Authors' note: An earlier version of this essay was delivered at the meeting of the American Studies Association in San Diego, California, 1985. David Grimsted, who responded to that paper, has been instrumental in prompting us to reformulate a number of arguments and approaches. We are extremely grateful as well to Lawrence Levine and Lewis Erenberg, who took time to give fruitful criticism; to William Bennett and his staff at the Theatre Historical Society in Chicago; and to the Graduate School at the University of Minnesota, which provided the support so the research could be completed. Finally, we wish to dedicate this essay to the memory of Warren Susman, whose work on the culture of the thirties inspired much of our thought.

1. Ramsaye, Terry, “New Deal-Superman and Today,” Motion Picture Herald (hereafter noted as MPH), 03 18, 1933, 9–10.Google Scholar

2. For a comprehensive examination of movie theatres before 1930 see Herzog, Charlotte K., “The Motion Picture Theatre and Film Exhibition, 1896–1930,” (Ph.D. dissertation, Northwestern University, 1980)Google Scholar. On the general rise of industrial design in the 1930s, see Meikle, Jeffrey, Twentieth Century Limited: Industrial Design in America 1925–1939 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1979)Google Scholar. For a look at a theatre designer of the moderne, see Scherer, Herbert, Marque on Mainstreet, Jack Liebenberg's Movie Theatres, 1928–1941, (Minneapolis: University Gallery, University of Minnesota, 1982)Google Scholar. Also see Ramsaye, Terry, “Westward Bound Editor Finds Double Billing even on Ferry,” MPH, 11 9, 1935, 17Google Scholar; Ramsaye, , MPH, 11 16, 1935, 21–23Google Scholar; Ramsaye, , “New Sante Fe Own Gibralter Is One Man Epic of Southwest,” MPH, 11 30, 1935, 17Google Scholar; “A Typical Theatre in an Average Town, Beaver Dam, Wisconsin,” MPH, 01 8, 1938, 6–9.Google Scholar

3. The seminal work is Pocock, J. G. A., The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975)Google Scholar; for the most recent discussion of republicanism and nineteenth-century workers see Ross, Steven J., Workers on the Edge: Work, Leisure and Politics in Industrializing Cincinnati, 1788–1890 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985)Google Scholar; for women and family see, Kerber, Linda, Women of the Republic: Intellect and Ideology in Revolutionary America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1980)Google Scholar; for a discussion of the current use of the paradigm, see Wood, Gordon, “Hellfire Politics,” New York Review of Books, 02 28, 1985Google Scholar. A good overview of intellectual thought, nationalism, and ethnicity in the twentieth century is Gleason, Philip, “American Identity and Americanization,” in Thernstrom, Stephan, ed., Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1980), pp. 33–59Google Scholar, and Higham, John, Send These to Me: Immigrants in Urban America (Baltimore: Atheneum, 1975), pp. 198–233Google Scholar. On the lack of continuity between the nineteenthcentury republicanism and the modern era, see Diggens, John, “Republicanism and Progressivism,” American Quarterly 37 (Fall 1985); 572–98CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a different view see Noble, David, The End of American History: Democracy, Capitalism and the Metaphor of Two Worlds in Anglo-American Historical Writing (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1985).Google Scholar

4. Two important examinations of modern amusements and consumer culture at the turn of the century are Erenberg, Lewis, Steppin' Out: New York Nightlife and the Transformation of American Culture, 1890–1930 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983)Google Scholar, and Kasson, John, Amusing the Million: Coney Island at the Turn of the Century (New York: Hill and Wang, 1978)Google Scholar. Kasson, Neither, Erenberg, nor May in May, Lary, Screening Out the Past: The Birth of Mass Culture and the Motion Picture Industry (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980)Google Scholar examine the period beyond the 1920s. On the relation of consumerism, nationalism, and the “American Way” in World War II, see Blum, John Morton, V Was For Victory: Politics and American Culture During World War II (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1977)Google Scholar; and for the postwar era and intellectuals, see Hodgson, Godfrey, America in Our Time: From World War II to Nixon, What Happened and Why (New York: Vintage, 1978), pp. 48–99Google Scholar. Susman, Warren, in Culture as History: The Transformation of American Society in the 20th Century (New York: Pantheon, 1985), pp. 156–57Google Scholar, points out that it was in the 1930s that a new idea arose, the “American Way.” Also see, Alexander, Charles C., Here the Country Lies: Nationalism and the Arts in Twentieth-Century America (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982).Google Scholar

