Chautauqua Lake (Image: cullencartography.com)

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On August 12 this year Booker Prize-winning novelist Salman Rushdie was stabbed multiple times while giving a lecture in the lake resort community of Chautauqua in western New York State. It remains unclear to what extent Rushdie’s assailant was motivated by the Iranian fatwa against the Anglo-Indian author who suffered serious if not life-threatening injuries in the attack. The attempt on Rushdie’s life for engaging in free speech occurring at the Chautauqua Institution is ironic, given that organisation’s long tradition of the free exchange of ideas. [‘Chautauqua, where Salman Rushdie was attacked, has a long history of promoting free speech and learning for the public good’, Charlotte M. Canning, The Conversation, 25-Aug-2022, www.theconversation.com].

Source: the guardian.com

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For all the wrong reasons the crime has shone a light on the Chautauqua Institution with its nearly 150-year-old history. The organisation was the brainchild of a Methodist minister and a Midwest businessman, initially established in the 1870s to provide training to Sunday school teachers and church workers. The first Chautauqua ”event” organised was at Lakeside, Ohio (1873), quickly followed the next year by Chautauqua, New York. Although founded by Methodists the Chautauqua concept was from the start non-denominational in spirit [‘Chautauqua‘, Wikipedia, http://en.m.wikipedia.org]. In the tranquil lakeside outdoor setting of Chautauquaⓐ, the roots what would grow into an institution of seasonal (summer) education and culture programs for adults took shape.

Source: the attic.space

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Non-sectarian Chautauqua
From its parent base in western New York a movement soon spread across the US with “Daughter Chautauquasas” springing up everywhere…at the movement’s peak, around 1915, there were about 12,000 such rural-based communities, all independent of the parent institution. While some Chautauquas remained religious-oriented, the movement as a whole became more secular and wider in its scope, coinciding with the Progressive Era (circa 1890–1920), a time in which political and social reforms were flourishing in America (Canning). A factor in this was that Chautauquas tended to foster free thinking which was incompatible with the strain of evangelical Christianity permeating the organisation. Chautauqua philosophical emphasis was on life skills, self-improvement and transformation of lives, ‘What is Chautauqua, the site of the Rushdie attack has a long history’, Kelsey Ables, Washington Post, 13–Aug–2022, www.washingtonpost.com).

Redpath Chautauqua, “circus like promo” (Source: Culture Under Canvas, Harry P Harrison)

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Chautauquas under ”the Big Top”
By the early 1900s Chautauquas were evolving away from permanent independent assemblies to a new variant (aided by the expansion of railways), the spawning of itinerant Chautauquas, where promoters took the Chautauqua idea on the road, travelling to different country regions and setting up temporary “circuit” or “tent” Chautauquas with an itinerary of week-long programs packaged as “culture” experiences. A host of “performers” would be engaged to appear on the circuit at these events—lecturers and speakersⓑ, showmen, singers, musicians and dancers, politicians, opera stars, magicians, preachers—comprising a series of “travelling talent circuits”ⓒ. These Chautauquas added entertainments to the traditional serving of education and religious instruction intended to be “morally uplifting” and culturally enhancingⓓ [‘“The Fourth American Instiution” Understanding Circuit Chautauquas‘, Brittany Hayes, U.S. History Scene, www.ushistoryscene.com]. The tent Chautauquas, the most prominent of which were the Redpath Chautauquas, were in competition with the popular entertainment of the day, vaudeville. The Chautauqua circuit sought to elevate itself above vaudeville which it viewed as a baser and more vulgar form of entertainment (Wikipedia). The tent Chautauqua circuit catered for a wide variety of entertainment, resulting in a wide gulf in quality…at the lower end its engagement in animal acts and slapstick comedy blurred the line with the vaudevillian world [The Chautauqua Movement’, The Colorado Chautauqua, (2020), www.chautauqua.com. Some observers in fact characterise the tent circuits as “Chautauqua” in name only, having appropriated it to add cachet to their business enterprise [‘The Lingering Magic of Chautauqua’, Paul Hendrickson, Washington Post, 01-Jul-1978, www.washingtonpost.com.

Kansas Tent Chautauqua, 1906

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Chautauquas made a contribution at the local level to the enrichment of rural Americans‘ social lives and fostered individual self-improvement. Some observers also saw the movement as a buffer against the effects of rapid urbanisation in that period by giving support to local communities and their traditional values…a counterweight to the centripetal forces luring especially the young to the cities, emphasising the virtues of small town “good life” in rural America (Canning).

Source: joplinglobe.com
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Decline of the Chautauqua
The 1920s was the last great decade of Chautauquas. By the Thirties with the devastating economic impact of the Depression taking its toll, the movement’s popularity was on the wane. Hastening its fall was a combination of factors – the rise of the car culture made extended travel more accessible for rural dwellers; other forms of entertainment were supplanting the Chautauquas’ appeal, especially the advent of sound movies and commercial radio; new educational opportunities for women were opening up; etc [‘Chautauqua in Santa Barbara’, Michael Redmon, Santa Barbara Independent, 14-Sep-2016, www.independent.com; Ables].

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Criticism of Chautauqua
Chautauqua’s cachet at its high water mark was undeniable—President Theodore Roosevelt described the movement as ”the most American thing in America”—however it was not without its detractors. Famed novelist and Noble laureate Sinclair Lewis was dismissive of the Chautauquas’ educational merit and intellectual pretensions. Lewis’ Main Street describes the movement as a “combination of vaudeville performance, Y.M.C.A. lecture, and the graduation exercise of an elocution class…” (Hayes). Chautauquas in their heyday effected positive change in the lives of people, helping working class and middle-class women in particular to acquire the educational and vocational training to allow them “to launch ‘real careers’ (‘Chautauqua Movement’). The movement nonetheless had its limitations. Chautauqua enunciated freedom of expression and thought but did not have an overt political stance. It never challenged the White Protestant hegemony in American society…(it) was “not revolutionary and never led the charge on issues like suffrage or civil rights” and racial inequality (Canning).

Still in the business of providing adult education today, the Chautauqua Institution was a pioneer of the principle of what we call life-long learning, which takes many worldwide forms such as TED Talks, University of the Third Age, and a raft of other continuing education programs.

Photo: oldsite.chq.org

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Endnote: the Chautauqua circuit movement was to some degree a throwback to the earlier Lyceum movement which flourished before the American Civil War. Public lyceums anticipated the Chautauquas by organising circuits of adult public education programs involving travelling lecturers and teachers – featuring 19th century American luminaries such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau and even Abraham Lincoln.

Chautauqua (pronounced “Shuh-TAW-Kwa”) etymology: believed to be an Iroquois (Seneca) word, possibly meaning either or both “a bag tied in the middle” and/or ”two moccasins tied together”.

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ⓐ the idea of an outdoor setting was gleaned from camp meetings in rural South and West

ⓑ giving literary readings and drama recitals

ⓒ speakers who featured on the Chautauqua circuit included the women’s suffragette leader Susan B Anthony, inventor Thomas Alva Edison and national politician William Jennings Bryan

ⓓ “look up and lift up” was a slogan of Chautauqua