On the first Tuesday of every August, Chautauqua Institution celebrates its birthday.
While Chautauquans know the name “Old First Night,” Chautauqua’s birthday was not known as such until 1894.
“Tonight at eight o’clock in the Amphitheatre will occur one of Chautauqua’s greatest festivals, the oldest of them all in fact, and the best, the anniversary of the first Chautauqua Assembly,” The Chautauqua Assembly Herald reported. “A new name has been given to this old-time festival occasion. Hitherto it has been called the Opening of the Assembly, but Chautauqua has grown and is growing.”
In 1874, the first Chautauqua Sunday School Assembly gathered in what is now Miller Park. Led by Bishop John Heyl Vincent and Lewis Miller, the Assembly held its first meeting with every major Protestant denomination represented in attendance. In the 19th century, Sunday Schools provided an opportunity for basic education and literacy, drawing from the Protestants’ belief that this schooling provided a way to care for the community.
“It is difficult for people today to understand how important the Sunday Schools needed to be in the 19th century,” Chautauqua historian Alfreda L. Irwin wrote in Three Taps of the Gavel. “While public schools were still developing, the Sunday Schools performed a significant educational work. Added to this was the renewed popular interest in education after the Civil War.”
Vincent held the ideal of Chautauqua as a place of conversation, emphasizing in The Chautauqua Movement that the goal of the summer assembly was to be all-encompassing in its discussions.
“While the exercises of the first season (1874) were devoted to the Sunday school, the wide range given to the topics bearing upon this theme, and the varied talent brought to the platform, furnished much that was interesting in the first programme at Chautauqua. With God’s word as the text-book, there could be no limitation as to topics,” Vincent wrote.
Today, Chautauqua will partake in a series of birthday celebrations and traditions. At 6 p.m. tonight in the Amphitheater, Thursday Morning Brass will begin the Old First Night festivities, followed by Vespers and the Drooping of the Lilies, known as the Chautauqua Salute. The Drooping of the Lilies is believed to have begun in 1877, and it has come to commemorate those who have departed.
Celebrating with all generations, the Children’s School and Boys’ and Girls’ Club, along with audience participation, will continue the evening before Joshua Stafford, director of sacred music and the Jared Jacobsen Chair for the Organist, closes out the event playing “Happy Birthday” on the Massey Memorial Organ.
