Director's Letter

Dear Colleague:

I invite you to join us at one of the two sessions of THE AMERICAN LYCEUM AND PUBLIC CULTURE: THE ORATORY OF IDEALISM, OPPORTUNITY, AND ABOLITION. These workshops will take place the weeks of May 17-23 and May 24-30 as part of the National Endowment for the Humanities Landmarks of American History and Culture Workshops. During these workshops, we will revisit a seminal period in American intellectual and social history, the age of the American Lyceum. I invite you to visit authentic Lyceum sites, to hear professional actors perform some of the great orations delivered on the Lyceum stage, and to explore with acclaimed scholars of rhetoric and history the meaning and impact of this landmark movement in American history.

The American Lyceum, founded in 1826 by Josiah Holbrook, is the first and one of the most important adult educational movements in American history. Dedicated to the laudable goal of "diffusing practical knowledge," the Lyceum became much more. It became, in fact, a national lecturing circuit, providing for its audiences a lively education in democratic living. The Lyceum movement is a vivid example of how Americans sought to define their culture during the mid-nineteenth century, a time that Hellfire Nation author James Morone argues witnessed the "great awakening" of a people to the fact that they were "Americans."

Why study the impact of the American Lyceum through oratory? First, America in the 19th century was what literary scholar Gerald Graff calls an "oratorical culture." Today, mass media such as radio, television, film, and the internet create and sustain culture; in the 19th century, public speaking on the lecture circuits and in church pulpits shaped public attitudes and public debate. The Lyceum was one of the leading venues for such cultural transformations, a place where Americans struggled with the controversial issues of the day. As Angela Ray, author of The Lyceum and Public Culture Making notes, "Defining the terms and boundaries of American culture was a process of consensus-building and resistance, of accord and conflict."

Secondly, great oratory, to paraphrase Hegel, is a "snapshot in time."If we accept the notion that "writers turn blood into ink, and speakers turn ink into blood," we come to understand orations as primary texts that move an audience at a critical moment in time to decide who they will be, what they will believe, and how they will act. As they listened to the great oratory presented on the Lyceum stage, ordinary people decided on the qualities of character that would define them as "Americans," and how they would confront the demons facing their new nation, particularly the demon of slavery.

We will explore two dominant themes as they were addressed on the Lyceum stage. The first theme we broadly define as the philosophy of liberal individualism, optimism, and opportunity, or, as it was called during the time, "uplift." We will hear and read the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Edward Everett as they sketched a vision of America as a millennial nation, but one that would require these new Americans to hew to uniquely American values and traditions. We will debate the proposition that the idealism of early American oratory provided the philosophical grounding for the great challenge of this age: the abolition of slavery. We will then turn to this theme, the antislavery movement, and through the oratory of Thoreau, Frederick Douglass, Lucy Stone, Abby Kelley Foster, Sarah and Angelina Grimke, and Wendell Phillips, we will hear what Americans of the day heard, feel what they felt, and how they faced the most personal moral challenge of their time.

We will study these primary texts in three ways. First, as documents of their day: snapshots of public consensus building. Secondly, as rhetorical texts, i.e., as strategic uses of language intended to persuade audiences about the meaning of America and the challenges it would face to realize its full promise. Thirdly, as historical documents that speak to us today about a time that presages our own. And we will engage with the great oratory of the day at actual Lyceum sites where we will immerse ourselves in the moment and enrich our learning through context.

Our itinerary will take us to landmark Lyceum sites. The first Lyceum program was presented in Millbury, Massachusetts in 1828. We will return to Millbury, to the Asa Waters mansion, site of early Lyceum gatherings, to hear a lecture by the distinguished American historian Robert Gross on the history of the Lyceum movement. We will then visit perhaps the most important Lyceum site, Concord, Massachusetts, for lectures and interpretations of orations by Emerson, Thoreau, and Phillips at the First Parish Church and the Masonic Temple Lodge. Our visit to Concord will include an introduction to the Lyceum archives at the Concord Public Library, and visits to Sleepy Hollow Cemetery and Emerson's home.

