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The lyceum movement in the United States refers to a loose collection of adult education programs named for the classical Lyceum which flourished in the mid-19th century, particularly in the Northeast and Midwest. [1] Some of these organizations lasted until the early 20th century.
The lyceums, mechanics’ institutes, and agriculture organizations like The Grange flourished in the U.S. before and after the Civil War. They were important in the development of adult education in America. During this period hundreds of informal associations were established for the purpose of improving the social, intellectual, and moral fabric of society. The lyceum movement featured lectures, dramatic performances, class instructions, and debates, by noted lecturers, entertainers and readers. They would travel the "lyceum circuit," going from town to town or state to state to entertain, speak, or debate in a variety of locations, never staying in one place for too long. Their appearances were open to the public, which caused them to contribute significantly to the education of the adult American in the 19th century.
The first American lyceum, "Millbury Branch Number 1 of the American Lyceum," was founded by Josiah Holbrook in 1826. Holbrook was a traveling lecturer and teacher who believed that education was a lifelong experience, and intended to create a National American Lyceum organization that would oversee this method of teaching. Other educators adopted the lyceum format but were not interested in organizing, so this idea was ultimately dropped.
The Lyceum Movement reached the peak of its popularity in the antebellum era. Public Lyceums were set up around the country, as far south as Florida and west as Detroit, Michigan. Transcendentalists such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau endorsed the movement and gave speeches at many local lyceums. As a young man, Abraham Lincoln gave a speech to a Lyceum in Springfield, Illinois. [2]
After the American Civil War, lyceums were increasingly used as a venue for travelling entertainers, such as vaudeville and minstrel shows. They were also still used for public speeches and lectures. Notable public figures such as Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Victoria Woodhull, Anna Dickinson, Josiah Gilbert Holland, Mark Twain, and William Lloyd Garrison, all spoke at lyceums in the late 19th century.
Chautauqua is an adult education and social movement in the United States that peaked in popularity in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Chautauqua assemblies expanded and spread throughout rural America until the mid-1920s. The Chautauqua brought entertainment and culture for the whole community, with speakers, teachers, musicians, showmen, preachers, and specialists of the day. U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt is often quoted as saying that Chautauqua is "the most American thing in America". What he actually said was: "it is a source of positive strength and refreshment of mind and body to come to meet a typical American gathering like this—a gathering that is typically American in that it is typical of America at its best." Several Chautauqua assemblies continue to gather to this day, including the original Chautauqua Institution in Chautauqua, New York.
The Chautauqua Institution is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit education center and summer resort for adults and youth located on 2,070 acres (840 ha) in Chautauqua, New York, 17 miles (27 km) northwest of Jamestown in the Western Southern Tier of New York State. Established in 1874, the institution was the home of, and provided the impetus for, the Chautauqua movement that became popular in the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The Chautauqua Institution Historic District is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and was further designated a National Historic Landmark.
Josiah Gilbert Holland was an American novelist, essayist, poet and spiritual mentor born in Massachusetts. He was called “the most successful man of letters in the United States” in the latter half of the nineteenth century. His writings are quoted today by politicians and celebrities alike. He was the first to publish a poem written by an African American and he penned the first biography of Abraham Lincoln, which was a bestseller. Holland was among the first writers in the literary genre known as realism. He was a popular Lyceum lecturer and wrote essays under the pseudonym Timothy Titcomb as well as lyrics to hymns, including the Methodist tune, "There's a Song in the Air.” He helped establish the middle-class flagship magazine, Scribner's Monthly, of which he became editor-in-chief. He likely sold more books during his lifetime than Mark Twain did during his though few today recognize Holland’s name.
John Lowell Jr. was an American businessman, early philanthropist, and through his will, founder of the Lowell Institute.
Emma Hardinge Britten was an English advocate for the early Modern Spiritualist Movement. Much of her life and work was recorded and published in her speeches and writing and an incomplete autobiography edited by her sister. She is remembered as a writer, orator, trance clairvoyant, and spirit medium. Her books, Modern American Spiritualism (1870) and Nineteenth Century Miracles (1884), are detailed accounts of spiritualism in America.
Josiah Holbrook was the initiator and organizer of the lyceum movement in the United States. He formed the first industrial school in the country in 1819, organized the first lyceum school in the country in 1826 and inspired the foundation of the American Lyceum Association, the first national education association. He founded the Holbrook School Apparatus Manufacturing Company and made a variety of teacher aid items for common schools and scientific training aids for teachers to use in lyceums. He also wrote and traveled extensively to promote the lyceum concept. His method combined teaching in academic subjects like Greek, history and mathematics with practical farming skills and crafts. In the beginning, his system flourished in the New England states, later branching out into the Midwestern states, and eventually going nationwide to 3,000 towns and cities. He was also an advocate of professional teacher training and broadening female education.
The Colorado Chautauqua, located in Boulder, Colorado, United States, and started in 1898, is the only Chautauqua west of the Mississippi River still continuing in unbroken operation since the heyday of the Chautauqua Movement in the 1920s. It is one of the few such continuously operating Chautauquas remaining in the United States, and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2006. According to its governing body, the Colorado Chautauqua Association, it is also unique in that it is the only year-round Chautauqua.
