From the Encyclopedia Brittanica: Chautauquas started after the Civil War as an assembly for the training of Sunday school teachers (at Chautauqua Lake, New York). The program was soon broadened to include general education and popular entertainment; in later years a home reading and corresponsdence study program was added; by 1900 there was a school of theology, a correspondence school, and a publishing house. Many "chautauquas" patterned after the original were founded; by 1900 there were up to 400 of them. The system peaked in 1924 . . . Well, that's a start.

This is the best piece I've ever read on the net about Chautauqua, I just found it on a google search: http://www.todaysseniors.com/memories/chautauqua2.shtml I found this clipping today on the web. The one nearest St. Louis, however-Piasa Chautauqua- has neither disappeared nor moved from its birthplace on what is now know as the Great River Road on the Mississippi between Alton and Grafton, IL, although it is no longer a center of public events. Still a picturesque, isolate retreat, crisscrossed by winding roads, it is a gated, private colony of more than 100 cottages or more substantial homes, many occupied by descendants of earlier owners. Founded in 1885 by Methodist leaders, as was the first Chautauqua in New York, Piasa Chautauqua for decades, even into the 1850s attracted thousands of St. Louisans and residents of Illinois. Arriving first by packet boat, later by automobile or the trains that ran by as often as six times a day, they were entertained, educated and inspired by such luminaries as William Jennings Bryan, evangelists Sam Jones, Billy Sunday and Gypsy Smith, the Swiss Bell Ringers, Sousas band and "Sunny Jim," reputed to be one of the Theodore Roosevelts Rough Riders. This is how an exuberant copywriter in the 1912 brochure described it: Piasa Chautauqua is located less than 40 miles from St. Louis in a beautiful valley between high, massive bluffs with the great Mississippi serving as a guard in front and almost unexplored forest at back, one of natures most picturesque spots, unknown to thousands but dear to those who have enjoyed its beauties and regained health from its wonderful springs and its clear, pure air, delightful cool nights, beautiful scenery and outdoor amusements, boating, swimming, fishing, bathing, lawn tennis, croquet, baseball etc. Many older St. Louisans and Illinois residents still remember those beauties and pure air and the outdoor amusements. Their children and grandchildren remember the fun they had there at mid-century. A 1954 clipping, save by Sylvia Twigger who was a director of childrens activities, reported a "clever and successful Childrens Day pageant entitled "Around the World." Frank Weyforth of Clayton portrayed Uncle Sam; Mary Ruth Kurt, Mrs. Twiggers sister, (now Mrs. Wesley Kempfer) was an assistant as were Barbara Jacoby, Barbara Rogers and Pat Schermann. Mary Meisel portrayed Miss United Nations. Another clipping stated, "if there were still a pied piper roaming our modern day world, most likely he would lead throngs of children down the Piasa bluffs into the little resort which rests in the valley off Alton Lake. The resort, Chautauqua, has often been proclaimed as "a childrens paradise." ...To make it safe, automobile drivers must observe a 10-mile speed limit and dogs can roam the grounds only when leashed or muzzled." Referring to a play school for children up to age 12, the clipping reported that the schools director, Mrs. Twigger, "became very popular with the resorts children when she served as lifeguard at the pool in the 1952 season...Mrs. Twigger, of St.Louis, resides with her family at the Glad-U- Could-Make-It cottage." Her mother, the late Mrs. Arthur Kurt, for some time managed the hotel on the property. When Piasa Chautauqua celebrated its 75th anniversary in 1960, Post- Dispatch writer Clarissa Start Wrote: "It is impossible to mention all names of all the families who have had a part in Chautauqua. A dozen or more have owned cottages there more than 50 years." Opera singer Anna Mary Dickey used to summer at Chautauqua, Start wrote, as did musician Gus Haenschen and Clark Clifford, Washington D.C. lawyer. The Chautauqua old-timers, she continued, "recall the days when street lights were tallow lamps, when the refrigeration system consisted of each family having a wooden box in the spring, fastened to the bank by ropes, so that when it rained, men ran frantically to save their boxes from being swept away. The Chicago, Peoria and St. Louis railroad and the improvised "dinky" on the Bluff line from Lockhaven, now in the Museum of Transport. The river boats, the City of Providence, Eagle, J.S. and Corwin Spencer which made regular excursions there." I participated in many of these Children's Day pageants and parades. I remember the Jacoby's, Barbara Rogers and Pat Schermann. And who could forget Mary Meisel? She was quite the beauty. The "exuberant copyrighter" wasn't exagerating, it truly was as magnificent as that description. Truly a child's dream come true. I have been asked what inspired the Spring, and I would have to say it was Chautauqua, Illinois.

