Nickelodeon City: Pittsburgh at the Movies, 1905-1929 by Michael Aronson (review)

Presented as an attempt to concentrate on the work of “real people” in “real places” (p.4), Nickelodeon City extensively depicts the creation in the 1890s and rise in the 1900s and 1910s of exhibition sites designed specifically to show motion pictures by focusing on the personalities, intuitions, and deeds of some exhibitors such as John P. Harris and Harry Davis. I really appreciated the local, human and familial dimension of theatre running activities highlighted in Aronson’s book. Indeed, it reminds us how the first decades of motion picture production and exhibition relied on personal experimentation inspired by the dreams of men with experience in vaudeville or sometimes no knowledge at all of the entertainment industry. Thanks to Nickelodeon City, we learn that some entrepreneurs constructed amusement projects that united mercantile objectives with an altruistic vision of social integration through the movies. Theatre exhibition combined professional practices and amateur tryouts. The book also examines innovative informational and promotional strategies such as the establishment of the Pittsburgh Moving Picture Bulletin, a newspaper intended to facilitate the exchanges between local cinema professionals and develop an independent network of operations in Pennsylvania. Aronson manages convincingly to render the framework of a profession in the making.

Apart from recounting the pioneering role of Pittsburgh in film exhibition, the book also demonstrates that launching early motion pictures proved to be a national experience, involving several major cities other than New York or Hollywood, the best example being Pittsburgh. Filmmaking and film showing were rooted in local projects, emerging both east and west, as well as in the Midwest and the south. People usually imagine American motion pictures as a national enterprise serving a political and ideological purpose as early as the 1910s, whereas film related businesses very often operated regionally, at the state level, especially for the distribution and exhibition of their products. Thus, Aronson argues that early motion pictures are to be understood as a locally embedded phenomenon, promoting a national message, boosting regional economies, and strengthening community life. He uses the expression “separate territories” (72), which stresses the division between places of production and exhibition and also the political struggle at stake over the location of movie theatres. The creation of new community centers, related to movies, appeared as an instrument of spatial appropriation used by local businessmen and politicians to take control over city districts.

Aronson’s work also emphasizes the difficulty of promoting new forms and places of entertainment, often felt as threats to peace and order by local governments. It explains the fierce battles over pre-code censorship and their manifold manifestations at the regional level as well as showing the power of their detractors to obstruct movies. For example, the supremacy of the Pennsylvania State Board of Censors was manifest in 1916 when it examined about 17,000 reels to evaluate the “educational, artistic, entertainment values” and “moral effect” of films (182); it would give approval, suggest cuts or ban a movie, and it also train teams of local inspectors to verify in theaters that exhibitors abided by its rulings. Censorship was connected to the power of municipalities and parochial boards to exercise moral control over representations of modern society. The fight over the regulations and circulation of images exemplified how local powers tried to impede the growing influence and prosperity of the new socio-professional category formed by film exhibitors. (The latter gradually organized syndicates, such as the Pittsburg Screen Club, to ensure solidarity, economic cooperation with local authorities, and protection of its interests.) Supervising cinematic representations of society proved an efficient way to influence the local population of moviegoers and shape neighborhoods. Indeed, movies served as way to promote certain behaviors – nonviolence, temperance, restraint, morality – in the spirit of progressive reform (174-177). Moreover, movie theaters progressively became entertainment places associated with a certain respectability as opposed to earlier, less reputable picture houses, thus improving the reputation of the areas in which they...