Film History: An International Journal

'The giant who wants to feel Mother Svea's [i.e. Sweden's] pulse, should place his hand over Örebro.'¹

Kathryn Fuller has shown that the culture of early cinema has different meanings for the American metropolis compared with small-town America. In contrast to the disruptive and fleeting experiences of early exhibition in the big cities, she proposes that movies as an entertainment form slipped easily into the culture of small towns because motion pictures combined new technology with the already familiar entertainment forms of the travelogue slide show and travelling theatre troupes. Successful travelling film exhibitors offered programmes that appealed to the conservative culture of small-town America; they operated in the town's social centre, and were endorsed by respectable civic groups with their 'high class' programmes.² Fuller has also emphasised the regional diversity of nickelodeon cul-ture.³ Gregory A. Waller's local case study of the first three decades of film exhibition in the Southern regional centre and city of Lexington foregrounds the importance not only of the regional but also of the localin the understanding of film history from a social and cultural stand point.⁴ In the following pages, I shall steer away from discussing the teeming metropolis of early film culture in favour of examining the local and regional venues of film history in an attempt to tease out a workable framework for such a historiography in the Swedish context. Waller's and Fuller's studies are my companions on this venture, with some of Miriam Hansen's ideas on the 'public dimension of cinematic reception' lurking in the back-ground.⁵

In the introduction to his book on Lexington, Waller makes clear how different ideas of leisure produce different stories of film exhibition.⁶ Waller himself approaches leisure during the first three decades of film exhibition by emphasising commercial entertainments in a case study that tests the hypothesis of cultural standardisation and homogenisation on a national level. Much of the American research on this topic examines how ethnic culture and older forms of working-class culture reacted to the cultural homogenisation that followed industrialisation and modernisation. Early American cinema, Miriam Hansen writes, was strongly associated in public discourse with its working class and ethnic audiences that 'endowed a random leisure-time activity with a specific social meaning and implicit [End Page 88] teleology (comparative to that of acculturation).'⁷ The process of acculturation was part of an overarching ideology of democracy, the myth of the nickelodeon as democratic medium having the potential of a universal language. Waller's and Fuller's studies both deal with the process of cultural homogenisation on a national scale. Their studies are interesting because of their off-centre perspective on the process; in Fuller's case, through concentrating on small-town America, and in Waller's case, by focusing on a Southern regional centre where ethnic culture did not exist even though racial segregation persisted. Where Fuller's small-town perspective is eventually subjected to hegemonic national popular culture, Waller's study insists, at least until the 1930s and the coming of sound and theatre chains, on the prevalence of idiosyncratic variation.

What is the most relevant theoretical perspective for a study of early cinema and the introduction and dissemination of its culturein provincial Sweden, itself a country situated on the margins of Europe? What social and cultural issues were at stake? Before approaching the question of the make-up and impact of commercial entertainment in a small-town Nordic version of modernity, a brief description of the social and cultural milieu is required. The process of industrialisation and modernisation did not hit Sweden until very late, and when it finally came, in the early 1890s, it happened with full force. Abandoning the over-populated countryside for jobs in industry, the new class of industrial workers was recruited 'directly from the plough', as ethnographer Orvar Löfgren has put it.⁸ The cultural confrontations involved in this transformation were likely to be more abrupt than for workers in the industrial capitals of England, Germany or France, but they were not of ethnic origin as they were for a large population in the United States. Partly due to late industrialisation, bourgeois democratic ideology was not as developed in Sweden as in the US, and a different kind of modernisation and cultural homogenisation took place. The breakthrough of democracy is associated with the 1910s, but not until the 1930s did the modern Swedish welfare state coalesce into a form that survived for as long as four or five decades.⁹ The social situation in Sweden in the 1890s and 1900s was perhaps similar to the one in Germany as described by Hansen in the article 'Early Cinema: Whose Public Sphere?'. In Germany, class structures were more rigid than in the US and a hierarchal social order persisted alongside industrialisation and modernisation. In a situation of transition where new social structures coexisted with older forms, Hansen observes, 'the egalitarian appeal of the new medium was more likely to be perceived as a threat than a foil for democratic mythology'.¹⁰

It was with the cinema reform movement, sponsored by teachers' associations and groups devoted to popular and continuing education, that the first public discourse on cinema appeared in Germany and, in similar fashion, in Sweden. Members of the Swedish Pedagogical Society were aided by medical doctors in their warnings against the effects of sensational films on children, the core issue in their campaign against cinema. Jan Olsson has shown how the discourse on film in Sweden was construed as a black and white division between entertainment and education, represented by fiction versus non-fiction film. As a result of the campaign against cinema, itself part of a larger reform movement revolving around new commercial entertainments, national censorship was enforced in 1911. A few years later, as in Germany, the topic of public debate on cinema was still held within the confines of a discourse of cultural up-lift, now concerning artistic quality and the value of film as art. The head of the censorship bureau, Gustaf Berg, took an active part in the debate, promoting cinema's artistic potential. Sensitive to public opinion and the restrictions imposed by the censors, the leading Swedish production company, Svenska Biografteatern (hereafter, Swedish Biograph) started producing high-quality screen adaptations of literary classics that celebrated national culture. This new production strategy was an attempt on behalf of Swedish Biograph, Olsson suggests, to exchange the audience, mainly working class and children, for the educated middle class. The strategy involved building new, up-scale theatres in the cities and larger towns; it also involved a change in pricing policy and new, more sober forms of advertising. The press, which had only just awakened to an interest in film culture, started with a critique of cinema on a regular basis, and gave the high art films celebrating national culture positive reviews. Thus the film industry, the national censorship bureau and the press united in a discourse of cultural uplift that can be understood as a continuation of the initial debates on cinema.¹¹

