Category: Chautauqua

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The Chautauqua Movement

We’ll be holding our own ‘improving’ workshop again next August. This is the Dyce Head Lighthouse in Castine, ME, painted by me.
“You wrote, ‘And as with so many things in 19th century America, the vacation was tied up with religious reform,’” an alert reader wrote me yesterday. “What does that mean?”
Ours is a country prone to religious revival. Historians call those periods our ‘Great Awakenings’. America experienced a Third Great Awakening from the middle of the 19th century until the early 20th century. This particular revival had a strong dose of social activism in its nature. The three greatest movements of the 19th century all sprang from this religious impulse: abolition, temperance, and women’s suffrage. So too did the early middle-class getaways, the Chautauqua movement.
1915 postcard
The first Chautauqua was organized as a training camp for Methodist Sunday school teachers. This outdoor summer school format grew so popular that it was copied all over the country in the form of ‘daughter’ Chautauquas.
These were far more than religious tent revivals. They offered lecturers, theatrical readings, music, art, and more. When Theodore Roosevelt called them “the most American thing in America,” he was correct, for they enshrined the American do-it-yourself spirit of bringing learning to places that were too small, too remote, too new for established culture.
The Lyceum Magazine advised members to continue to challenge popular amusements with improving ones, even in time of war.
Having taught painting for a long time, I know that this love of learning is engrained in us. Speaking of which, I have fixed the year on my workshop brochure.
Lunch break, Castine Maine, Carol L. Douglas
The real dates are August 9-14, 2015. Dramatic, inspirational Schoodic Point in Acadia National Park will be our base. This is the quiet side of Acadia, far from the hustle of Bar Harbor, but with the same dramatic rock formations, pounding surf, and stunning mountain views that make Acadia a worldwide tourist destination.
Of course, all skill levels and media are welcome. From beginner to advanced, in watercolor, oils, acrylics, pastels — bring any or all with you. Because bringing family along was so popular in 2014, we’ve arranged to make it possible this year, too.
Water Street View, Castine, ME, by Carol L. Douglas
Just make sure you get back to me by the end of the year to get that early-bird discount!

I will be teaching in Acadia National Park next August. Read all about it here, or download a brochure here. 

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A change is as good as a rest

Kaaterskill Falls, 8X10, unframed, by Carol L. Douglas. Kaaterskill Falls is one of America’s oldest tourist attractions.
Yesterday I was moaning with a friend about how a busy holiday leaves us needing a vacation. She said, “I can’t remember the last vacation I took.”
That’s something I hear frequently. It got me wondering about the history of the vacation. Luckily, while we may not get much time off, we can find almost anything online, and I went to Cindy Aron’s Working At Play: A History of Vacations in the United States for a prĂ©cis.
The first tabernacle at Ocean Grove, NJ, in 1876, from Harper’s Monthly.
Of course the idea of vacationing arose with the elite: those wealthy people who could afford to get out of the steaming city in the summer and head to their rural estates or the shore. That started as a way of avoiding disease, just as the Grand Tour was meant as an educational capstone.
It wasn’t until the Civil War that vacationing became more commonly available. And as with so many things in 19th century America, the vacation was tied up with religious reform.
Yellowstone was the world’s first national park. This poster is from 1938.
On the one hand there were secular resorts like Saratoga Springs, NY, Hot Springs, VA, and Newport, RI. These catered to money, with a whiff of dissolution and activities like billiards, bowling, gambling, dances, and concerts. On the other hand, there were the improving resorts, like Chautauqua, NY (and all the little chautauquas it spawned) or Ocean Grove, NJ.
Kaaterskill Creek, 8X10, unframed, by Carol L. Douglas. 
Even as transportation improved and religious revival died down, the middle class tended to prefer improvement to frivolity, favoring camping, touring, and the National Parks over fashionable resorts. While there have always been amusement parks like Coney Island to attract middle-class visitors, it wasn’t until the opening of Disneyland in 1955 that the modern theme park was born.

Want an improving vacation? I will be teaching in Acadia National Park next August. Read all about it here, or download a brochure here.