Hi.

I'm Mark Greer, executive director of the Akron Bicentennial.

And in partnership with PBS Western Reserve, we're pleased to present a forgotten history Forum series.

The Forgotten History forums will explore aspects of Akron's history that, while critical to our development, are not often discussed.

Throughout this yearlong series will highlight seminal points in our history, some undiscovered and others which still challenge us today.

Topics will include women trailblazers in Akron's history, the development of the New Akron History Anthology published by the University of Akron Press, Akron's Native American History, The History of Deaf Rubber Workers, The Impact of Urban Renewal, particularly on Akron's Black community, and the history of the African American Church, among others.

On behalf of the Akron Bicentennial, we hope you enjoy our Forgotten History Forum series.

So without any further ado, I'm going to welcome to the stage executive director of the Nightlight Theater.

Ms. Jenn Kidd, please help us welcome her.

Hi.

I am so nervous but I am so happy that all of my friends and family are here.

Thank you all so much for coming.

Thank you, Mark for asking me to do this talk.

It's, this is a passion project, as you'll learn.

And I just really appreciate it.

And thank you to John and the Akron Art Museum team for opening the museum.

Just for this.

I really appreciate it.

Thank you.

I love the museum, and I love this auditorium.

So very happy to be here.

Yeah.

So thank you, everyone, for being here.

A little bit of a- Where’s my?

- Here we go.

Bear with me while I get my bearings here.

So I was really happy to see that almost all of you off you have been to The Nightlight.

We're right there.

Just right over there.

And June 13th we’ll be opening our second screen.

It's, been exhausting, truthfully.

But the most rewarding thing ever.

And I'm so excited for you all to see it.

Our new bar is going to be opening next week, and I'm just really grateful that we have such an amazing community.

And thankful to the people who helped get it where it is today who are in this room.

Thank you.

So, Yeah, we're Akron's nonprofit movie theater, and we are one of three operating movie theaters in Akron.

Three.

And that's kind of what this talk is about.

So, yeah, let's see.

Okay.

Here's a story.

I bought this scrapbook at an online auction.

I collect antiques, ephemera, paper.

I'm a little bit of a packrat.

But I bought this scrapbook that I found at an auction that was in somebodys storage unit in Massillon.

It's a long story, but I ended up buying the scrap book.

It was a very competitive bidding war, and I was like, this has to be at The Nightlight.

Like, I don't know what all is in here, but it has to be at The Nightlight.

So I bought it.

I do not know who made it.

I do not know where it came from, but what I can tell you is that it is a time capsule of never before seen movie ads, specifically from Akron theaters.

Only Akron theaters from 1917 to 1934.

There are thousands of ads with dates handwritten on them.

Does this scrapbook belong to anybody who's in the room, by the way, I just want to make sure I, I was like, really nervous that somebody is going to be like, that was mine.

I paid a lot of money for it, so now it's ours.

So as I went through, this was like, I've never in my life seen this.

I just was like, it's literally like a hidden treasure.

And it, So I bought it three years ago, and I was like, well, I'm going to start The Nightlight cinema archive of Akron film history.

And that's what we're doing.

So, there's University of Akron students digitally archiving it.

There's going to be an archive that lives online, and there's some other things that'll be with it.

But it's going to be stored somewhere in very safe because it is super fragile.

Every time I open it up, there's just little pieces of 1919 newsprint falling all over the place, so being super careful with it.

But this is what launched this sort of weird obsession I have now.

With how many movie theaters used to be in Akron that people don't know?

I know quite a few of you probably know.

But Akron used to have 64 movie theaters.

Yeah.

Now we have three.

That's not including the Cinemark in the Falls.

Sorry.

We're Akron proper.

So that's, you know, so this scrapbook, because it's being archived, I'm not going to show you all the thousands of ad, but let's go to the early 1900s, right?

So the first movie theater in Akron was The Unique Theater Right down the street.

And then The Victor was the second.

You can see some ads here.

So there were a lot of nickelodeons that and there's a ton of history of, like, camera graphs.

The first time Edison's camera graph came to Akron and they- they were talking in the papers about how these moving pictures are made and how these, you know, sound recordings with pictures.

Like just watching people figure out what this is, is fascinating.

And it was just such a joy to go through.

