Mary Lathbury and Chautaugua

Mary Artemesia Lathbury used her gifts of writing and art for the Lord. She was known as the “po­et laur­e­ate of Chau­tau­qua.”

Lathbury was born in 1841 in Manchester, New York and died in East Orange, New Jersey, in 1913. A Meth­od­ist min­is­ter’s daughter, she stu­died art in Wor­ces­ter, Mass­a­chu­setts, and taught art and French at the New­bu­ry Acad­e­my, Ve­rmont, and in N.Y. She co-au­thored “Wo­man and Tem­per­ance; or, the Work and Work­ers of the Wo­man’s Christ­ian Tem­per­ance Union” in 1883, and con­trib­ut­ed articles to magazines. She was associated with the Chau­tau­qua Move­ment near Chau­tau­qua, N.Y.

The word “chautauqua” is Iroquois and means “two moccasins tied together” or “jumping fish.” The word described a lake in western New York which was known by 1860 as Chautauqua Lake.

The first Chautauqua group, the New York Chautauqua Assembly, was organized in 1874 by Methodist minister John Heyl Vincent and Lewis Miller, a businessman. It met at a campsite on the shores of Chautauqua Lake. Vincent, editor of the Sunday School Journal, had begun to train Sunday school teachers in an outdoor summer school format. The gatherings grew popular. The organization later became know as the Chautauqua Institution. Vincent invited young people for study, bonfires, good meals and lodging. Christian instruction, preaching and worship were a strong part of the Chautauqua experience.

Mary Lathbury, known for her gifts for art and verse, noted that one day she heard a voice she be­lieved was God, say­ing, “Remem­ber, my child, that you have a gift of weav­ing fan­cies in­to verse and a gift with the pen­cil (art) of pro­duc­ing vi­sions that come to your heart; con­se­crate these to Me as tho­rough­ly as you do your in­most spir­it.”

Lathbury was asked to write a song for guests to sing before each morning Bible study at the original Chautauqua Lake meeting place. She responded by writing two verses for her hymn “Break Thou the Bread of Life.” Here are her lyrics for those verses:

“Break Thou the bread of life / dear Lord, to me / As Thou didst break the loaves beside the sea / Beyond the sacred page, I seek Thee, Lord / My spirit pants for Thee, O Living Word.

“Bless Thou the truth, dear Lord, to me, to me / As Thou didst bless the bread by Galilee / Then shall all bondage cease, all fetters fall / And I shall find my peace, my all in all.”

Lathbury wrote other hymns, including “Day is Dying in the West,” a hymn often sung at the end of day at the Chautauqua, N.Y. campsite.

The Chautauqua Movement was a huge success and expanded to include not only religious and Biblical study but a range of literacy, historical, sociological, and scientific subjects. The “teachers” included personalities of the late 1800s such as Booker T. Washington and Carrie Nation. The movement brought entertainment and culture for the whole community, with speakers, teachers, musicians, entertainers, preachers and specialists of the day.

The Movement became an adult education endeavor in the U.S. and was popular in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Chautauqua assemblies spread throughout rural America until the mid-1920s. The movement’s popularity is attributed in part to the social and geographic isolation of American farming and ranching communities. People in such areas were hungry for education, culture and entertainment.

One author wrote, “The sort of mild Protestantism that has informed much of American culture was an underpinning of the Chautauqua Movement. The movement pretty much died out by the mid-1930s. Most historians cite the rise of the car culture, radio and movies as the causes. There were several other important, yet subtle, reasons for the decline. One was the sharp increase in (Christian) fundamentalism and evangelical Christianity in the 1920s; the bland non-denominationalism exhibited at most Chautauquas couldn’t accommodate these impulses. Many small independent Chautauquas became essentially camp meetings or church camps.”

America has changed much since 1874, when the first Chautauqua group began, but Mary Lathbury’s hymn “Break Thou the Bread of Life” still rings true. The Bread of Life is the spiritual food we need.

“And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst” (John 6:35).