Chautauqua

Chautauqua (/ʃəˈtɔːkwə/ shə-TAW-kwə) describes an adult education movement in the United States, highly popular in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Named after Chautauqua Lake, in Western New York where the first was held, Chautauqua assemblies expanded and spread throughout rural America until the mid-1920s. A Chautauqua Assembly brought entertainment and culture for the whole community, with speakers, teachers, musicians, entertainers, preachers and specialists of the day. Former US President Theodore Roosevelt was quoted as saying that Chautauqua is "the most American thing in America".

Historic buildings associated with the movement include Chautauqua Amphitheater (Chautauqua, New York), Chautauqua Auditorium (Shelbyville, Illinois), Chautauqua Auditorium (Boulder, Colorado), and Chautauqua Hall of Brotherhood in DeFuniak Springs, Florida.

History

The Mother Chautauqua

The first Chautauqua, the New York Chautauqua Assembly, was organized in 1874 by Methodist minister John Heyl Vincent and businessman Lewis Miller at a campsite on the shores of Chautauqua Lake in New York State. Two years earlier, Vincent, editor of the Sunday School Journal, had begun to train Sunday school teachers in an outdoor summer school format. The gatherings grew in popularity. The organization founded by Vincent and Miller later became known as the Chautauqua Institution. It was called the Mother Chautauqua, because many independent, or "daughter" Chautauquas were developed under the same fashion.

Chautauqua (disambiguation)

Chautauqua is an Iroquois word, meaning either "two moccasins tied together", "bag tied at the middle", "where the fish are taken out" or "jumping fish." The term may refer to:

Adult education

Places