Nickelodeon Theatre Research Paper

The Nickelodeon Theaters are significant to the evolution of American popular culture because they allowed Americans to experience modernity, and facilitated the formation of a national identity by transcending race and class lines. The theater served as an arena to disseminate cultural ideology to a diverse group of individuals, comprised of immigrants, the working class and American youth. The large scope of the theaters aided in consolidating the different cultural norms that separated rural and urban America during the period between 1905 to 1915. Furthermore, the original elite resistance to Nickelodeon theater’s bolstered the theater’s popularity, and helped to create the mass entertainment industry that is now a fundamental aspect of American popular culture. Ultimately, the nickelodeon theaters are a contributing factor that helped to the create the consumerist oriented popular culture that is present in America today. …show more content…
It was created by Harris Davis, in Pittsburgh in 1905, and earned its name from the amount it charged for admission, a nickel. The inside of the nickelodeons consisted of a small dimly lit screening room, with no more than one hundred chairs and a projection room from which the film was played. The outside of the theatre was typically a converted storefront that was illuminated with lights designed to amaze the public and draw them in to watch. The storefront was also accompanied by a ticket booth, and a barker, who was a person that would advertise the latest movies being played at the theatre. The barker provided a cheap form of advertisement, which enabled nickelodeon’s to keep their operating cost low and the show affordable. Nickelodeon theatre’s were designed to engage and draw in customers, and were intended to be perceived by the public as a modern spectacle, worthy of the their