Chautauqua is home to the oldest summer arts festival in the United States. Since 1874, people young and old have been coming to this enchanting lakeside community in upstate New York for the Chautauqua Institution's unique program of music, art, drama, stimulating discussion, and recreation. This profusely illustrated book explores Chautauqua's history as the Institution celebrates its 125th anniversary.Jeffrey Simpson, a lifelong Chautauquan, uses evocative photographs to show how Chautauqua developed from an educational haven for Sunday-school teachers to a world-famous center for the arts. As the community's tents were replaced by fanciful Victorian houses, its programs expanded to include a full-scale resident symphony orchestra, an opera company, dance and theater programs, an art school, and lectures by speakers of world renown -- including nine American presidents.
A National Historic Landmark, Chautauqua is also a model for contemporary planned communities. This book allows everyone to share in what Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, a frequent visitor, has called "a good world where beauty and reason come together."