So these are not in my book, per se, but, you know, the Colonial Theater was right there on Mill Street, like.

Right.

We could throw a stone at it.

There's just so much history here that is not here anymore.

And what I did.

So I created an interactive Google map that I can have sent to you later.

Not tonight.

Not tonight.

But what I wanted to show was, those pink little film strips.

Those are all movie theaters in downtown.

Between 1900 and 1929, there were 19 movie theaters downtown Akron that are not there.

That's not true.

(unintelligable) is still there The Civic is there forever, thank God.

But these other ones are just gone.

Just gone.

This map right here, that is probably hard to see.

That is to show you the top purple dot.

is The Nightlight.

The other purple dot is here at the art museum, that is a half a mile.

And that's how many movie theaters were here operating at the same time.

And I know maybe some history buffs or, people who have been doing this for a long time know about them.

But what I found is that a lot of, people just have no clue.

Like, people have no idea that this many movie theaters existed.

You know, we hear about the history of rubber, we hear about all this history, but there's so much movie history in Akron that people just don't know.

So, yeah, now we're the only theater in downtown Akron aside from the civic.

But the only operating movie theater.

So if you're interested in this Google map, I can send it to you.

Here's just a few photos.

The Liberty Theater is on West Market where the Liberty Kia dealership is now.

I personally would rather the theater be there, but it's fine.

The forum was on Main Street, I think.

You can see some of those are from the 30s, 1948.

They're just all of these photos.

There's so much activity and movement and people and, you know, you'll see some photos coming up of just lines for movies.

There you go.

So these are all the theaters that were downtown.

So the Allen Theater opened in 1913, closed in 1939.

Or, sorry, Arcade 1913 to 1939.

The Allen 1920 to 1958 had a thousand seats.

Bank Theater Some reason there were two Bank theaters that I found out that I know of.

1912 to 1916.

The Strand, 1915 to 1976 1200 seats.

Colonial.

Right over there, right next to Nuevo.

It's where the Nuevo parking deck is.

The Colonial in 1902 to 1969.

1600 seats.

I have hundreds of ads from this theater.

Crystal maze, which is a great theater name.

1907 to 1914, 100, just like The Nightlight Dome Theater, which, you'll hear about some.

They'll be coming up soon.

1915 to 1929.

The Dreamland, which is my other favorite.

That's a great movie theater name.

1910 to 1929, 400 seats.

Again, hundreds of movie ads for these theaters.

The Empress Theater Forum, which you saw in the last slide.

Just gorgeous.

Like that store for that theater front was just beautiful.

The Grand.

And then there was The Unique, which was the first Akron theater from 1905 to 1907.

It rebranded as the Gaiety Theater from 1907 to 1909.

Then it rebranded to the Happy Hour Theater from 1909 to 1911, and then The Grotto from 1911 to 1915.

And what I've learned as I've been obsessively combing through all this is there, was just a lot of activity and some shenanigans and a lot of, a lot of drama, no pun intended.

Ideal theater.

1913 to 1952 Wooster Avenue.

First female woman theater operator.

Loews, 1929 to 1964.

Now the beautiful Akron Civic Theater that will be here from 1964 to forever.

It's never going anywhere.

The National in 1907 and 1932.

Orpheum 1914 to 1952.

Palace.

1926 to 1966.

I want to shout out Leanne from the Historical Society who A. is a wonderful human.

She was going to bring- the historical society has these beautiful sconces from the Palace.

But because of the possible weather, I told her not to do it.

But just.

She's so gracious and sharing these things with us.

So, Pastime theater, 400 seats, People's theater, 400 seats.

State theater, Tivoli, which then became The Standard, which then became The New Winter.

And then The Winter.

The Victor became the Luna and the Waldorf, you know, 280 seats.

So in the early 1900s, in the 20s, it just was booming.

It just like if we go back to, let's see this map right.

It's hard to point, but there's a cluster over on the top left.

Right?

Where it says John S. Knight Center over to the left where the city parking deck is.

Right.

Like directly across from the library.

There were three theaters right there.

On South Howard, one turned into a long running bookstore.

That was then torn down in the name of urban renewal.

But they, you know, so The Unique was there, and then the Dreamland opened next to it.