Heartland Chautauqua 2000-East Tour left to right: James Longstreet, Louisa May Alcott, Elizabeth Van Lew, Harriet Tubman, and Mathew Brady The ghost of Chautauqua, that lively 19th century icon of religion, culture, education and entertainment, is returning this summer to its old haunts in Missouri and Illinois. Appropriately, the characters to appear on its stage are also distinguished ghosts from another era. Costumed scholar-actors representing 10 men and women who influenced popular thought and changed the course of America in Civil War times are appearing throughout Missouri and Illinois in the fifth Heartland Chautauqua sponsored by the Missouri and Illinois Humanities Councils. It�s a giant step back in time, a modernized version of a century-old idea, brought up-to-date for a technological age. In 1874, the first Chautauqua was established in upstate New York by Methodist ministers and laymen as a religious training school, later evolving into a center of culture and entertainment. Soon other Chautauquas were springing up throughout the country. Residents and visitors welcomed the most distinguished orators, debaters and preachers and the most popular entertainers into even rural communities, including St. Louis� nearby mecca, a woodland site on the Illinois bluffs near Alton by the Mississippi and what is now known as the Great River Road. In their heyday, these festivals played to an estimated 40 million Americans in some 10,000 cities. But after World War I, Chautauqua began to lose its original focus and by the 1930s, the traveling tent shows ended. Now, thanks to Humanities Councils across the country, the concept has been revived, with programs reminiscent of those of a century ago, although centered around a single theme rather than offering a wide variety of attractions. The Great Plains Chautauquas began the revival in the 1980s and others have followed. In 1993, the Missouri Humanities Council launched Missouri Chautauqua with historic characters representing various religious traditions significant to the history of the state and of the nation, and established it as a permanent program. In 1995, the Illinois Humanities Council joined Missouri in creating Heartland Chautauqua as "a serious intellectual enterprise." This season�s theme is "Inside the Civil War." To tell the stories of that historic conflict, the performers�like the traveling troupes of a century ago�will visit eight communities in the two-state area. One troupe of five will appear June 26-July 1 in Haskell Park in Alton, just a few miles from 115-year-old Piasa Chautauqua Assembly, now a gated residential community in the Illinois woodland on the Great River Road. The revived Chautauqua is hosted by the Alton Marketplace Association. Evening performances begin with local musical entertainment at 7 and continue with the Heartland Chautauqua performance from 7:45 to 9 p.m. All is free and open to the public. Dinner will also be available from 6 to 6:45 p.m. for a fee of $6. Civil War personalities to be represented in the Alton programs and their portrayers are Confederate Gen. James Longstreet (Danney Goble); Mathew Brady, Civil War photographer (Dave Dickerson); Harriet Tubman, acclaimed for her daring and heroic rescue of more than 300 slaves and preeminent conductor of the Under-ground Railroad (Shene King); Louisa May Alcott, author of Little Women and an army nurse during the war (Gayle Stahlhuth); Elizabeth Van Lew, one of the most effective undercover operators for the Union (Annette Baldwin Kolasinski). Since the Missouri Humanities Council began the project eight years ago, many Missouri communities and sites�including Tower Grove Park in St. Louis�have welcomed the new Chautauquas, and a number of Illinois sites have been selected since their state joined Missouri five years ago, A few have been repeaters. Sites are chosen by the Humanities Councils on the basis of applications to host the event, the enthusiasm of community boards and agencies, the number of volunteers and the facilities communities can offer to handle large crowds of visitors. Unfortunately, while the original Chautauquas would seem to be appropriate locales and would help keep alive the legend and lore of the 19th century project, hundreds have disappeared, swallowed up by suburbia or deserted by new generations. Even those which have survived in the new technological age are not likely to have the personnel or the space such an enterprise requires. Still, the planners have kept one tradition alive. Residents of Alton and of the seven other program locales will raise a circus tent, just as did volunteers nearly a century ago. Under the tent, with a different star appearing each evening, the troupe will lead audiences in an exploration of what life was like inside the Civil War, and will provide a new look at that period in American history through the stories of 10 men and women who experienced the war from vastly different standpoints. The actors also will provide free daytime programs to schools and to various community groups. In these presentations they will step out of their Civil War roles and tell of their own life experiences. All have distinguished careers not only in the theater but as authors, educators, artists and historians. "We are providing living history," said Barbara Gill, deputy director of the Missouri Humanities Council. "And the wonderful thing about it is the way it brings communities and people together. Today, with radio and television and movies and the Internet, people don�t make so many opportunities to get together and work together. But we have found in our previous summer programs a renewed sense of fellowship and camaraderie that the old Chautauquas engendered but have faded somewhat through the years. " In This Fabulous Century, Time-Life Books describes life in the 1910-1920 decade when Chautauquas were at their zenith. "Of all the various cultural vehicles that rolled through America in the second decade, by far the most popular were the inspirational tent shows called Chautauquas. .. "The people loved it and everyone from the White House on down had something to say for it. Ex-President Teddy Roosevelt called it �the most American thing in America.� Others called it �the great forum of culture and inspiration.� And to the home folks, the Chautauqua was not only an opportunity to pick up some packaged enlightenment; it was the social blast of the year."