MOVIES

Movies (short for moving pictures) are also called motion pictures or films. They were introduced in the United States in 1896 at a New York screening made possible by American inventor Thomas Alva Edison's (1847–1931) kinetoscope. The kinetoscope was a device for viewing a sequence of pictures on an endless band of film using a projector invented by Thomas Armat. It was not until the early 1900s that the technology was used for entertainment.

In 1903 American director-photographer Edwin S. Porter (1870–1941) made The Great Train Robbery, the first motion picture to tell a complete story. (Porter had earlier worked as a cameraman with Edison.) Produced by Edison Studios, the twelve-minute "epic" established a pattern of suspense drama that was followed by subsequent moviemakers. The age of the silent film was launched.

The popularity of movies escalated during the 1920s. Innovations in movie-making technology broadened the audience. In 1927 the first full-length talking picture was released, The Jazz Singer, starring vaudevillian Al Jolson (1886–1950).

The ever-improving technology of motion pictures and the advent of radio combined to spell the demise of vaudeville during the 1930s. By 1930 movie houses were attracting 100 million viewers a week at a time when the total population of the United States was only 120 million and weekly church attendance was less than 60 million. By 1932 all movies were talkies, and by the end of the decade all movies used technicolor, a trademarked method for making motion pictures in color.

With a theater in almost every town people in the United States flocked to the "picture shows." Hollywood images provided an escape from everyday life. As measured in total capital investment, motion pictures became one of the nation's leading industries. Like sports, amusement parks, and radio programs, movies were meant to appeal to everyone.

An increase in leisure time and a willingness by U.S. audiences to spend money on entertainment guaranteed movie houses would be well attended. Entertainment was no longer a singular experience; Hollywood movies shown in theaters throughout the country provided entertainment for a mass consumer audience.