Reform, education and cultural uplift are obviously key words in the early public discourse on commercial entertainment in Sweden, initiated around 1906/07 when halls devoted exclusively to [End Page 89] film exhibition began to open in the cities and towns. Given the social mobility that arose in Sweden around the turn of the century due to rapid industrialisation, it is easy to explain this progressive discourse as an attempt on the side of the educated and ruling classes to control and discipline the audience associated, primarily, with the lower classes and children. In the 1970s and 1980s, social historical research on the early phases of working-class culture in Sweden tended to view the formation of modern Swedish society as a process of integrating the working class into hegemonic bourgeois culture. Integration was understood as a kind of 'upgrading' of the lower to the middle class by means of a top-down regulation.¹² Within film studies, the pioneering research of pre-nickelodeon exhibition in Sweden presents itself as an example of this thinking. The theoretical assumptions regarding media and historical processes implicit in the work of, for example, prominent first-generation film historian, Rune Waldekranz, come together in a grand legitimising formation of cinema.¹³ A reworking of the idea of culture and change that involves empowering the working class and seeing change as a series of confrontations between individuals and social categories has since challenged this view.¹⁴ The case study, and an interest in everyday life, make the individuals visible and describe the cultural confrontations in history with greater nuance and flavour.

Locating public entertainment in the town of Örebro

Adding to the cartography of early film culture and guided by Waller's pioneering work, I have chosen the small town of Örebro for a case study of how film screenings were introduced in Sweden, part of a larger project that will attempt to disclose the public dimension of film culture as it made its way into everyday life in the provinces. As indicated above, the first public discourse on film in Sweden is dated to the period when the industry developed rental exchanges, new films became more accessible, and cinemas were opening in cities and towns. But what of the period that predates the cinemas? Why was there no earlier public response to the new medium? In what kind of social and cultural milieu were the initial film screenings embedded? As Waller has noted, the kind of films audiences saw during film exhibition's early period 'surely helped shape' their conception of the experience. Yet, the place of the experience is also important: the how, where and when of its availability, publicity and exhibition.¹⁵ Rune Waldekranz's survey of pre-nickelodeon film exhibition is the single founding study of the subject in Sweden, and functions as backdrop to my discussion.¹⁶

This essay examines film exhibition and leisure in the city of Örebro, a regional centre in the middle of the more densely populated area of southern Sweden between the two larger cities of Stockholm and Gothenburg. In the early nineteenth century, Örebro was a rural commercial centre that had developed into an expansive industrial centre by the end of the century. In the years between 1890 and 1910, the population more than doubled, from roughly 14,000 to 30,000 inhabitants. In terms of population, Örebro belongs to the category of mid-dle-sized industrial towns after the major cities of Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö. The dominating industries in Örebro were Statens Centralverkstäder (the national railway workshops) and the manufacture of shoes, biscuits, wool and bricks. Besides industry, Örebro was a centre of commerce, administration, education and the military. Örebro is linked to the Baltic Sea, and from the early seventeenth into the twentieth century, shipping was the most important means of transportation. With the development of the railway, people and produce could connect to the national railway lines via Hallsberg and use the expanding regional railway system.¹⁷

The aim of my research is to explore the public dimension of film exhibition in a distinct, provincial milieu, to determine how cinema eventually created a new kind of social and cultural arena within the context of modernisation. This objective is reached through studying documentation on the culture of leisure as presented in public discourse. Of importance in this documentation is the degree to which advertised activities were open to all or to selected groups of people, the degree to which events in some way had a bearing on local public discourse and if so, how they tied into the social and cultural life of the town's people. In order to tease out the social and cultural setting for the introduction of film in Örebro, I have studied the advertisements for leisure activities in the daily newspaper, Nerikes Allehanda, from 1897 to 1899. Nerikes Allehanda is a regional paper with a liberal orientation that was founded in 1843. Though other regional papers had regular distribution, at the turn of the twentieth century, Nerikes Allehanda was distributed six days a week, and held a dominant position as a public [End Page 90] forum for news coverage and the advertising of regional and local events.¹⁸ Advertising in the paper was cheap; as Waldekranz noted, even the poorest of travelling showmen announced their arrival through this means.¹⁹

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Figure 1 Drottninggatan as it passes Örebro Teater, ca 1900, Red. Sture Larsson-Hoffmans collection. [Courtesy Örebro Lánsarv.]

The clear distinction between public and other events thatIhad –perhaps naively–anticipated, was not to be found. On the front or second page, the paper contained a 'public events' heading, and on one of the last pages there was a special heading for advertisements that were accepted after the paper had been set. Under the 'public events' heading, commercial entertainments were listed alongside more or less public events such as bazaars, parties and evening entertainments organised by religious, temperance and workers organisations, but this was not a rule. Sometimes advertisements that appealed to the public were placed elsewhere. Due to this flexibility in the paper's lay-out, it is sometimes difficult to discern which events were public and which were not. I have chosen to regard all advertised events that offer no restrictions regarding access as open to the public, regardless of their location in the paper. More intimate events such as 'meetings', 'sermons' and 'discussions' are not included unless they have an obvious public reference.

I also scanned through the current events column that included a heading reserved for news from Örebro. Public cultural events were noted and commented on in this section, theatre performances were announced and critically discussed, as were evening entertainments, lectures and the like.