They just started, like, stacking up next to each other and then having these rivalries.

And it's so funny in the ads.

Here's two pages.

In some of these ads, you can see like the first one to show this film in Akron, the greatest.

Like there's just this, like, rivalry that is, amazing.

But the fact that this just was a part of people's everyday lives.

And you'll see in a second.

All the movies you could see in one day.

And it's astounding.

It's really crazy.

And just amazing.

Charlie Chaplin, I mean, there's just again, thousands of these.

So with them archiving this, they're all going to be individually archived and organized in a way that I just cannot do.

But I can do this.

I can show you these.

Here's an example of an ad that's in there.

She would rather be devoured by lions than the plaything of a Babylonian king.

But look how gorgeous I mean, you know.

Right?

Totally.

So.

But but just the detail of this.

It's very dramatic.

But again.

Monday, March 22nd, 1920.

Actually, I don't know what theater that was showing it.

I just love that ad.

I mean, yeah.

A few more.

Salome, which is one of my favorites at the Bank theater.

Norma Talmadge in The Woman Gives.

Friday, April 9th.

These are all April 1920.

Shirley Temple Curly Top, The Wizard of Oz, 1926.

Dick Tracy, that may have been later on.

I don't know.

The Spicer was later on.

So these are just a few examples.

So these each one of those is one day, all of the movies you can see in Akron.

This one right here is Monday, October 27th, 1924.

So they're broken up by areas right.

So downtown The Allen 281 South Main Street.

The Dreamland 4345 South Main Street.

The National 120 South Main Street Orpheum 10 South Main Street, Palace 273 South Main Street.

Empress Howard and Market next to the Portage.

Victor 84 South Howard Waldorf 37 South Main.

So that's that's what you could see that Monday and on Monday and 1927- 24 Sorry.

Wrong year.

Akron theater company ideal, which was on Wooster Avenue.

People's 240 East South Street, North Hill,the Nixon on East Cuyahoga Falls Avenue, ‘Za Za’ starring Gloria Swanson.

I want to say the family of the founders of the Nixon wrote to me, and I have a lot of stuff from them.

And anyways, I want to do more of this, so we'll talk more about- I didn't add the North Hill theaters.

I tried to stick with the early 1900s because first off, I wasn't here in the 70s like I know there's a lot of movie theaters that were around later.

I wasn’t when I came up in the 90’s from Canton.

So like, this is what I know because this is what I have.

I just have thousands of these ads, and that's the time period that I'm sticking with because, You know, I'll just what I know.

So West Hill, the Liberty, the Viola Dama in ‘Revelation’ East Rialto, no relation to the Rialto Theater in Kenmore, by the way.

The Rialto is the Goodyear, not the Goodyear Theater, but the bank right there.

So the Rialto East market and Goodyear, Royal, 635 Johnson Street, Spicer, 450 East Exchange, and then Thornton on South Main and Southern at Cole and Grants So that's one Monday.

That's Friday, August 6th, 1924.

That is Wednesday, October 29th, 1924.

And that's, I can't see.

Anyway, it's October.

It's Saturday, October 18th, 1924.

But again, that's one day like, that's like you could just go see those movies for probably like a nickel or a dime or a quarter.

As some of the ads said, and women and children were welcome.

As a lot of ads said, but there's you know, I don't know, it's still astounding to me that this existed.

So The Bank theater.

I don't know what you're that's photos from, I would say early 1900s based on the outfits because I also know fashion.

But I found this super fascinating.

So The Bank Theater from the manager sent this to a company in New York.

Gentlemen, on or about the first or last February, we were on the lookout for good, strong service to build up our Monday and Tuesday receipts at this theater.

On February 28th, I began booking two of your first round pictures.

A week since that date, I played almost all your regular releases and all of your big specials as well, and I'm pleased to advise that Monday and Tuesdays have picked up 25 to 30%.

Your pictures have thoroughly pleased our patrons and we consider V.L.S.E.

the very best on the market.

Very truly yours.

I have not tried writing a letter like this, but maybe I should, So, So through the 20s, these theaters just kept popping up.

There were so many and there were, you know, some hazardous conditions.

They were showing nitrate films.

A lot of these ads talk about this theater is absolutely fireproof.

I have, like, at least five ads that say absolutely fireproof, which I like.

