when John H. Vincent, a young Methodist minister, started a summer school for Sunday School teachers at a camp site at Lake Chautauqua, New York.
Excerpts from "They Called It Chautauqua", by Michael V. Hazel
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