To make any sense of the social geography of Örebro's leisure culture as it passed into the twentieth century, a short description of the topography of the town centre is necessary. Örebro is built on a ridge, as if the town had a backbone that rises from the flat landscape of Närke running in a north-south direction. The main street, Storgatan, began in an industrial area dominated by the railroad yards and continued along the ridge, changing its name to Drottninggatan as it entered the more central, fashionable and commercial area of the town. The switch from Storgatan to Drottninggatan occurs in front of the massive medieval castle, Örebro slott. Along Drottninggatan, modern two-and three-storey brick houses were built in the late 1850s after a fire had ruined the town centre. In the middle of Drottninggatan, the town's official church, Örebro kyrka, dominates the large square, Stortorget, that opens up to the east. The railway runs parallel to the ridge, a few blocks to the west. A small river, Svartån, cuts through the town's backbone, passing the castle to form a moat around it. Eastward bound, the river continues past the town harbour, whence it flows into Hjälmaren which, connected to Mälaren, runs into the Baltic Sea.²⁰

Bourgeois entertainment for the public

The entertainments advertised in Nerikes Allehanda can be divided into three categories, each singled out through pricing policy and location of the event, and the mode of address employed in the advertisement. In the first category are the more costly entertainments which were scheduled and announced as [End Page 91] commercial, and appealed to the bourgeoisie. There were four establishments that provided amusement for the town's high society and petty bourgeoisie, the most central of which were Stora Hotellet and the local theatre, Örebro Teater (. 1). Earlier, before the fire of 1854 turned the town's centre into ruins, the functions of the two houses were combined in a single public house.²¹ In this building, the bourgeoisie socialised and formed an audience for travelling theatre troupes. Stora Hotellet (Fig. 2) was built six years after the fire, continuing the social traditions established by the earlier building, but specialising in accommodation and gatherings with eating and drinking as natural parts of the event. At Örebro Teater, built in 1853 as the largest and most lavish theatre in Sweden excepting Stockholm's Opera House, travelling theatrical and opera troupes per-formed.²² Both Stora Hotellet and Örebro Teater were close to the castle which lent both institutions an aura of cultural legitimacy. The entertainment district also included Frimurareholmen, an inn on an island in the river just north of the theatre, run by freemasons.

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Figure 2 Stora Hotellet, seen from the east, ca 1900. [Courtesy Örebro stadsarkiv.]

Örebro did not have a professional theatre company, nor did the town boast a professional orchestra, other than a military band, Kungliga Lifregementets Husarers musikkår, which performed commercially once or twice a year to increase their pension fund. Entertainment at the theatre and at Stora Hotellet's assembly hall was provided by travelling theatrical and opera troupes as well as travelling musicians and vaudeville artists. The most frequent guests at Örebro Teater were the travelling theatre troupes which performed comedy, musical melodrama, opera bouffe and operetta. There were standard house prices for an evening performance. The most expensive seats were the ones avant scène at 6 Swedish kronor, whereas seats in the stalls and the first balcony cost from 1.75 to 1.5 kronor. Seats in the second balcony cost from 1.25 kronor to 75 öre, and a place standing cost 50 öre.²³ Within a similar social and cultural framework, occasional commercial performances were held at Stora Hotellet's assembly hall which could take the form of a concert, a musical soirée or an illustrated lecture. In 1897, a lecture illustrated with magic lantern slides by a travelling performer, Oscar Wennersten, cost 1 krona for adults and 50 öre for children.²⁴ Concerts and musical soirées cost between 2 kronor and 1 krona, the most common price being 1.5 kronor, and half price for children.²⁵

Stora Hotellet's assembly hall was also the town's ballroom. A number of annual balls were announced in the paper as public events: in March, the shooting club of one of the secondary schools hosted a ball to raise money for ammunition; around the same time Edv. Lindqvist's dance school held a ball open to the public as an occasion for his pupils to show off their talents; in November, the shooting club of the technical secondary school hosted a ball; in December the charity society, Örebro jultomtar, held a feast for children which was followed by a ball; [End Page 92] and finally, the most prominent local and regional politicians hosted a ball for the town's high society on the annual celebration of the king (Oscarsdagen) on 1 December. The typical price of admission for these functions was 1.5 kronor for men, 1.25 kronor for women, and 1 krona for children.²⁶

Stora Hotellet was a public house that had multiple recreational functions. It offered accommodation, but also had a ballroom for dances and commercial performances, a clubroom reserved for a society, Sällskapet, with close ties to the hotel management, a billiard room, bathing facilities, a barbershop, a restaurant and a café.²⁷ The hotel advertised regularly in Nerikes Allehanda to announce the visiting orchestra that performed for the afternoon guests at the café and the evening dinner guests. Every month a new orchestra would replace the previous one. Frimurarelogen was, likewise, a kind of public house offering diverse activities, a meeting place for drinking, eating and amusements. Belonging to and run by freemasons, Frimurarelogen competed with Stora Hotellet for afternoon and evening dinner concert guests through advertisements in Nerikes Allehanda, and changed its orchestra on a monthly basis. During the summer season, between May and mid-September, both Stora Hotellet and Frimurarelogen opened their outdoor restaurants, Stora Hotellet on Strömparterren, lying on a tiny island next to the castle, and Frimurarelogen on its veranda. Afternoon and evening concerts were held in these locations in the summer season. Towards the end of the summer, as days grew shorter, Frimurareholmens Veranda and Strömparterren would advertise illuminations, fireworks and Bengal lights in their respective gardens on public holidays and at weekends.

Adolfsbergs Brunn was an establishment that appealed to a select audience during the short summer season of June through August. Adolfsbergs Brunn was a health resort built around a woodland spring, a five-minute train ride from the town centre.²⁸ As a service to guests, amusements were organised, some of which were open to the public and hence advertised in the local paper. The public entertainment included concerts and dances at weekends and public holidays. Entry to the concerts was generally free.²⁹ Garden illuminations and fireworks in association with concerts were also attractions when the autumn approached, as they were at Strömparterren and Frimurarelogen.

To the list of bourgeois entertainment should be added occasional concerts by local or visiting performers held at the town's official church, Örebro kyrka. The usual price of admission for these events was 1 krona or 1.5 kronor, and on rare occasions, 2 kronor. A few advertisements specify that children and servants were admitted at half price.³⁰

Thus Örebro high society and its petit bourgeoisie had four leisure and recreational establishments catering to their specific cultural interests: Stora Hotellet, Örebro Teater, Frimurarelogen and Adolfsbergs Brunn which offered theatre and the occasional variety performance or illustrated lecture, concerts, dinners and dances, as well as other recreational facilities such as the multi-purpose public house available at Stora Hotellet and a spa at Adolfsbergs Brunn. The second category of entertainment had a predominantly working-class appeal.

