Originally, Chautauqua was the name of a lake in western New York. This became the location for a Sunday school teachers' training seminar, held in an out-door setting and conducted interdenominationally by renown Bible scholars. Over the years, the schedule of events included more secular speakers, performers and entertainers. However, the Chautauqua Institute never strayed from its educational and cultural focus. This idea became immensely popular in other parts of the United States, especially in the recently settled rural, western states. Within a few years, "chautauquas," like the first one at Lake Chautauqua, New York, could be found in a number of locations around the country. By the end of the nineteenth century, chautuaqua companies organized to contract talented individuals and groups and to take them "on the circuit" to towns and rural, park-like settings, performing inside huge tents. For literally millions of people in the sparcely settled west and midwest, this was their only form of cultural enlightenment and entertainment. However, by the early 1930s, the once popular chautauqua movement was declining. As technological advances provided newer forms of entertainment (the radio and sound movies) and as the once sparcely populated states gained more people -- enabling previously small towns to support their own theatres, dance halls, and libraries, the chautauquas eventually found it impossible to compete with other diversions. By 1934, the last circuit chautauqua closed down.
From the description of Margaret B. Franklin Papers, 1883-1992. (bulk 1900-1935). (Kansas State Historical Society). WorldCat record id: 36151546
