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Regeneration through culture: Chautauqua in Nebraska, 1882-1925
Abstract
Founded by Methodists John Heyl Vincent and Lewis Miller in 1874, the Chautauqua movement evolved from an institution committed to training Sunday school teachers to one committed to the promotion of an ideology of culture. This ideology of culture reflected an accommodational Protestantism that championed politeness, respect for learning, appreciation for the arts, the pursuit of science, "rational recreation," and an affection for literature. In fact, to Vincent this ideology had regenerative power. While rejecting the emotionalism of the older revivals, he institutionalized the older camp meeting resort into the permanent Chautauqua resort in Chautauqua, New York. There his ideology of culture could be proclaimed in a respectable, resort-like atmosphere. Vincent's institutionalization of the camp meeting resort provided the model for the permanent, independent Chautauqua assemblies in Nebraska. With the ready access provided by the railroads, these assemblies, as subcommunities that nurtured and encouraged, adapted Vincent's ideology of culture through programs that proclaimed self-restraint (temperance), self-improvement, respectable recreation, and featured lectures on great literature, history, social science, and an early form of the social gospel. The regenerative powers of Chautauqua embodied the thrust of the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circles that developed in Nebraska. As a reading program to be completed at home, the CLSC symbolized Vincent's belief in the power of culture, no matter what the individual's social status. CLSC members from Lincoln, Nebraska, thus accepted Vincent's challenge to reform the prisons through the CLSC. Through the biweekly study group called the "Look Forward Circle," they reached dozens of men in the State Penitentiary with the regenerative gospel of Chautauqua. With the emergence of circuit Chautauqua in the twentieth-century, the restructuring and reinstitutionalization of Chautauqua was complete. The triumph of culture as entertainment marked this hybrid of Lyceum and Chautauqua. When the circuits became only one of several competing entertainment choices, their distinctiveness waned. By the early 1930s, Chautauqua was dead in Nebraska.
Subject Area
American history|American studies|Adult education|Continuing education
Recommended Citation
Eckman, James Paul, "Regeneration through culture: Chautauqua in Nebraska, 1882-1925" (1989). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI9013604.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI9013604