5. The seminal works on thirties culture are Warren Susman's two noted essays, reproduced in his Culture as History. Two exemplary explications of popular culture methodology appear in Davis, Natalie Zemon, Society and Culture in Early Modern France (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1975), pp. 189–267Google Scholar, and Ginzburg, Carlo's introduction to The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth Century Miller (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980), pp. xiii–xxvi.Google Scholar

6. One of the best statements of the need for measurable evidence to independently evaluate cultural perceptions is Thernstrom, Stephen's appendix to Poverty and Progress: Social Mobility in a Nineteenth Century City (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1964), pp. 223–39Google Scholar. The primary sources used in this study, trade journals, provide an ideal source to discover the relation between image and audience. As intermediaries between the producers and theatre owners, reporters had to carefully investigate and evaluate audience needs over time, often explaining why certain films and theatre styles worked while others failed.

7. On the origins of the movie palace style, see Herzog, Charlotte, “The Archaelogy of Cinema Architecture: The Origins of The Movie Theatre,” Quarterly Review of Film Studies 9 (Winter 1984): 11–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar; May, , Screening Out the Past, pp. 147–66.Google Scholar

8. Film Daily Yearbook, 1930 (hereafter cited as FDY). FDY, 1931, 39Google Scholar; FDY, 1930, 997–1003Google Scholar; FDY, 1932, 963–65Google Scholar and FDY, 1933, 957Google Scholar; FDY 1930 through 1934Google Scholar. Although this is the most thorough listing of theatres across the country, it included all halls or organizations that rented films, so it is difficult to discern how many real theatres existed. For example, in 1931 another trade journal (see MPH, 04 4, 1931)Google Scholar recorded that there were from 14,000 to 18,000 real exhibition houses in the country. See also “Theatre Totals From Five Sources Differ,” MPH, 02 9, 1935, 68Google Scholar. In the face of this difficulty we still draw on the FDY calculations, because each theatre is listed by location and seating capacity. From these we calculate that in six major cities, theatres failed at an average of 36 percent from 1930 to 1933. (Also see, Variety, hereafter cited as V, December 29,1932,1).

9. V, January 8, 1930, 78, 80–86; January 7, 1931; December 31, 1931, 4; December 29, 1932, 3; January 5, 1932,14; V, January 7, 1931, 5; FDY, 1932, 1–7, 531Google Scholar; Sexton, R. W., “Changing Values in Theatre Design,” MPH, 03 14, 1931, 25, 68.Google Scholar

10. Waller, Tom, “The Year in Pictures,” V, 12 29, 1931, 4Google Scholar; Quigley, Martin, “Less Heat and More Light From Hollywood,” MPH, 12 5, 1931, 9–12Google Scholar; Ramsaye, Terry, “Franklin Roosevelt and the Motion Picture Industry,” MPH, 04 21, 1945, 10–13Google Scholar; FDY, 1933, 100–5Google Scholar; FDY, 1934, 90–100.Google Scholar

11. Constant comment on the need to remodel appeared in the “Better Theatres” section of the MPH. For example, see “Why Remodel,” 04 11, 1931, 5Google Scholar. On the housing act see “33,000,000 in Government Loans Now Obtainable to Reopen and Modernize Theatres.” MPH, 09 22, 1934, 1–5Google Scholar, and October 22, 1934, 7; Eberson, John, “Theatre Trends,” FDY, 1932, 1019–29Google Scholar. For an earlier example of Eberson's cathedral styles, see Eberson, John, “Theatre Trends,” FDY, 1930, 943–60.Google Scholar

12. Frankl, Paul T., Machine-Made Leisure (New York: Harper and Bros., 1932), pp. 5, 13, 136, 173–80.Google Scholar

13. The literature on European and American modern architecture is vast, but the classic study is Giedion, Sigfried, Space, Time and Architecture: The Growth of a New Tradition (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1941)Google Scholar. For the integration of art deco into the cathedral style, see Exhibitors Herald, 10 27, 1928, 14Google Scholar, and “The Warner Theatre in Morgantown,” MPH, 08 1, 1931, 10Google Scholar. On the influence of the more exotic, European art deco, see Clarriere, Georges, “Three Smart Cinema Styles from Paris,” MPH, 03 14, 1931, 12–16.Google Scholar