Our third Lyceum site will be Mechanics Hall in Worcester, Massachusetts. At this site, we will learn from scholar Anne Mattina about the women of the Lyceum. The noted actress Judith Black will perform for us an oration by the notable Lyceum speaker Lucy Stone. During the afternoon session, we will travel to the American Antiquarian Society to learn how to use one of the most valuable Lyceum archives. We will conclude the week in Salem, Massachusetts at the Lyceum Hall, listening to a lively interpretation of Frederick Douglass and discussing his fiery oratorical style with the aid of Lyceum scholar Angela Ray. And we spend an afternoon with Edward Everett, the "Cicero of America," as he was called. Through the magic of interpreter Jim Cooke, we hear him deliver excerpts from his most illustrious Lyceum orations, and we come to understand the power of biography as it was used for rhetorical purposes on the Lyceum stage. A comprehensive itinerary may be viewed on our website, www.americanlyceum.neu.edu.

These Workshops will speak to the interests of Professors of History, English, Philosophy, Rhetoric, American Studies, African-American Studies, Sociology, or any faculty interested in American intellectual and cultural history. Librarians, for instance, are welcome to attend. No other qualifications are necessary other than that you must hold a full-time or adjunct position at a community college.

Joining us on this journey will be a group of distinguished teachers and scholars, including,

Dr. Robert Gross, eminent American historian; prolific essayist on Emerson, Thoreau, and Transcendentalism; expert on Concord, which he has explored in the Bancroft Prize-winning The Minutemen and Their World and in the forthcoming study The Transcendentalists and Their World.
Dr. Angela Ray, professor of rhetoric at Northwestern University, and author of The American Lyceum and Public Culture Making.
Dr. Anne Mattina, scholar of rhetorical studies and author of a number of essays on the emergence of women’s public voice, including, "I Am as a Bell That Cannot Ring: Resources for the Study of Antebellum Women’s Rhetoric."
Dr. Richard A. Katula, Professor of Communication Studies and Education, and author of A Synoptic History of Classical Rhetoric, and The Eloquence of Edward Everett.

For a full list of all scholars and interpreters, see our website.

Through their insights, the insights of other invited scholars, and the contributions participants will bring to our discussions, we will make sense of the American Lyceum. To heighten our experience, notable professional interpreters such as Richard Smith, D. Michael Ryan, Wendell Refior, Jim Cooke, Judith Black, Lani Peterson, and Susan Lenoe will bring these texts to life with their dramatic interpretations. This dramatic pairing of professional actors and eminent scholars will bring The American Lyceum to life, and lead us to our own lively exchange of ideas.

And to help you become an integral part of the program, an extensive bibliography will be available on our website. Northeastern University will make available its extensive library collection, as will the Concord Library, the Concord Museum, and the American Antiquarian Society. In addition to participating in discussions about the ideas presented through the orations, each one of you will be a part of a group that will present an oral report on the last day of the Workshop on a theme associated with the American Lyceum. Report topics will derive from the interests of the participants, but could include The American Lyceum and the Emergence of Women's Public Voice, Lyceums and the Problem of Sustaining a Public and Moral Consensus in the Service of Civic Education in the 19th Century, Henry David Thoreau, Wendell Phillips, and Frederick Douglass: Transformations of the Lyceum Movement, The American Lyceum Movement and the Biography Lecture: Its formation and Its Impact on American Life in the 19th Century, Lyceum and the Diffusion of Practical Knowledge: The Successes and Failures of Adult Education in the 19th Century. Reports may also be given that expand on the historic and/or archival sites visited.

In addition, each one of you will begin work on a research essay or a curriculum plan during the Workshop on a subject of interest; for example, on one of the great public lecturers of the day, looking at these great figures from both a historical and rhetorical point of view. The goal of the reports and written projects is to help you take something memorable and substantive from the Workshop to your classroom.

