May 20, 2005
'The Most American Thing in America: Circuit Chautauqua as Performance'
Once upon a time in small-town America, summer meant Chautauqua. Before radio, before talking pictures, rural folk counted on finding wholesome and edifying entertainment when the "big brown tent" arrived.
Itinerant Chautauqua had a stationary start in 1874 when a group of Methodists grew uncomfortable with the flamboyant emotion of camp-meeting revivalism. They proposed an alternative: a summer assembly for Sunday-school teachers. The first gathering was held by Lake Chautauqua in New
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