14. Meikle, , Twentieth Century LimitedGoogle Scholar. Boiler, Robert, “Modernism: Its Meaning in Practical Remodeling,” MPH, 03 9, 1935, 14, 34Google Scholar; Schutzz, George, “Modernistic Art: Its Significance to America and the Photoplay,” Exhibitor's Herald, 10 27, 1928, 14Google Scholar, and “Modernism in American Theatre Styling,” MPH, 09 17, 1938, 13–17.Google Scholar

15. For his importance, see “Ben Schlanger,” Journal of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (11 1970): 1030Google Scholar. Schlanger, Ben, “Motion Picture Theatres of Tommorow,” MPH, 02 11, 1931, 12–13, 56–57Google Scholar. Not only did other architects echo his designs and arguments, but they did so in terms of color and light. See Karson, Nat, “Remodeling the Period Style into the Ultra-Modern,” MPH, 04 27, 1931Google Scholar, and Fagle, Francis M., “Selling the Theatre With Light,” MPH, 09 23, 1933.Google Scholar

16. Schlanger, Ben, “Tomorrow,” and “Planning Low Cost Theatres,” MPH 04 7, 1934, 14–16Google Scholar; “Planning Today's Simplified Cinema,” MPH, 11 2, 1933, 18–21Google Scholar. For small, cheap deluxe theatres, wired for sound, see “The Delux Idea in a Theatre of Only 700 Seats,” MPH, 04 11, 1931, 43–44.Google Scholar

17. Schlanger, Ben, “Tomorrow”Google Scholar; “Use of the Full Screen,” MPH, 01 3, 1933, 11–13Google Scholar; “Looking Toward a Better Theatre,” MPH, 11 19, 1932, 8Google Scholar; “Vision in the Motion Picture Theatre,” MPH, 07 30, 1932, 8–10Google Scholar; “Production Methods in the Theatre,” MPH, 04 8, 1933, 8–10.Google Scholar

18. On working-class architecture see “Editorial “MPH, 04 8, 1933, 17Google Scholar; Boiler, , “Modernism,” 14Google Scholar. On the expert, see Schlanger, Ben, “Architecture and the Engineer,” MPH, 20–21Google Scholar; “Observations,” MPH, 06 3, 1933, 5Google Scholar; Bowman, Irving, “Modern Theatre Construction,” MPH, 08 1, 1931, 19, 82.Google Scholar

19. Frankl, , Machine-Made Leisure, pp. 136–40Google Scholar; Boiler, , “Modernism,” 14Google Scholar; Schlanger, , “Theatres of Tomorrow,” 12–13Google Scholar, and “Remodeling to Welcome Today's Patrons,” MPH, 10 20, 1934, 24, 62Google Scholar; Clute, Eugene, “New Schemes in Modern Remodeling,” MPH, 10 20, 1934, 11–14Google Scholar; “The Studio Theatre: A Machine Age Cinema,” MPH, 09 26, 1931, 14–18.Google Scholar

20. Schlanger, , “Tomorrow,” “Planning Low Cost,” “Planning Today's Simplified Cinema”Google Scholar; Susman, , Culture as History.Google Scholar

21. Schlanger, Ben, “The Screen, A Problem in Exhibition,” MPH, 10 1931, 14–16Google Scholar; Schlanger, , “Use of the Full Screen,”Google Scholar “Vision,” “Tomorrow,” and “Selling the Theatre With Light,” MPH, 09 23, 1933.Google Scholar

22. Obviously not all exhibitors replaced or remodeled their deluxe style theatres, and many remained. But the moderne was repeatedly demanded as the one style for the thirties, generating innumerable variations after 1932. For a midwest architect with over 200 moderne commissions in the period, see Scherer, , Marque, p. 24Google Scholar, and for the South see, “Redesigned in the Newer Materials,” MPH, 10 15, 1938, 63–65Google Scholar. See also Cantril, Hadley and Strunk, Mildred, eds., Public Opinion, 1935–1946 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1951), pp. 755–57Google Scholar for Roosevelt's support over ten years and appeal to youth, 116–17 for middle-class self-identification; p. 337 for technological optimism; p. 829 for belief in opportunity in past and future. See also Public Opinion Quarterly, April 1938, 262–64, 382 for beliefs on business, inequality, and security; and October 1939, 604 for middle-class faith. In almost all cases, these calculations were derived from Gallup or Fortune magazine polls.

