Chapter 9 The nickelodeon area

"Although more middle-class people would soon be going to the movies, the audience in the nickelodeon area was predominantly working-class " (p. 303)
- One of the major developments in the exhibition side of the U.S. movie industry during the early 1900s was the establishment of theaters devoted exclusively to the showing of motion pictures. These storefront theaters, or nickelodeons, revolutionized American popular entertainment. Nickelodeons catered to recent immigrants as well as to working-class and middle-class people in many metropolitan areas, and in so doing, they attracted a relatively diverse audience. During this period, the U.S. movie industry experienced an explosion in the demand for movies. The majority of films that filled the nickelodeon theaters, however, came from European firms, but many of the eventual founders of the Hollywood studio system, got started in the movie industry and earned huge profits running nickelodeons.