About Athens Chautauqua Society

Chautauqua is relatively new to Athens, but it is not new.

The current Athens Chautauqua Society (501c3 nonprofit) was established two years ago in 2019. Our primary mission is the “rediscovery of history on stage, one performance at a time”. But it is actually a rebirth of its Athens beginning in 1914. That “Chautauqua” lasted five years until 1919 when WWI and the Spanish flu swept the country.

But Chautauqua in America is NOT NEW at all.

We have our Native American forebearers to credit for why so many places across this great country of ours are called what they are. And in the case of CHAUTAUQUA, we can thank the Iroquois, an indigenous confederacy of tribes known as the “People of the Longhouse”, who spoke of the lake in upstate New York that they were compelled to explore as “two moccasins bound together”.

And it was on the shores of this very place that in 1874 two gentlemen, John Vincent and Lewis Miller, envisioned a summer campsite for Methodist Sunday school teachers, giving lasting voice to THE CHAUTAUQUA MOVEMENT, now nearly 150 years old. An idea that historically swept the nation, founded a mothership, The Chautauqua Institute, and presses forward today in its rebirth.

The Chautauqua Movement reflected a nation-wide interest in the professionalization of teaching.  Vincent and Miller were very clear that their intent was educational, rather than revivalist.  Podiums not pulpits were on their minds.

Lifelong learning was the vision: culturally, intellectually, spiritually, and recreationally. The four pillars then and the four pillars now.

Theodore Roosevelt hailed it as “the most American thing in America.

Among other things the gentlemen, in their efforts to set a permanent anchor on the shores of Lake Chautauqua, also conceived of designing a correspondence course to bring “a college opportunity” to working and middle-class people, who would be otherwise denied one.

So in the late 1800s the founders’ dreams, to establish what would come to be called Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circles, was born. Across America men and women would convene to discuss the great books of the day. And the idea was so popular that it spread across the country like wildfire.

By 1900 “Independent Assemblies”, permanent fixtures with buildings and staff, just like the Institute on the Lake, began to pepper the landscape, particularly in the Midwest. The name itself, CHAUTAUQUA, became shorthand for an organized gathering meant to introduce people to the great thinkers, new ideas, and issues of public concern.

As well, ”Tent Chautauquas”, veritable “Traveling Shows”, naturally evolved as this “idea whose time had come” gained serious traction and became the principal expression of The Movement. The breadth of their programming varied from Ivy League lecturers and Shakespearean actors to animal acts and vaudeville farce.

At their height some 12,000 communities had hosted a chautauqua for their community. And our very own Athens was NO exception. 

But as we all know most everything that rises must also fall. So it was that the “Independent Assemblies” and the “Tent Chautauquas” were no exception to this rule. Eclipsed by the wheels of time, both movements found themselves sidelined in the 1930s. Historians cite a serious wave of evangelism that the chautauquans’ meeting formats could not satisfy, plus the birth and ascendancy of the car culture, the radio, and the talkies. 

And then the death knell...the Great Depression. 

However the good news is that even though the Chautauqua Institute and those Independent Assemblies suffered some undeniably hard times in the 20th century’s early days, they, like the Tent Chautauquas, have been gaining traction for decades and are now experiencing a bona fide RENAISSANCE. In 1965 Congress established the National Endowment for the Humanities and a number of state humanities councils followed suit to reignite the public’s affection for arts and culture in the public square. 

And one shining example of that was born right down the road in Greenville, South Carolina 20+ years ago where the stage would be set for that town’s brilliant tent revival of America’s traveling festivals of yore. Hosting more than 40 first rate historical reenactments in two week long summer festivals. it’s like watching a veritable “Big Top” unfold on multiple greens before the people’s eyes.

Everyone is IN…from Chambers of Commerce to Humanities Councils to Downtown Authorities to Public Libraries.

Word spread so fast that the Greenville CHQ began to generously partner with metropolises of like minds regionally. Starting with Spartanburg, South Carolina, their nearest neighbor, as well as Asheville and Brevard, North Carolina. And now since we founded The Athens Chautauqua Society in 2019, we’ve been added to the Tri State roster. The only site in Georgia on the circuit.

Our collaboration adds her own acclaimed historical interpreters to those “great speakers of the day” where people can “gather together face to face, to learn, exchange ideas, create community, and have fun”.