What is Chautauqua?
Group of people at Chautauqua, Vashon Island, 1896
Until last week, I’d never heard of Chautauqua. While working on Vashon Island and digitizing historic documents and photographs from the area, I kept coming across this word. It was on the map as a place on the eastern shores of Vashon Island.
Rayna Holtz, librarian at the Vashon Library, introduced me to the term and explained that it was an adult education movement that started on the shore of Chautauqua Lake in New York State back in the late 19th century. Later the Chautauqua became assemblies of people all over the United States, usually in natural and rural settings, where lecturers, entertainers, religious educators and others would perform or speak to people interested in learning about ideas and culture. According to Billie Barb, historian and contributor to the Vashon Loop, Vashon Island hosted the fortieth Chautauquah assembly in the U.S. (The Vashon Loop, July 18, 2008, vol. 5, no. 15).
The assemblies died off in the 1920s but the Chautauqua Institution continued in New York where it thrives today. In fact, the institution has a deep cultural presense and can be found on Facebook, Youtube, MySpace, and Flickr. Browse the University of Washington’s Oliver S. Van Olinda collection for more of Vashon’s Chautauqua photos and be sure to stay tuned for more Van Olinda images in the Vashon Island Heritage collection coming soon to Washington Rural Heritage.
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May 26th, 2009 at 9:29 am
There is also an active Chautauqua association in Boulder, CO, see http://www.chautauqua.com/. It was started about 1898 by Texas teachers. One can rent a cottage or lodge room, dine, and attend concerts. We have stayed there several times.