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Chautauqua (/ʃəˈtɔːkwə/ shə-TAW-kwə) 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 said that Chautauqua is "the most American thing in America".
see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chautauqua
Natural successor to the Lyceum Movement
"The Chautauqua movement beginning in the 1870s may be regarded as a successor to the Lyceum movement from the 1840s. 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. After the American Civil War, lyceums were increasingly used as a venue for traveling 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, Mark Twain, and William Lloyd Garrison, all spoke at lyceums in the late 19th century." ~• wikipedia
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