I was like, wait, why?

Like what happened?

And then I found out that, you know, nitrate kept blowing up.

It was pretty dangerous, right?

So the projectionist at all these theaters companies started unionizing.

And so they banded together.

All these theaters, like, not all of them would raise the union wage or create safer, conditions.

So anyway, some firebombing started happening.

And there were back and forth and the, the union people says it wasn't then, but then the, you know, it was just a labor war.

Nobody was killed.

I'm happy to report that I saw, there was a lot of damage to buildings.

So I think the ideal, the ideal, the complete front of it was destroyed and had to be rebuilt.

Whoever did these dynamite explosions tried to do them late at night so nobody would be hurt.

They were at least considerate of that.

They just wanted to do damage to the property, I guess.

The Dome theater hit by lightning bolt.

That was not, in fact, a lightning bolt.

It was, an explosion, as they later said.

So 1929 is when all this happened, and it just.

I had no idea.

No idea.

A. that have these theaters existed.

And then half of them started getting firebombed, which is pretty wild stuff here.

So, yeah.

So I started noticing a pattern in these ads, you know, society's open shame.

The Bank really apparently did well with this one.

And there was a- what's his name, doctor?

Wait, where is it?

Yeah.

Doctor Bettis, lectured at each performance.

I was not able to find much on him other than he was, a person who knew about social, social things and issues.

And I believe, women's behavior is what I got out of it.

Should marriage be controlled?

So there were a lot of showings where women only Tuesday and today.

Positively the only days women can see this picture.

What’s the other one?

“A colossal sex expose.” There's just all of these.

A vital message to mankind.

Warning that as you sew you shall reap more than 800 big striking scenes, separate lines.

There, children under 16, not admitted.

Stupendous fat tragedy without a parallel women only Monday and Tuesday, all day and evening.

It will be impossible.

to arrange any other dates for women only to be here.

So be here Monday and Tuesday.

I don't know, and I don't know what the difference was between, the men's showings and the women's showings, but there were a lot of advertising.

The Bank spent big money on advertising this one.

Don't ever marry.

What your husband doing?

Olive Thomas in The Spite Bride There just were so many, spicy movies.

Warning movies.

There were a lot of films about warning men about marrying and women about men's affairs elsewhere, and, very I don’t know, just a lot of a lot of drama, again, no pun intended.

So those are a few of the ads.

So, yeah, this is sort of this passion project that I've been on is all of the movie theaters, all of the drama that went with, them.

Where they went.

A lot of them were just torn down.

I mean, there was, you know, three of them were torn down for a parking deck.

It just all these buildings are gone, right?

Yeah.

So all I can do is preserve these ads and make sure that downtown has a working movie theater for a long time to come.

So, yeah, thanks.

So the civic doesn't always show movies, but when they do, please go.

Please go to the Capitol Theater in Cleveland.

Please go to The Palace in Canton.

Please go to theaters.

I don't care which ones you come to ours, preferably.

Obviously.

Obviously, I want you to come to ours, but please just go see movies, because I don't know the fact Akron right now has three.

We have the Highland, we have the nightlight, we have Regal on Independence and the Linda's no longer showing movies.

audience: Oh Yeah.

So, yeah.

Yeah.

So please, please, please support movie theaters.

Yeah.

And then last but not least, Anthony, who works for us, put this together for you guys.

So.

Yeah.

Thanks for.

Thanks for being here.

Thanks for listening to me.

Talk about this.

And I love to talk about this so much.

And we'll show these ads to anybody who's interested.

I can't wait till they're scanned and saved somewhere.

But, yeah, thank you to everybody who helped with this.

My bestie Jen, who's sitting up here who works at Pierce library.

Anthony, who made the movie.

Leianne.

McKenzie.

Katelynn.

Chloe.

Dimario, who started scanning all of these for me.

The Akron museum for opening, bicentennial.

For having me The Nightlight and movies period Yeah, thanks all.

We hope that you enjoyed this Forgotten History Forum and that you learned something new and exciting about Akron and the people who shaped it.

If you're interested in watching more from this series, or attending a future Forum event, please visit Akron 200.org.

or pbswesternreserve.org Thanks for watching and celebrating Akron’s Bicentennial