Advertised recreation for workers

The circuses which performed in Örebro were travelling troupes that set up a large tent on the open area next to the harbour in town.³¹ Being rather larger institutions, with between 35 and 70 artists, and between 20 and 30 horses, they often stayed for a week or two.³² Horse shows, clowns, acrobatics and pantomimes were the staple turns of the circuses.³³ At least three companies visited Örebro each year: in 1897 there were three visiting circuses; in 1898 four; and in 1899 six.³⁴ There is no pattern to the timing of visits to the town.³⁵ Though there were many opportunities to attend a performance at a lower cost (for example, by waiting until the circus had played a few nights or by attending a matinee), the normal price of admission was almost as expensive as a seat in the stalls at Örebro Teater. Prices were around 1 to 1.5 kronor for seats in the stalls (there are also examples of 2 kronor per seat and 75 öre) and standing cost 50 öre. Children were admitted at half the normal price for adults.³⁶

Other institutions and events open to the workers of Örebro, and advertised in the local paper, involved the town's many voluntary associations. The liberal press, which expanded nationally in the early 1890s, was ideologically allied with the voluntary associations, having the same or similar political ambitions.³⁷ These associations were new to Swedish society, or, to be more precise, they grew on a mass scale at the time of industrialisation, urbanisation, migration and emigration, and peaked in their total membership in the 1910s. Functions advertised by the associations dominated the local pages of [End Page 93] Nerikes Allehanda, reflecting their importance as leisure institutions on a national scale among the lower middle-class and working-class populations in the towns and rural areas of Sweden. Most people were members of one or more associations in the 1900s and 1910s, though by the early 1920s, after the establishment of political democracy, membership dropped radically.³⁸ The very term 'voluntary association' indicates their function: people came together on voluntary terms to advance some kind of political goal. In Swedish these associations are called folkrörelser, a term that may be translated as 'people's movement' and indicates the scale and the class base of the movement. The three largest kinds of association were the religious, the temperance and the workers associations. Their political agendas involved individual religious freedom, temperance in the consumption of alcohol, and universal suffrage.³⁹ They opposed the hierarchal social organisation of contemporary society and challenged the old patriarchal class structure.⁴⁰

The immense popularity of the associations can be explained as a response to social change, to a new situation that required vertical rather than horizontal loyalties. It has been argued that the associations were instrumental in shaping modern so-ciety.⁴¹ Since the associations were geared toward change, reform and education were central concepts in their work and overall culture. In a classic case study of the culture and mentality of the modern life style in Sweden around the turn of the last century, Ronny Ambjörnsson has described how workers, through membership of temperance associations, became self-made individuals with the potential to express themselves in a public sphere, rather than remain locked into a fixed social struc-ture.⁴² Though the means and the subject differed between the associations, they all involved individual empowerment through education and provided a kind of training ground for a new, more egalitarian form of society in the making.⁴³ In temperance and worker's associations, therefore, libraries were common, as too were organised discussion groups, study groups and lectures. Parties, bazaars and picnics were also part of the activities of many associations. They were generally public events and were announced in the newspaper. In the context of these programmes, variety artists, choirs and orchestras performed, and speeches, magic lanterns, lectures and recitations were held.⁴⁴ Amusements were a natural part of the social and cultural philosophy of the voluntary associations, involving both personal and social reform.

Many associations built their venues according to specific requirements. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the building of chapels for the Baptist, Methodist and Congregational churches was intense in Sweden. Somewhat later, houses were built for the temperance movement, the local lodges of the Independent Order of Good Templars (IOGT), as wellas Svenska Blåbandsförbundet, Templarorden, and the National Good Templar Order (NGTO), all of which were more or less relig-ious.⁴⁵ The alternative, Nykterhetsorden Verdandi, with a social-democratic rather than a religious identity, also required halls and houses of their own for meetings and parties, and in the early 1900s, public recreational parks and houses run by the workers' associations – known in Swedish as Folkets Park ('People's Park') and Folkets Hus ('People's House') – were built.⁴⁶ Organising public festivities and bazaars was one way of raising funds; another was to offer the chapel or hall for rent to, among others, travelling performers. The chapels, temperance halls, Folkets Park and Folkets Hus became new venues of entertainment and public recreation that attracted a different audience compared with the theatre or the traditional public house. From a national survey of advertisements in the local press covering 113 locations outside the three largest cities of Sweden, we learn that in the majority of cases, the earliest exhibition of film took place in temperance halls and in the chapels of the nonconformist movement.⁴⁷

There were seven free churches operating in Örebro at the turn of the twentieth century. Most of these religious societies rented halls in buildings in the centre of or close to the town's commercial area, until they were large and wealthy enough to build their own chapels in town. These are fairly easy to locate as many of the religious societies are still active.⁴⁸ The nonconformist churches that were the most visible in the public sphere in Örebro were: Vasakyrkan, an evangelical society that had recently built its large, modern church not far from the town centre; Metodistkyrkan, belonging to the Swedish Methodist Church that also had its own house; and the local branch of the Salvation Army which had bought Betelkapellet, the oldest chapel built for nonconformist gatherings in Örebro. Vasakyrkan advertised parties, lectures, projected picture shows, musical soirées and bazaars with 20–25 öre as the [End Page 94] regular price of admission for adults and 10–15 öre for children. The evangelical mission of the church explains the exotic appeal of the slide shows and the lectures that often presented missionary work in distant countries.⁴⁹ Travelling entertainers and other societies rented the church hall for public performances and functions, and it is interesting to note that many of these also tended to have a foreign exotic appeal, presenting pictures and lectures about foreign people, places and travel.⁵⁰ Parties and lectures were also frequent at the Methodist Church, though the majority of the public events were organised by the society itself. A party in this context was an afternoon or evening event involving several musical performances, a speech or lecture by a local or visiting talent, and coffee. The standard entrance fee was 25 öre. The Salvation Army differed from the other churches because their public functions, mainly parties and bazaars, primarily involved music and singing rather than lectures and speeches. It was generally cheaper to attend Salvation Army functions (10 öre). Their advertisements also emphasised the decoration of the hall, sometimes with a theme, and in the late summer garden illuminations. At their bazaars and parties, cakes, fruit, coffee, music and games were provided in an environment with decorations!⁵¹

