One Thousand Nights at the Movies: An Illustrated History of Motion Pictures, 1895-1915

One Thousand Nights at the Movies is a detailed history of the birth of motion pictures. This richly illustrated coffee-table book charts the tumultuous growth from early inventions and Edison's innovations through the creation of film studios, picture palaces, and the first movie stars. Uniquely, the book celebrates and explores the showmanship of mom-and-pop Main Street nickelodeon theaters across the United States through a wealth of spectacular, never-before-published photographs and rare archival evidence. The authors bring a lifetime of research to this fascinating story of how an upstart new entertainment medium struggled in the early 1900's to become America's greatest form of popular culture — how it went from Main Street to Wall Street and changed the world.

Table of Contents

• Foreword by Paul Spehr
• Introduction
• Style Notes
• Chapter 1: Pictures in Motion
• Chapter 2: The First Movies
• Chapter 3: Penny Arcades and Picture Parlors
• Chapter 4: A Storefront and Scarcely More
• Chapter 5: Nickelodeons on Main Street
• Chapter 6: Outfitting and Equipping a Theater
• Chapter 7: Planning the Picture Show
• Chapter 8: The Movies Become Big Business
• Chapter 9: Movies in Parks and Outdoors
• Chapter 10: The Traveling Picture Show
• Chapter 11: Movies with Sound and Color
• Chapter 12: Music and Sound Effects
• Chapter 13: Posters, Publicity, and Excitement
• Chapter 14: Film Stars and Fans in the Nickelodeon Era
• Chapter 15: "Trust" Studios and Their Players
• Chapter 16: "Independent" and Other Studios and Their Players
• Chapter 17: New Thrills Each Week: The Serials
• Chapter 18: You Can't Watch That!
• Epilogue
• Selected Bibliography
• Index