23. See for example, “The Community Theatre Idea,” MPH, 02 5, 1938, 9–10Google Scholar; Schlanger, , “Planning Low Cost”; “Kirkendale Urges Cooperation With Community,” MPH, 06 10, 1933, 22Google Scholar. The comparison was derived from names listed in the theatre directory of FDY, 1930 and FDY, 1940. Obviously some of the older romantic names remained, but they would usually be linked to deluxe theatres of the old type. Rarely if ever would a moderne house carry an exotic or foreign name. On Duluth murals, see Scherer, , MarqueGoogle Scholar; “Modernized Colonial Theatres,” MPH, 02 5, 1938, 7–9Google Scholar; Boiler, Robert, “The Ute, A Design Exploiting Native Western Culture,” MPH, 04 4, 1936, 9–12Google Scholar and “Designing to Fit the Local Scenary,” MPH, 04 3, 1937, 8–10Google Scholar. In many ways the movie house decorations and paintings draw on the same democratic impulse that led to the creation of murals in public buildings during the Depression era; see for example Park, Marlene and Markowitz, Gerald E., Democratic Vistas: Post Offices and Public Art in the New Deal (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1984).Google Scholar

24. Many have written on the mythic nature of films in the thirties. See, for example, Sklar, Robert, Movie Made America: A Cultural History of American Movies (New York: Random House, 1975), pp. 175–214Google Scholar. For the classic analysis of the way that mythic ethos permeated all areas of thirties culture, see Susman, Warren, Culture as History, pp. 150–210Google Scholar. On political and social criticism in thirties films, see Levine, Lawrence, “Hollywood's Washington: Film Images of National Politics During the Great Depression,” Prospects 10 (1985): 169–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The quotes come from Holmes, John Clellon, “15c Before 6:00 PM: The Wonderful Movies of the Thirties,” Harpers, 12, 1965, 51–55Google Scholar. Terry Ramsaye quotes the midwestern exhibitor in MPH, 11 16, 1935, 23.Google Scholar

25. For managers' stances during the twenties, see Herzog, , “The Motion Picture Theatre,” 161–162Google Scholar. For the thirties orientation toward voluntary civic groups, see “Kirkendale Urges Cooperation With Community,” “Small Town” Exhibitors' Herald, 02 1, 1930, 20Google Scholar; “100% Community Representation Needed for Success of Theatre,” MPH, 03 28, 1931, 19, 95Google Scholar; “The Little Fellow, MPH, July 4, 1931, 8Google Scholar; “Kids Are The Public Too!,” MPH, 03 14, 1931Google Scholar; “A Typical Theatre in an Average Town,” MPH, 01 8, 1938, 7Google Scholar. For the family sign in Minnesota, see Scherer, , Marque, 46Google Scholar. Press books for all the cited premiers are in Warners' Collection, University of Southern California Film Archives Library. Also see FDY, 1940, 802–9Google Scholar. For Santa Claus Lane, see “Hollywood's Big Parade,” Los Angeles Examinar, 11 25, 1970, Section A, 6; V, January 2, 1934, 5.Google Scholar

26. In 1929 the theatres listed in the FDY totaled almost 23,000, and in 1939, 19,032. See FDY, 1930, 947–88Google Scholar, and FDY, 1940, 41Google Scholar. On the industry's calculations of their audience, see Jowett, Garth, Film, The Democratic Art (Boston: Little, Brown, 1976), p. 475Google Scholar; FDY, 1936, 39Google Scholar; and U.S. Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States, pp. 221, 225Google Scholar. Even though the industry sometime during the forties revised the weekly attendance figures down from 110 million to 90 million, the former figure was consistently published in the thirties.

27. The confusion caused by the Hays Commission figures is vast. Typically, an able scholar such as Garth Jowett sees that movies never had greater influence than in the thirties, but even though he expresses his doubts, he quotes the Hays statistics and comments that movies never reached the popularity of the twenties (Jowett, , Film, pp. 260–61, 286)Google Scholar. Yet there were plenty of “commonsense” reasons to doubt. To have a weekly attendance figure of from 90 million to 110 million in 1930 is highly unlikely. In a country with little over 110 million people, the audience centered in cities that contained about half the population, and the film audience among that half was drawn mainly from patrons between the ages of 12 to 35. So at best that leaves about 30 million people as potential patrons, and for them to go four times a week is highly unlikely. For criticism of the Hays statistics, see Chaplin, Richard E., Mass Communications: A Statistical Analysis (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1957), p. 125Google Scholar; Austin, Bruce, The Film Audience (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1983)Google Scholar; Chambers, Robert W., “Need for Statistical Research,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 11, 1947, 169–72Google Scholar. Still, that did not prevent the census bureau from drawing on the Hays Commission figures for Historical Statistics of the United States from Colonial Times to 1957, pp. 221, 225Google Scholar. See Champlin, Charles, “Robbins Readers Feast on Fantasy, Ignore the Critics,” Minneapolis Star and Tribune, 12 30, 1985Google Scholar, sec. C, 10. For the Gallup Poll, see Hollywood Reporter, 06 19, 1941Google Scholar. The meaning of the Gallup study was not lost on shrewd observors at the time. For example, the head of a major sociological study of Hollywood, sponsored by the Carnegie Foundation, wrote in 1941 that “Dr Gallup's figures are the most reliable known to this writer; they are the only figures based on an empirical and systematic survey.” See Rosten, Leo C., Hollywood: The Movie Colony and Moviemakers (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1941), p. 415.Google Scholar