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Figure 3 Arbetareföreningen in the 1920s when the hall was regularly used as a cinema. Örebro Stadsarkiv. Photographer: Sam Lindskog.

The local temperance lodges and their meeting halls are more difficult to trace than the religious societies, chiefly because there were many more lodges that were popular and active for short periods of time. There were at least six lodges of the IOGT and six of the NGTO operating in Örebro around the turn of the century, besides at least three lodges of Templarorden and one Blåbandsförening.⁵² A house on Trädgårdsgatan 28, on the outskirts of the town centre, was built by NGTO, and a house on Fredsgatan 8, close to the central railway station, was a joint building venture by several lodges of the IOGT.⁵³ Other halls used by the temperance lodges for public functions mentioned in advertisements in Nerikes Allehanda were located at Nygatan 11, Gamla Gatan 9, Ågatan 3, Klostergatan 20 and Kyrkogårdsgatan 16. None of these addresses was in the fashionable quarters around the castle, on Drottninggatan or in the town square, but all were located a block or two from the town centre.

Parties, auctions and bazaars were the most frequent events that the local lodges invited the public to attend. Parties were evening functions that, typically, included musical performances, recitations, humorous, propagandistic or educational speeches and lectures by local people or guest speakers visiting town. A compulsory feature of the party programme was the drinking of coffee. Entrance to a party would cost around 35 öre, and advertisements would specifically mention if the coffee was free of charge. Parties were frequent. A Sunday didn't pass without a party in at least one of the lodges. The bazaars, however, were more seasonal affairs, celebrated in spring and autumn, and before Christmas. These were action-packed events with decorated halls and tombolas, cafés, sweet-and fruit stands, music and games. Sometimes there would be a post office and shooting gallery, and there would always be amusing performances of some kind. Auctions were also popular. Apart from the auction itself, there would be music and other entertainment. Lectures, often illustrated, were featured in the advertisements for the lodges from time to time when a lecturer from out of town visited Örebro. Preferred topics were, of course, the negative effects of alcohol and the positive effects of temperance as a life style, and a typical entrance charge would be 15 or 25 öre.

The local labour associations were organised into a regional body which, after 23 January 1898, was called Örebro Arbetarekommun. Thirteen associations, most of them for skilled workers but also including groups of factory workers, were at some point during 1898 and 1899 members of Örebro Arbetarekommun.⁵⁴ They held their meetings at Ågatan 3, and organised parties with a public address from time to time.⁵⁵ [End Page 95]

One association which is not included in the three largest movements – the religious, temperance and labour movements – but was both visible and active in Örebro's public sphere, was an association for workers called Örebro Arbetareförening (ÖAF, Fig. 3). The association was different to the labour associations which, in the early 1900s, formed a movement based on social conflict. ÖAF was liberal in political orientation, promoting agreement between the classes rather than conflict. It was founded by men from the educated class in the latter half of the nineteenth century; factory owner, D.J. Elgérus initiated the association and throughout the early years of its existence, editors and journalists at Nerikes Allehanda were prominent members of the society. The objective of the association was to inspire working class men (and their wives) to advance in moral, spiritual and economic wealth. To boost the member's spirit and intellect, the idea was to engage in subjects such as languages, history, fine arts, literature and in more technical and scientific matters such as astronomy, physics and biology, primarily through lectures and literature. Other aspects of the education and reform of the individual dealt with ceremonies that mirrored bourgeois forms of meeting, debating and entertainment. The more strictly economic benefits of membership involved a health and pension fund.⁵⁶

When the religious and temperance lodges advertised parties, Arbetareföreningen organised an annual ball, and in the year 1900 even abandoned their own hall in favour of Stora Hotellet's ballroom for the event.⁵⁷ In the public sphere of Örebro, ÖAF's house was a lecture hall where manual workers were admitted free of charge and were encouraged to attend wearing working clothes.⁵⁸ The society organised its balls on a regular basis and a Christmas party for children, and the association's orchestra, likewise, advertised recurring public functions.⁵⁹ Besides being a venue for the society's own lectures and balls, Arbetareföreningen's house functioned as an alternative theatre. Here, travelling entertainers, who appealed to the middle and working class, presented magic shows, vaudeville and variety shows for an evening's entertainment of 75 öre, 50 öre or 35 öre a ticket.⁶⁰

In the summer season, an establishment known as Strömsnäs, a boat ride from town, organised popular parties with games, food, music and dancing at weekends and on public holidays. Participation at Strömsnäs cost 10 öre in 1898.⁶¹ There was also an outdoor place known as Ingenting that was used by the societies for popular parties, also with games, dancing and performances.⁶² The outdoor ice-skating rinks should also be mentioned; on the river that passed through town, a couple of rinks were prepared each year when the river froze. At weekends, in the evening, there were illuminations and music, and each skater was charged 15 or 25 öre. Every now and then, a masquerade on ice was announced.⁶³

