Nickelodeon (movie Theater) - History

History

The name "Nickelodeon" was first used in 1888 by Austin's Nickelodeon, a dime museum located in Boston, Massachusetts. However, the term was popularized by Harry Davis and John P. Harris, who opened their small storefront theatre with that name on Smithfield Street in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on June 19, 1905. They called it the Nickelodeon, joining "nickel" with the Greek word for an enclosed theater adopted by the famous 18th century Odéon in Paris. Although it was not the first theater to show films, in 1919 a news article stated that it was the first theater in the world "devoted exclusively to exhibition of moving picture spectacles". Davis and Harris found such great success with their operation that their concept of a five-cent theater showing movies continuously was soon imitated by hundreds of ambitious entrepreneurs, as was the name of the theater itself. Statistics indicated that the number of nickelodeons in the United States doubled between 1907 and 1908 to around 8000, and it was estimated that by 1910 as many as 26 million Americans visited these theaters every week. Nickelodeons that were in converted storefronts typically seated fewer than 200, patrons often sat on hard wooden chairs, the screen was hung on the back wall, and a piano (and maybe a drum set) would be placed to the side of or below the screen. Larger nickelodeons sometimes had the capacity for well over 1000 people. Louis B. Mayer came of age just as the popularity of the nickelodeon was beginning to rise; he renovated the Gem Theater in Haverhill, Massachusetts, converting it into a nickelodeon that he opened in 1907 as the Orpheum Theater, announcing that it would be "the home of refined entertainment devoted to Miles Brothers moving pictures and illustrated songs". Other well-known nickelodeon owners were the Skouras Brothers of St. Louis.