Our host institution, Northeastern University, is located in the heart of Boston. You can learn about Northeastern University by visiting its website: www.neu.edu. Northeastern University is a U.S. News and World Report "top-tier" university with a beautiful urban campus and modern housing in clean, convenient, air-conditioned, award-winning dormitories. You may choose housing in a suite with another participant for approximately $75 per night. Each one of you will have your own private bedroom, and each suite will have a bathroom, kitchen, and a living room. Or, you may choose to have your own suite for $130 per night. To take a full virtual tour of Northeastern University housing go to www.summerhousing.neu.edu. We will most likely be staying in Davenport Commons. Of course, you have the option of staying at one of the hotels in the area, an option you reserve on your own.

Northeastern has a modern student center with a complete food court, and the area around campus offers a full variety of restaurants. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner are also served buffet style at the University’s commissary on campus. Meals are reasonably priced and as of this writing cost approximately $10 for breakfast, $12 for lunch, and $15 for dinner. Of course, on days when we are at the historic sites, food will also be available in a number of venues. As noted on the agenda, at three of the sites, we will offer box lunches for a modest price of approximately $10 to $12.

You will enjoy Northeastern Universityrsquo;s park-like atmosphere, its gardens and memorials, and for a modest guest fee its state-of-the-art exercise facilities that include swimming, recreational sports, and exercise and weight rooms. Visitors to Northeastern appreciate its location directly across the street from the Museum of Fine Arts and near the scenic Back Bay area of this historic city. Fenway Park, home of the Boston Red Sox, is also within walking distance of the campus. Should you choose to drive to Boston, you should expect to pay somewhere between $100-$200 for parking for the entire week. The Northeastern library, constructed in 1990, has a state-of-the-art InfoCommons computer center, and there is wireless connectivity in many of the buildings on campus. You may also have internet access from your suite for an additional charge of $50 per person. Northeastern has computer kiosks in convenient locations around campus that allow you to check email and access the Internet. Northeastern is the perfect location for this Workshop.

Finally, thanks to generous funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities, each participant will receive a $750 stipend to help cover expenses upon completion of the workshop. Travel stipends are also available to accepted participants, and these may defray some or all of the cost associated with the trip to Boston.

So I invite you to join us in this intellectual journey back to the 19th century, to relive that time in history when America was truly an "oratorical culture." Should you want to read about the American Lyceum movement prior to applying, allow me to suggest three books from the many popular and scholarly writings available on the Lyceum:

Antczak, Frederick. Thought and Character: the Rhetoric of Democratic Education. Ames, Iowa: Iowa State University Press, 1985.
Bode, Carl. The American Lyceum: Town Meeting of the Mind. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1956.
Ray, Angela. The Lyceum and Public Culture Making. East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press, 2005

For more advanced reading, go to our website, www.americanlyceum.neu.edu where you will find an extensive bibliography. Many of these readings (including manuscripts of the orations) will be made available to participants in a binder that will be given to you at the Workshop.

Applying for this Workshop is simple. A complete application procedure is available on our website, www.americanlyceum.neu.edu by clicking on the Application link. Begin the process of applying by completing an online Cover Sheet at this address: www.neh.gov/online/education/participants. Perhaps the most important part of the completed application is an essay of one or two double spaced pages that indicates your background and interest in the American Lyceum, your special perspectives, skills, or experiences that will contribute to the Workshop, and the ways in which this Workshop will enhance your teaching and/or research. The application will also require one letter of recommendation from a department or division chair, or from a colleague or advisor who knows your interests and abilities. Applications must be postmarked by March 16, 2009. I invite you to visit our website, www.americanlyceum.neu.edu, to learn more about this program. You may also contact me personally at R.Katula@neu.edu.

Sincerely yours,

Richard A. Katula, Director
The American Lyceum and Public Culture: The Oratory of Idealism, Opportunity, and Abolition in the 19th Century