Side-shows

The third and final category of public entertainment advertised in Nerikes Allehanda is defined by its ephemeral quality and cheap price of admission. In this category are included the showmen that travelled with side-show amusements visiting Örebro when there was a market in town, or when they were simply travelling through the town. Advertised amusements included various kinds of variety shows, ethnic exhibitions, wax cabinets and menageries. Admission to these entertainments, as advertised in the newspaper, was between 10 and 25 öre. If the show involved a performance, admission was 35 öre for adults. Side-shows appeared in the town centre in 1897 during Hindersmässan, the annual market in mid-January that lasted for several days.⁶⁴ The smaller markets in April and in August/Septem-ber were other occasions that attracted travelling side-shows, and starting with the spring market in April 1897, offered their delights in the square in front of the harbour where visiting circuses usually set up their tent.⁶⁵ At the autumn market in 1899, cheap amusements were found also at Alnängarna, a field just north of Örebro, gradually moving the site for travelling side-shows further from the town centre.⁶⁶ An advertisement during Hindersmässan in 1900 promotes the site of Alnängarna as a kind of fair-ground.⁶⁷

The three categories of advertised entertainment presented here are differentiated in terms of location, mode of address, and pattern of attendance, creating two distinct audiences segregated by class and socio-cultural status. The differences are also reflected in the town's geography: the bourgeois establishments were found in the town's centre, around the prestigious castle, with the exception of Adolfsberg's Brunn which was a spa with the function of offering the well-to-do a break from town life during the summer season. A block or two from the town centre were the chapels, halls and buildings [End Page 96] frequented by the middle and working classes for their recreation, and further removed from the centre, the third category of cheap amusements was found. In this way, the socialwas mapped on the geographical, underscoring the importance of place for understanding the social significance of cultural consumption.⁶⁸

In a comparison with Waller's description of the cultural scene in Lexington during the early years of film exhibition, class seems to be a pertinent category of social division in Örebro. Though there were public houses in Örebro with many functions, there was, for example, no equivalent to the Lexington Opera House that 'unquestionably remained the city's pre-eminent permanent venue for commercial entertainment', a multipurpose house that offered 'first-class attractions' as wellas 'popular price' shows, and also courted black theatre-goers by booking minstrel shows.⁶⁹ No single permanent venue in Örebro catered to different audiences by means of programme or pricing policies. 'Popular' and words with similar connotations were shunned in the advertisements for entertainment at Örebro Teater and at Stora Hotellet. Travelling artists with a 'popular' appeal – other than the circus – performed at Arbetareföreningen or at the many functions organised by the voluntary associations.⁷⁰

The first film screenings

In the venues in Örebro in which the first film screenings took place, the prices charged for admission and the general design of the programme, as presented in the local liberal paper, give an idea of how the first film shows fit into the social and cultural hierarchy of entertainments outlined above. As mentioned earlier, Waldekranz's national survey shows that the first screenings in provincial Sweden took place in the gathering halls of the associations. In his study of the pre-nickelodeon era, the earliest screenings are described as demonstrations of technical wonders, shown as part of a programme of mechanical attractions or as part of a magic lantern show. The received view is that by the turn of the century, it had become common practice to show a wide range of films of different genres compiled into a programme of its own; a mix of actualities, reportage, staged events and narrative films. A longer fictional film was the programme's feature around which the shorter films were arranged.⁷¹ Waldekranz has also compiled a list of the travelling film exhibitors in Sweden in the years 1896 to 1906. The number of exhibitors increased steadily from 1896 until the year 1901.⁷²

In the case of Örebro, the earliest screening of film took place at Arbetareföreningen within a programme that demonstrated two mechanical wonders: the kinematograph and the graphophon, both advertised as Edison's latest invention.⁷³ A total of ten performances were advertised, on the afternoon and evenings of the 18–22 February 1897, with shows starting every hour. The advertisements claimed that the kinematograph produced living pictures in natural size, and was distinguished from the panorama, the kinetoscope and the magic lantern, indicating that the exhibition of film was not yet a part of popular consciousness. According to the local paper, the exhibitor stopped in Örebro with his projector on the way from Gothenburg to the World Exhibition in Stockholm.⁷⁴ Waldekranz has identified the exhibitor as Arthur Rehn, who was employed by four Germans to operate a projecting machine bought in Paris. With a collection of films by Georges Méliès, Rehn held exhibitions in Gothenburg in late December and early January, after which he went on tour, stopping in at least nine towns and larger communities in central southern Sweden. Once in Stockholm he disappears from historical records.⁷⁵ The Lumière's cinematographe was the only projector allotted a place for screenings at the Stockholm exhibition, in the sector representing Stockholm's Old Town. The screenings at the Stockholm exhibition are commonly referred to as the breakthrough for film in the nation's popular consciousness, though the first public screening in Sweden took place at an Industrial Exhibition at Piltorp, Malmö on 28 June 1896, and film was screened in variety theatres in the major cities of Sweden between the two exhibitions.⁷⁶ For readers of Nerikes Allehanda, a journalist reporting from the World Exhibition described Lumière's cinematographe as the exhibi-tion's best entertainment, and explained its workings as an updated version of the familiar zootrope and the praxinoscope.⁷⁷

Returning to Arbetareföreningen in Örebro and the performances that took place on 18 February 1897, perhaps the novelty of the machine and the uniqueness of this kind of event in this type of venue explain why the demonstrations had such varied prices of admission. The first class seats were 1 krona, which was expensive for an evening programme of commercial entertainment in the hall. [End Page 97] Other seats in the main hall cost 50 öre, and a seat in the balcony, 25 öre.⁷⁸ The programme was composed of a variety of short, spectacular, comic and amazing acts, that individually emphasised the wonder of representations of life-size photographic images in motion.⁷⁹ According to the local paper, the film show included, among other acts, a train arriving at a station, a serpentine dance, ladies with shortened skirts, people stepping on land from a rowboat, and a soldier plucking a hen. The film programme was followed by the demonstration of the grapho-phon.⁸⁰ What was the commentary like? Was the projectionist Rehn also a narrator and a showman? Unfortunately, no sources relate how the programme was presented. It is obvious, however, that the attraction was the medium itself and the wonder of its workings, and that the programme was construed as a special event in the context of the town's entertainments.

