Nickelodeon (movie theater)
The nickelodeon was the first type of indoor exhibition space dedicated to showing projected motion pictures in the United States and Canada.
Regarded as disreputable and dangerous by some civic groups and municipal agencies, crude, ill-ventilated nickelodeons with hard wooden seats were outmoded as longer films became common and larger, more comfortably furnished motion-picture theaters were built, a trend that culminated in the lavish "movie palaces" of the 1920s.
Statistics at the time show that the number of nickelodeons in the United States doubled between 1907 and 1908 to around 8,000, and it was estimated that by 1910 as many as 26 million Americans visited these theaters weekly.
[6] Nickelodeons in converted storefronts typically seated fewer than 200 – the patrons often sat on hard wooden chairs, with the screen hung on the back wall.
Directors had a great desire to make longer films, because it meant greater artistic innovation as they tried to find new ways to engage audiences.
[15] Early writers on American cinema history assumed that audiences at nickelodeons were primarily working-class people who could not afford a higher ticket price.
[14] At the heart of the image of nickelodeons in traditional histories is the belief that movies were a simple amusement for the working class, and that the middle-class stayed away until after World War I.
[16] This idea was reflected in Lewis Jacobs' 1939 survey, where he wrote: "concentrated largely in poorer shopping districts and slum neighborhoods, nickelodeons were disdained by the well-to-do.
[20] Nickelodeons usually showed films about ten to fifteen minutes in length, and in a variety of styles and subjects, such as short narratives, "scenics" (views of the world from moving trains), "actualities" (precursors of later documentary films), illustrated songs, local or touring song and dance acts, comedies, melodramas, problem plays, stop-action sequences, sporting events and other features which allowed them to compete with vaudeville houses.
Nickelodeons further declined with the advent of the feature film, and as cities grew and industry consolidation led to larger, more comfortable, better-appointed movie theaters.
[citation needed] Although their heyday was relatively brief, nickelodeons played an important part in creating a specialized spectator, "the moviegoer", who could now integrate going to the movies into their life in a way that was impossible before.
The growth of longer films, which nickelodeons played a large part in stimulating, also led to the development of intertitles, which appeared in 1903 and helped make actions and scenes clearer as storylines became more complicated.
