Nickelodeon City: Pittsburgh at the Movies, 1905–1929 (review)

Is reviewing a book for which I provided an enthusiastic blurb on its back cover normally allowed? Undoubtedly this is one of many circumstances that can make reviewing such a fraught undertaking. In this case, the publisher approached me for an endorsement of a new book on Pittsburgh nickelodeons. As the deadline for a blurb approached, I could not allow it to pass without offering some comment, for the very idea of this book excited me. In The Emergence of Cinema (1990) I debunked (or so I like to think) a wave of revisionist film history that discounted or dismissed statements that the nickelodeon boom – the proliferation of specialized motion picture theaters – began in Pittsburgh, more specifically with the opening of Harry Davis's theater the Nickelodeon in June 1905. There were earlier storefront theaters, the revisionist argument ran – such as Talley's Electric Theater, which opened in 1902, or his Broadway Theater, which opened in March 1905. Once again, I found that this "myth" – like the "myth" of the "chaser period" – proved to have historical substance and explanatory force. For instance, Tally's Broadway Theater actually opened in March 1906 (exactly one year later than Tally "remembered"). In Chicago, nickelodeons were referred to as "the Pittsburgh Idea". In Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania; Birmingham, Alabama; and other locales, the first nickelodeons were opened by Pittsburgh natives looking for fresh territory to exploit. Moreover, my research in Pittsburgh newspapers provided a sense of the city's burgeoning proliferation of movie houses in the second half of 1905.

As I perused Michael Aronson's Nickelodeon City, my excitement mounted. Harry Davis was an important figure in the history of Pittsburgh cinema, and the opening chapter offered a more complete overview of Davis's career than I had been able to uncover. Another chapter fleshed out the careers of several important exchange men; a third described many of the neighborhoods and some of the nickelodeons that catered to their residents. A fourth dealt in a refreshing and informative way with the issue of film censorship in Pittsburgh and Pennsylvania. There were moments when I thought Aronson could have been a little more attentive or generous to my own work, but this is a feeling I suspect many aging scholars feel – and should resist. Remembering what it was like to be starting out (I was still an adjunct assistant professor when The Emergence of Cinema was published), I offered my blurb:

Pittsburgh was the epicenter of the nickelodeon boom. Until now, accounts of what was often called 'the Pittsburgh Idea' have been more myth and legend dressed up with a few scattered facts than coherent history. Nickelodeon City is a book that was waiting, needing to be written. Who would have guessed it could be done with such perceptiveness and depth?

As a reviewer who has now read Nickelodeon City more thoroughly and carefully, how do I stand by my blurb?

There is much valuable material in this book, including a chapter largely devoted to local filmmaking for specific movie houses in the mid 1910s and another on promotional schemes by local theaters including – most amazingly – a detailed analysis and contextualization of a local "Swat–The–Fly stunt". (Who knew?) However, although the book has substantial pockets of depth, it fares less well as the "coherent history" that I had imagined. In truth, the book's title (particularly after the colon) promises more than it actually undertakes. Aronson does offer some helpful insights into the origins of Pittsburgh's nickelodeon boom, but his investigations halt in 1906 – creating a gap of almost a decade. Aronson's book focuses on the period 1914–1917 and devotes little space to the 1907–1913 period and even less to 1920–1929. (Pittsburgh's conversion to talkies is barely mentioned.) This is a study concerned with the "transitional period" as the feature film was emerging but before the vertically integrated studio system was in place. A subtitle such as "Essays on Pittsburgh at the Movies during the Pre...