ÖAF was an excellent choice for introducing a new medium in a town such as Örebro. The town's progressive workers were the target audience for ordinary events performed or presented in the hall and wives were also welcome. This hall was associated with legitimate culture, with educationallectures on cultural subjects, and with travelling variety troupes that in Arbetareföreningen found an alternative to Örebro Teater. Though not a place where the bourgeoisie in general preferred to socialise or indeed were welcome to do so, special seats were offered to the well-to-do for this special event. Finally, balcony seats were set at a price that matched the lowest entrance fee for commercial entertainment. Apart from the importance of the wide range in admission prices, modelled on the theatre house or the circus, the choice of this specific hall for the presentation opened the possibility of attracting a rather large audience from the town's different classes due to ÖAF's liberal politics, especially its appeal for bridging class divisions through education.

In the first years of film exhibition, ÖAF was the preferred venue for travelling film exhibitors visiting Örebro. However, only the initial demonstration could charge such an expensive rate of admission, and no subsequent advertisement in Nerikes Allehanda presented film exhibition in so obvious a manner as a demonstration of the apparatus, though they did capitalise on the novelty of the attraction. The advertisements for subsequent film exhibitions emphasised improvements in technology rather than the programme for the shows that only screened film. For shows that combined magic lantern with film, advertisements emphasised the wonders of the medium as such.

Only the advertisements that presented a novelty of some sort, something that could be news, had a chance of providing an extra boost in the marketing of the event through coverage in the paper's local columns. Consequently, the second advertisement for a film programme in Örebro read: 'New! American-Cinagraf. New! For the first time in Sweden.' The advertisement emphasised the novelty of the event, a first in Sweden, and indicated that the projector was not to be confused with the common kinematograf, this one, of course, being much better. So what was new? It was said to be an American projector, the American-Cinagraf, and boasted a programme of American subjects and views that lasted under an hour. Obviously, the advertisment presented a thematic structure tied to the notion of 'America' and its modernity. There was a list of titles included in the advertisement that probably created expectations of shock and of amazement, of beauty and fright of motion, and sex appeal, the advertisement promising a scene from an opera featuring a kiss, bragging that this scene alone was worth the entrance fee. The other views were described as: 'The Niagara Falls; The shock of New York's riding police in Central Park; The life boat or storm at sea; The US Light Artillery, Washington; Broadway and 14th Street in New York, with electric trams; The steamer Rosedale on Yukon River, Alaska, on the way to the gold mines; The execution of Maria Stuart; The lonely fisherman (comic); A fire alarm in New York; The express train 'The Canonball' travelling from Buffalo to New York at full speed; and finally, 'Annabelle', a serpetine dancer (coloured).' There is no presenter mentioned. The programme was shown on Saturday 20 and Sunday 21 November 1897 at ÖAF with shows beginning every hour from seven to nine on Saturday and from five to nine on Sunday afternoons and evenings. Prices were 50 öre and 35 öre for adults, and 25 öre for children, less than the rate a variety show would charge in the same locale, but not in the cheapest price category.⁸¹ Waldekranz identifies exhibitor Charles H. Johnson with the American-Cina-graf tour, one of many travelling film exhibitors who had emigrated to, and then returned from, Amer-ica.⁸² Nerikes Allehanda gave the screening positive reviews, especially enjoying the comic turns.⁸³

In August 1899, an advertisement appears in [End Page 98] Nerikes Allehanda for shows at ÖAF of the kinematograf. The advertisement is not very informative, revealing nothing of the programme, its length or for how many days it stayed. The advertisement said that the kinematograf reveals 'with great clarity the movements of mankind', and it specified the price of admission as 35 öre for adults and 25 öre for children. The machine and its technical brilliance was promoted in the advertisement rather than the programme or a narrative.⁸⁴

The missionary church, Vasakyrkan, was another popular venue for early film exhibition in Örebro. Waldekranz found it surprising that film shows were welcome in the chapels whereas touring theatre companies were not. As an explanation, he suggests that film exhibition tied into a tradition within the religious associations of magic-lantern screen-ings.⁸⁵ The advertising in Nerikes Allehanda for August Blom's illustrated lectures at Vasakyrkan offers a good example of the continuity between these two different screen practices. As mentioned earlier, Vasakyrkan had a tradition of offering public illustrated lectures presenting missionary work in exotic locations, and was keen on advertising its many public events in Nerikes Allehanda. Musical performances, singing, speeches, recitals, lectures and bazaars were frequent at the church. Former preacher August Blom showed film as part of a programme of illustrated lectures, visiting Vasakyrkan in January 1898, January 1899, and again in February 1901.⁸⁶

Despite his former profession and the context of the church for the performance, Blom's lectures did not have religious topics. His shows were multimedia events featuring travel. Film was screened as part of a longer evening performance with humorous narrative and a variety of media presentations. Blom began this show in 1898 with a number of songs and speeches reproduced by a phonograph, followed by projected images of Örebro, after which his images and narrative quickly jumped the Atlantic via London to America, a trip that many Swedes were familiar with at the time. A total of 700 stereopticon views were presented, and according to the advertisement, most of them were coloured. To end the show, Blom projected film with a machine he called a motograph.⁸⁷ He gave three performances of this show at Vasakyrkan: on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday evening at 8 pm. According to Nerikes Allehanda, his multimedia shows were popular events that drew a large crowd, and the review was positive, ending with a recommendation to visit the show. First class tickets were only 35 öre and second class seats were 25 öre.⁸⁸