The Boston Lyceum (est.1829) of Boston, Massachusetts was a civic association dedicated to popular education in the form of "lectures, discussions, ... declamation," and writing contests. It began "in Chauncy Hall on 25 June 1829. On 13 August 1829 it formed its classes and made provisions for lectures and debates." Annual members' "exhibitions" of elocution took place in various venues around town, such as the Masonic Temple (1832), Tremont Hall (1839) and the Odeon (1840). Leaders included George Bancroft, Timothy Claxton, James T. Fields, Abbott Lawrence, William H. Prescott, William D. Ticknor, and Amasa Walker. Among the many lecturers: Nehemiah Adams, J. A. Bolles, David Paul Brown, Rufus Choate, William M. Cornell, C. C. Emerson, James Pollard Espy, Edward Everett, Dr. Grigg, George S. Hillard, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Dr. C. T. Jackson, N. Jones, Rev. John Pierpont, Edgar Allan Poe, John Osborne Sargent, William H. Simmons, Charles Sumner, B. B. Thatcher, Henry Theodore Tuckerman, Amasa Walker, and E.M.P. Wells.
Tent shows have been an important part of American history since the mid-to-late nineteenth century. In 1927, Don Carle Gillette gave "statistical evidence that the tented drama constituted 'a more extensive business than Broadway and all the rest of the legitimate theatre industry put together.'" The shows first began "in regions which couldn’t support full-time playhouses." Men such as Fayette Lodowick, one of the earliest tent show entrepreneurs, would travel around river towns all over the United States making money on traveling tent shows. These shows "were utilized for a variety of amusements including medicine shows, moving picture shows, vaudeville shows, circuses, musicals, concert companies, and any number of one-night stand dramatic troupes."
Humanities Nebraska (HN) is a non-profit affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) based in Lincoln, Nebraska. HN creates and supports public humanities programs with the goal of engaging the public with history and culture.
Mary Ann Blood was a teacher of elocution and expression in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. She was the co-founder and first co-president of Columbia College Chicago.
The "lecture circuit" is a euphemistic reference to a planned schedule of regular lectures and keynote speeches given by celebrities, often ex-politicians, for which they receive an appearance fee. In Western countries, the lecture circuit has become a way for ex-politicians to earn an income after leaving office or to raise money and their public profile in advance of a run for higher office. The Oxford Dictionary defines the term simply as, "A regular itinerary of venues or events for touring lecturers or public speakers".
Helen Potter was a performer, platform reader, and impersonator closely associated with the Lyceum circuit and the New York Chautauqua in particular. Her performance career with the two institutions spanned the 1870s and 1880s, before she retired in 1890. Potter's impersonations, while preceded by the likes of Fanny Kemble and Mary Scott-Siddons, serves as direct inspiration for actors such as Hal Holbrook and Emlyn Williams. Potter is most well known for her impersonations "of well-known actors and lecturers, giving extracts from their principal plays or lectures". famously of Susan B. Anthony, John B. Gough, and Abraham Lincoln.
Bessie Mecklem Hackenberger was one of the earliest American-born saxophone soloists. In her teens, she was a student of Edward A. Lefebre (1835–1911), pre-eminent saxophonist of the nineteenth century and soloist with Gilmore and Sousa's bands. During the 1890s, when female woodwind and brass players were uncommon, she performed extensively throughout the northeastern United States with her father, harpist Henry Clay Mecklem (1841–1915). The pair appeared in a wide variety of venues popular during the Gilded Age including lyceum; YMCA and temperance organizations; meetings of fraternal societies, labor organizations, and civic groups; benefit concerts; solos with professional wind bands; and amusement parks. Mecklem recorded twelve wax phonograph cylinders at the Edison Laboratories on 23 April 1892. After her marriage in 1900 to Bertram Lyon Hackenberger (1871–1932), she ceased playing professionally, but continued to perform as an active participant in the Progressive-era women's club movement.
Emily Jean Rawei, known by the stage name Hine Taimoa, was a New Zealand Māori lecturer and singer, with her husband, Wherahiko Francis Rawei, and other family members. The family toured internationally from the 1890s through the 1910s to demonstrate and speak on Māori culture.
Lucy Nicolar Poolaw, also called Wa-Tah-Wa-So and billed as Princess Watahwaso, was a Penobscot and a performer on the Chautauqua and lyceum circuits.
Sumayeh Attiyeh was a Syrian-born American lecturer and writer who toured North America on the Chautauqua circuit.
Bess Gearhart Morrison was an American actress and educator, and a speaker on the Chautauqua and lyceum adult education circuits.
Nannie Webb Curtis was an American lecturer and temperance activist, widely-known as a clubwoman. She wrote essays on the topic and edited a magazine. She served as National vice-president of Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), sat on the National Executive Committee, and was also on the Official Board of the National WCTU, the lawmaking body of organization. Her father having been a Methoidist minister, she made her living lecturing as a pulpit orator on the topics of prohibition and woman suffrage on behalf of the National WCTU, Chautauqua, and the lyceum circuits. Frequently characterized as being "bigger than her state", Curtis was a patriot and a speaker of national fame.
Rosetta Lawson was an American temperance activist, educator, and suffragette. She was, with her husband, educator and activist Jesse Lawson, a co-founder of Frelinghuysen University, where she taught anatomy and physiology. She served for 30 years as a national organizer for the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. Lawson organized the first Congress of Colored Women in the United States, and was elected to the executive committee of the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs.