25. Lyceum Programs, 1873/74

The Concord Lyceum was organized late in 1828 for the "improvement in knowledge, the advancement of Popular Education, and the diffusion of useful information throughout the community." Early programs consisted of lectures and debates, post-Civil War programs increasingly of musical and other entertainments. The Lyceum met in the old Concord Academy building, the Center schoolhouse, the vestries of the Congregational and Unitarian churches, and (finally) the Town Hall. Programs were held in the winter season of each year. Ralph Waldo Emerson was the Lyceum's most frequent speaker. Other lecturers included Henry David Thoreau, Wendell Phillips, Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Russell Lowell, James T. Fields, Louis Agassiz, Horace Greeley, Theodore Parker, Orestes Brownson, Frederic Henry Hedge, Henry Ward Beecher, James Freeman Clarke, and Jones Very. The 1873/74 season featured Mary A. Livermore, Issac Hayes, William Parsons, Wendell Phillips, Black's Stereopticon, William R. Emerson, the Mendelssohn Quintette Club, William H. Niles, H.C. Spaulding, and Ralph Waldo Emerson.