The "Much Vexed Problem" of Nontheatrical Distribution in the Late 1910s

Ivo Blom claimed more than a decade ago in his study of the famous Dutch distributor Jean Desmet that film distribution remained a "missing link" in histories of early cinema.¹ Such a claim is no less telling for histories of early "educational cinema," specifically the distribution of largely (but not exclusively) nonfiction films to nontheatrical sites of exhibition. I say this despite the many researchers who recently have done invaluable work on the production, exhibition, and reception of so-called educational films: those who have written case studies of key individuals, companies, and organizations; those who have researched influential technological developments; those who have argued about the ideological framework of visual education; and those who have done close textual analyses of particular films.² Nevertheless, a gap remains in our knowledge of nontheatrical distribution.

Is there really a lack of source material? Is information really too scattered and, consequently, too difficult to discern? Alternatively, do we in media studies simply keep marginalizing the subjects of distribution and the nontheatrical, as researchers and as teachers? In its own small way, this essay seeks to counter that apparent marginalization by offering some preliminary research on the period 1918–19, when the "pioneer days [of] the educational picture," as it was asserted at the time, were "just beginning."³ Specifically, I will mine data from two relatively unexamined journals recently digitized for online access through the Media History Digital Library's "virtual archive." From that data, I'll draw some tentative conclusions about the systems of nontheatrical distribution then in place: what were their broader aims, what problems and limitations did they encounter, and what solutions to the latter were suggested and tested?

My sources are the two journals that first appeared during these years: Reel and Slide (in March 1918) and Educational Film Magazine (in January 1919). Reel and Slide (Figure 1) was a forty-page monthly that was published in Chicago from an office in the Herald Building.⁴ In May, the editor, Lyne S. Metcalfe, announced pompously that it was now "the semi-official organ of the Screen Advertisers' Association of the World."⁵ This suggests that the production and distribution of advertising films would be its chief concern. Indeed, an "Industrial Film and Slide Section" did take up each issue's last fifteen pages. However, the journal's range of interests was broader. In the first issue, a major article sketched the history of "educational pictures" for commercial theaters, particularly those that the "better films movement" promoted.⁶ An editorial also reported on the frequency of motion picture use in public schools and churches.⁷ In the third issue, the principal of a high school in Mingo (central Ohio) offered a detailed report on its exhibition facilities and the films it rented through commercial exchanges.⁸ Therefore the journal's interests certainly included nontheatrical distribution.

Educational Film Magazine (Figure 2) also was a monthly (of slightly fewer pages) published from an office in the Aeolian Hall in New York.⁹ It was far more explicit about its plans, purpose, and policy. In the first issue, the editor, Dolph Eastman, insisted that, unlike Reel and Slide, it was "not to be a trade journal." Instead, it would publish articles by the "foremost educators and authorities, dealing with the employment of motion pictures as a means of visual education."¹⁰ Less reliant on ads, Educational Film Magazine seemed especially interested in helping nontheatrical institutions develop programs of film screenings and determine which films would best fit those programs.

Figure 1.

Reel and Slide, March 1918, front cover.

Perhaps as expected, many of the two journals' ads sold projection equipment and related apparatus.¹¹ A good number, especially in Reel and Slide, however, also promoted distribution services. Among those was the Atlas Educational Film Company (Figure 3), whose service bureau was affiliated with the Better Films Clearing House and which rented a dozen

Figure 2.

Educational Film Magazine, January 1919, front cover.