In 1899, Blom was back at Vasakyrkan, again advertising an 'Illustrated lecture', this time accompanied by a 'Kinematograf presenting street-life and people in natural movement on the screen'. The stereopticon programme included a more diverse mix of views and lectures from different corners of the world compared with the earlier show which appeared to have a narrative focusing on a trip to America. This time a trip through the land of the midnight sun was followed by a collection of cities and buildings, after which came pictures from the Holy Land and paintings by Tissot presenting the life of Jesus. Finally, Blom promised views of Japan, China, India, Ceylon, among other exotic countries. The shows ran from Wednesday to Saturday, 1–4 February at 8 pm. A reserved seat cost 50 öre, first-class tickets, 35 öre and second-class tickets 25 öre. Extra performances for children were offered on Thursday and Friday at 4.30 pm when all seats, regardless of age, cost 15 öre.⁸⁹ There is no further mention of the show in the newspaper, probably because Blom's shows were no longer news. In 1901 Blom returned to Vasakyrkan with a new batch of 'at least 1,000' stereopticon views from his recent travels, including Paris and the 1900 World Exhibition. The title of this illustrated lecture tour was 'Around the World', which featured a 'kinematograf with living pictures of people in different countries'. This time he stayed for three evening performances with the same cheap prices before continuing his tour to chapels in the smaller communities of the region.⁹⁰

From these examples of early film exhibition we learn that film was introduced in localities where the middle and working class felt comfortable and where ticket prices were, in most cases, similar to an evening's amusement organised by the voluntary associations. There is one exception. In 1898, a travelling exhibitor announced three shows of Biografen, with an orchestra, to be held at Örebro Teater on Sunday, 3 December, with two evening performances at 6.15 and 8.30 pm and one matinée at 3.00 pm. Prices were cheaper than usual at the theatre, yet much more expensive than earlier film exhibitions had cost in town: 1.5 kronor, 1 krona, 50 öre and 35 öre.⁹¹ The exhibitor extended his stay at Örebro Teater giving two evening performances the following Wednesday through Saturday, and lowered the price in the stalls: 1 krona, first balcony 75 öre, second balcony 50 öre and standing in the [End Page 99] second balcony, 25 öre.⁹² The performance received a lot of attention in Nerikes Allehanda; the reviewer praised the show and recommended it on several occasions. In the local news column on the first day of the presentation, the advertisement read: 'Go and see Biografen … He rehearsed yesterday evening for a few specially invited guests, who were simply delighted at the distinct, life-like and above all amusing performance.'⁹³ A couple of days later, a review was printed almost admonitory in tone, as if the reviewer was annoyed that the expected crowd did not show up:

The improved kinematograf, with the simplified name Biografen, showed a whole series of pictures from real life yesterday at Örebro Teater greatly pleasing the audience. Some of the pictures were amusing, others more instructively interesting, at times thrilling, and always entertaining, and were presented without a hitch and with life-like realism that gave full credit to the alleged improvement of Edison's admirable turn-of-the-century invention.

The audience at none of the performances was large – which is their loss.⁹⁴

A last effort was made by the newspaper to draw crowds to the event, a couple of days before Biografen was due to close:

At Örebro Teater these last few days, Biografen has performed, and also this evening news will be presented to the audience. Among the best pictures are the cantering Spanish artillery and a dance in a Spanish camp, the bull fight with its vivid scenes and the lithe picadors beautifully dodging the charging bull, the fire brigade, the Columbia regiment marching by, the train station in Japan and the children that play on the beach.⁹⁵

This high-class version of film exhibition in the prestigous theatre and with expensive admission obviously wasn't the success Nerikes Allehanda's journalist had hoped for. Why Nerikes Allehanda put so much effort into boosting the event and the reasons for its failure to attract a large audience is, alas, a matter of speculation.

In Waldekranz's national survey of the localities for early film exhibition, Waldenkranz argues that the temperance associations rented their premises to exhibitors who included films in their presentations, whereas in Örebro, film exhibition was also introduced in the venues of two other kinds of associations, ÖAF and Vasakyrkan, where popular public entertainments, educational lectures (often illustrated) and public evenings exploiting exotic pictures and tales of missionary work and travel, were common. Both societies were respectable and charged with goodwill, and if the context can be said to influence the initial reception of film, the conclusion is that film established itself at the centre of this small town's culture, as Fuller has observed in discussing the introduction of film in small-town America.⁹⁶ It was the expanding middle class and the working class who formed the main audience for the earliest screenings, though an attempt was made to attract the bourgeoisie with a presentation of the Biograf at Örebro Teater. When compared with Waller's study, the more distinct class segregation based on the venues of entertainment found in Örebro differed from his description of the culture of public and commercial entertainment in Lexington, where racial segregation was more prominent than were questions of class.⁹⁷

An observation made by Waldekranz regarding the pre-nickelodeon era in provincial Sweden concerns the absence of film as a side-show at local markets and fairgrounds, this being a common venue for early film exhibition in other countries.⁹⁸ Waldekranz has studied the advertising for commercial amusements in regional newspapers at twenty-one markets in the year 1900, and found that circuses frequented all of the markets and travelling theatre troupes most of them. In some places, optical attractions such as panoramas were set up, but at only one marketplace were film screenings adver-tised.⁹⁹ In Örebro, film exhibitions were absent in the advertisements for cheap amusements associated with the annual markets. Bengt Idestam-Almquist offers this description of the circumstances under which Swedish travelling film exhibitors worked: 'Back home, film exhibitors didn't travel with big shows in the manner of the circus, as they did in some countries. Back home, they chased like lone wolves.'¹⁰⁰

It seems that the travelling film exhibitors who visited Örebro sought cultural legitimacy and a large audience by allying with the liberal and religious, though nonconformist, section of the voluntary association movement, where ideals and cultural forms in a non-confrontational politics were negotiated between the old and the new, and between classes. [End Page 100]