The nickelodeon was the first type of indoor exhibition space dedicated to showing projected motion pictures in the United States and Canada. Usually set up in converted storefronts, these small, simple theaters charged five cents for admission (a "nickel", hence the name) and flourished from about 1905 to 1915.
Etymology
"Nickelodeon" was concocted from nickel, the name of the U.S. five-cent coin, and the ancient Greek word odeion, a roofed-over theater, the latter indirectly by way of the Odéon in Paris, emblematic of a very large and luxurious theater, much as the Ritz was of a grand hotel. In spite of this derivation, the word has also been used since at least 1925 to refer to coin-operated player pianos and jukeboxes. One later instance of this use is the 1949 popular song "Music! Music! Music!" ("Put another nickel in, in the nickelodeon…").
History
The earliest films had been shown in "peep show" machines or projected in vaudeville theaters as one of the otherwise live acts. Nickelodeons drastically altered film exhibition practices and the leisure-time habits of a large segment of the American public. Although they were characterized by continuous performances of a selection of short films, added attractions such as illustrated songs were sometimes an important feature. Regarded as disreputable and dangerous by some civic groups and municipal agencies, crude, ill-ventilated nickelodeons with hard wooden seats were outmoded as longer films became common and larger, more comfortably furnished motion-picture theaters were built, a trend that culminated in the lavish "movie palaces" of the 1920s.
Film historian Charles Musser wrote: "It is not too much to say that modern cinema began with the nickelodeons."
The name "Nickelodeon" was first used in 1888 by Colonel William Austin for his Austin's Nickelodeon, a dime museum located in Boston, Massachusetts.
The term was popularized by Harry Davis and John P. Harris. On June 19, 1905, they opened a small storefront theater with the name on Smithfield Street in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Although it was not the first theater to show films, a 1919 news article claimed 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 at the time show that the number of nickelodeons in the United States doubled between 1907 and 1908 to around 8,000, and it was estimated that by 1910 as many as 26 million Americans visited these theaters weekly. Nickelodeons in converted storefronts typically seated fewer than 200 – the patrons often sat on hard wooden chairs, with the screen hung on the back wall. 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 1,000 people.
In 1905, William Fox started his first nickelodeon in Brooklyn. He owned numerous theaters in New York and New Jersey.
In 1906, Carl Laemmle opened his first nickelodeon, The White Front on Milwaukee Avenue (Chicago) and a second one, The Family Theatre soon after.
In 1907, Louis B. Mayer renovated the Gem Theater in Haverhill, Massachusetts, converting it into a nickelodeon, which he opened 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.