28. See Tables V and VI. Gross receipts for the entire period from 1929 to 1945 are derived from several sources. See Shaw, William H. of the National Income Unit, Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, “Consumption Expenditures, 1929–1943,” Survey of Current Business, 06, 1944, 6–13Google Scholar. For subsequent years, see U.S. Department of Commerce, U.S. Income and Output, 1958, 151 and National Income Supplement to Current Survey of Business, pp. 206–8Google Scholar. On the other hand, average ticket prices are derived from “Box Office Receipts,” section of MPH in January and June of every year from 1931 to 1938 and corroborated by “Admission Price Index, U.S. Bureau of the Census,” cited in Conant, Michael, Anti-Trust and the Motion Picture Industry (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1960). p. 4Google Scholar, and Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1957, (Washington, D.C.: Department of Commerce, 1960), p. 224Google Scholar. The Gallup Poll tabulated in 1940 and released in 1941 was widely publicized in the Hollywood unions. Its figures, while slightly lower than ours, are close enough to independently corroborate our findings; see “Two Estimates of Average Number of Tickets Purchased Weekly in 1940,” in American Institute of Public Opinion, Increasing Profits With Audiences Research, (Princeton: American Institute of Public Opinion, 1941), p. 140 and Table IVGoogle Scholar. Another source that indirectly corroborates our findings is a study showing that across the country in the thirties the money spent on amusements actually went up, not down. This includes movies as well as sports. See Weinberger, Julius, “Money Spent on Play: An Index of Opinion,” Public Opinion Quarterly, 04, 1938, 1–5.Google Scholar

29. On blue laws and limited showings in the rural areas, see FDY, 1928, p. 7Google Scholar, and “Sunday Show Legislation,” in FDY, 1937–1938, 56–103 and 1032–33.Google Scholar

30. The Film Daily supplied the data on theatres and locale. The regional statistics were derived from counting the number of theatres listed in FDY for five selected cities. They were chosen because they were the main urban centers in main regions of the country for 1931, 1934, and 1942. See Table III. We calculated seats per capita by dividing the total seats in a city or state by its population. FDY, 1940, p. 45Google Scholar, reported that 25 percent of all weekly receipts came from Sunday shows. On blue laws in small towns see Film Daily Yearbook, 1928. (New York, 1928), p. 7Google Scholar, and “Sunday Show Legislation,” Motion Picture Herald, 1937–1938, 1032–33Google Scholar. The quote is from MPH, 11 16, 1935, 23.Google Scholar

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32. See May, , ScreeningGoogle Scholar; Erenberg, , Steppin' OutGoogle Scholar; Kasson, , Coney IslandGoogle Scholar. Rosenzweig, Roy, Eight Hours for What We Will: Workers and Leisure In An Industrial City, 1870–1920 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983)Google Scholar corroborates much of this argument, see pp. 190–229.

33. See Rosenzweig, , Eight Hours.Google Scholar

34. Zanuch, Darryl, “Testimony,” Propoganda in Motion Pictures, Subcommittee of the Committee of Interstate Commerce, United States Senate, 77th Congress, 09 9–26, 1941, 412.Google Scholar

35. On the industry mobilizing for war, see FDY, 1941, 773Google Scholar; V, October 9, 1940, December 11,1940, 4; “43 Features and 84 Short Subjects on Americanism from Studios,” MPH, 02 25, 1939, 17 and April 15, 1939, 135.Google Scholar

36. On the premier see Knute Rockne File, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Library, Los Angeles, California, and South Bend Tribune, 10 1–5, 1940.Google Scholar

37. South Bend Tribune, 10 4, 1940, 10Google Scholar; Roosevelt, Franklin D. to MrsRockne, Knute, 10 1, 1940Google Scholar, PPF, no. 6899, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, New York.