The Chautauqua Movement

The Chautauqua Institute was an eight-week summer intensive course that imitated the “Normal Courses’ offered for public school teachers in the late nineteenth century. It combined religious and secular education in a retreat-like setting in the northern Appalachian region of Upstate New York and expanded into an educational movement that welcomed Mary Baker Eddy's followers and served as a platform for publicizing Christian Science teachings.

During the summer 1873 retired Methodist preacher, John Heyl Vincent, and inventor-manufacturer, Lewis Miller, founded an institute for Sunday school teachers on the shores of Lake Chautauqua in Western New York. From his experience as a Methodist minister, Vincent sought to create a retreat for higher learning to counteract the emotionalism of the evangelical revivals. As a former circuit-riding Methodist minister Vincent valued proselytizing tools such as the camp meeting, but "was convinced that the malicious clamor and untidy outbursts accompanying the penitent's entrance into the Kingdom would be gradually replaced with a more orderly cultivation and strengthening of the moral and religious principle." (Andrew C. Rieser, The Chautauqua Moment in U. S. History, Alexandria, VA: Alexander Street Press, 2007.; John Heyl Vincent, The Chautauqua Movement, Boston: The Chautauqua Press, 1886. John Heyl Vincent, A History of the Wesleyan Grove, Martha's Vineyard, Camp Meeting, Boston: Geo. C. Rand & Avery, 1858.)

Chautauqua focused on both religious and secular education while inviting reform-minded individuals to come and speak at its annual classes. The institute also offered a correspondence course through the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle (CLSC) opening up higher education to many social groups previously excluded from formal college education. (John C. Scott, "The Chautauqua Movement: Revolution in Popular Education" The Journal of Higher Education, vol. 70, issue 4, (1999): 390-395; Andrew C. Rieser, The Chautauqua Moment in U. S. History, Alexandria, VA: Alexander Street Press, 2007.) Vincent also saw his educational movement as necessary to democratic society, providing the "tools for a growing populace to better exercise their rights." Along with the CLSC, the Institute managed a Chautauqua Book a month club while also encouraging the founding of nearly 10,000 independent chapters known as Chautauqua circles throughout the country by the 1890s. (Andrew C. Rieser, The Chautauqua Moment in U. S. History, Alexandria, VA: Alexander Street Press, 2007)

A number of Christian Scientists both spoke at Chautauqua’s conferences and attended classes in New York and Chautauqua circles throughout the United States. Others learned of Christian Science through attending lectures and witnessing healings at Chautauqua meetings.