Cover -- Half title -- Series Page -- Title -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: Chautauqua's Liberal Creed -- 1. An American Forum: Methodist Camp Meetings and the Rise of Social Christianity -- Camp Meetings and Terra Spiritualis -- Never on Sunday -- From Far Points to Fair Point -- Conclusion -- 2. The Never-ending Vacation: Boosters, Tourists, and the Fantasyscape ofChautauqua -- Sizing the Independent Assembly Movement -- Nature Worship and Stealth Cosmopolitanism -- Better Than a Mill: The Booster's Chautauqua -- Railroads Redux -- Magic Lands -- The Never-ending Vacation: Chautauqua Suburbs -- Conclusion -- 3. Canopy of Culture: Democracy under the Big Tent of Prosperity -- Lewis Miller: Communitarian Philanthropist -- John Heyl Vincent: Chautauqua Patriarch -- The Lyceum and Mechanics' Institutes -- Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle -- Jasper Douthit: Chautauqua's Political Turn -- Joseph Maximilian Hark: Moravian for Middlebrow Culture -- Catholics Respond -- Conclusion -- 4. The Liberalism of Whiteness: Webs of Region, Race, and Nationalism in the Chautauqua Movement -- From Anglo - S axonism to White Americ anism -- Chautauqua and the Midwest -- An Invitation to the White South -- Racial Patriotism and the Spanish-American War -- Progressivism and the Black Presence at Chautauqua -- Lessons in Orientalism -- Conclusion -- 5. From Parlor to Politics: Chautauqua and the Institutionalization of Middle-Class Womanhood -- Who Belonged to the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle? -- Men in the Minority -- The Fraternity of Intellect -- Integrating the CLSC -- From Temperance to Suffrage -- Chautauqua Novels -- Women as Managers: Kate KimbalPs Bureaucracy -- "Women's Clatter" in the Public Sphere -- Conclusion.

6. Useful Knowledge and Its Critics: The Messiness of Popular Education in the 1890s -- Chautauqua and the University Extension Movement -- Revolt of the Intellectuals -- "I Like Something Doing": Masculinities at Chautauqua -- Delsarte and the Natural Expression Movement -- Business, Correspondence, and Normal Schools -- Conclusion -- 7. Success through Failure: Chautauqua in the Progressive Era -- The Ambiguous Career of City Beautiful -- Libraries, Parks, and Lecture Series -- The Trouble with the Assemblies -- The Theater of Politics in the Progressive Era -- Departure of the Fundamentalists -- Circuit Chautauquas and the Corporate Reorganization of Culture -- From Liberal Creed to Secular Liberalism: Shelbyville, Illinois -- The Great War and the Agony of the Circuits -- Conclusion -- Conclusion: Failure Through Success? -- Appendix A. Independent Chautauqua Assemblies Founded 1874-1899 295 -- Appendix B. CLSC Incoming Class Enrollment and Graduates, 1874-1914 -- Abbreviations -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index.