Nickelodeon movie theater

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For the Nickelodeon Theatre in Columbia, SC, see the page on the Columbia Film Society.

The Nickelodeon was an early 20th century form of small, neighborhood movie theaters in the United States in which admission was obtained for a nickel. By 1907, one estimate (based on basic business economics) was that an average of over two million people attended the nickelodeons daily. The popularity of these affordable, entertaining, and highly profitable venues was such that their numbers mushroomed to approximately 8,000 in the U.S. by 1908.

Nickelodeons were usually minimally converted main street storefronts, formerly used as shops (or even livery stables). Most were small, with fewer than 200 seats, 200 being the threshold then in place in many cities where the nickelodeon had to take out theatre licenses instead of the much cheaper amusement license. The auditorium was small: one story high, typically 25 feet wide and 70 feet deep. Its seats were usually simple kitchen chairs and its walls were often painted red.

Nickelodeons in competitive markets had a piano or organ, playing whatever music the pianist or organist knew that seemed appropriate to a scene (e.g. classic ragtime for a chase sequence, or what was called at the time "Eliza-crossing-the-ice" music during the scary moments).

The name "Nickelodeon" was coined (an apt term) by Harry Davis and John P. Harris, who opened their small, storefront theatre under that name on Smithfield Street in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in June of 1905. Though theirs was not the first theatre in the world to specialize in presenting movies, Davis and Harris found such great success with their operation that their concept of a five cent theatre running movies continuously was soon imitated by hundreds of ambitious entrepreneurs, as was the name of the theatre itself. [1].

Louis B. Mayer came of age just as the popularity of the nickelodeon was beginning to rise; he renovated the "Gem Theater" in Haverhill, Massachusetts, converting it into a nickelodeon he opened in 1907 as the "Orpheum Theater", and announced that it would be "the home of refined entertainment devoted to Miles Brothers moving pictures and illustrated songs" [2], [3].

Their numbers declined as cities grew and industry consolidation led to larger, more comfortable, and better-appointed movie theaters.

[edit] Types of "moving pictures"

Nickelodeons would show films which were typically fifteen to twenty minutes in length, and in a variety of styles and subjects, such as short narratives, "scenics" (views of the world from moving trains), illustrated song slides, local or touring song and dance acts, comedies, melodramas, problem plays, stop action sequences, sporting events (e.g. the 1897 Corbett-Fitzsimmons championship fight or the 1899 Jeffries -Sharkey fight) and other features which allowed them to compete with vaudeville houses.

The titles of a few of the films released in 1907 and distributed to nickelodeons by the Miles Brothers (Herbert and Harry) partially illustrate this diversity.

[edit] See also

• Nickelodeon, a 1976 film about the early days of the silent movies business.
• The Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago has an exhibit, Yesterday's Main Street, which includes a working mock-up of a nickelodeon.

[edit] External links and sources

• The Nickelodeons, written by Joseph Medill Patterson and published in the November 23, 1907 issue of The Saturday Evening Post
• "Story films" distributed by the Miles Brothers, from the American Film Institute Catalog of Feature Films