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2036-461X
19172
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Cinéma & Cie. Film and Media Studies Journal
The Keith-Albee collection
Text.Serial.Journal
https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/cinemaetcie
2
Projects & Abstracts
2003-03-01
2022-11-29
2003-03-01
2024-02-14
Cinéma & Cie
Rick Altman
2003/03/01
University of Iowa
2036-461X
2
en
The Keith-Albee collection
https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/cinemaetcie/article/download/19172/16976
2
THE KEITH-ALBEE COLLECTION
Rick Altman, University of Iowa




  For students of American theater, vaudeville, and cinema, the Keith/Albee Collection
offers an unparalleled inside view of the day-to-day operation of vaudeville and motion
picture theaters in the early part of this century, including everything from specific
vaudeville acts and booking practices to nickelodeon programming, finances, and illus-
trated song use. Consulted by Robert Allen for his classic dissertation on Vaudeville and
Film 1895-1915: A Study in Media Interaction (University of Iowa, 1977), by Alison Kibler
for her innovative book on Rank Ladies: Gender and Cultural Hierarchy in American
Vaudeville (Chapel Hill & London: University of North Carolina Press, 1999), and more
recently by researchers including Paul Spehr and Richard Abel, the Keith/Albee
Collection has nevertheless been by and large overlooked by silent film scholars.

  Benjamin Franklin Keith and Edward Franklin Albee became partners during the
1880s to promote “high-class” vaudeville. After establishing a theater in Boston, they
turned to Providence, Rhode Island, where they operated a series of theaters of all types,
from opera house to nickelodeon and from vaudeville to picture palace. During the
final years of the nineteenth century, they created the nation’s premier circuit of vaude-
ville theaters, stretching from Maine to Ohio. In 1906, they established the United
Booking Office, a powerful organization that sought to monopolize U.S. booking of
vaudeville acts. During the 1920s the Keith/Albee circuit of theaters merged with a
western chain to form the Keith-Albee-Orpheum circuit, which was sold in 1928 to the
Radio Corporation of America (RCA), thereby establishing Radio-Keith-Orpheum
(RKO), a major force in Hollywood filmmaking throughout the studio years.
  The papers in the first three series of this collection concentrate on the Keith/Albee
theaters in Providence and several nearby Rhode Island towns, from B. F. Keith’s Opera
House in 1894 to the RKO Albee in 1941, with a heavy concentration on materials from
the silent film period. Six feet of subject files housed in eleven boxes and a map case
include such unusual items as salary sheets, booking lists for vaudeville acts, and week-
ly cash books for several silent and sound theaters. The level of detail is often exhila-
rating. Box 10, for example, reveals the specifics of the Pawtucket, RI, Star Theatre’s
finances right down to the number of pennies spent to feed the local cat.
  The heart of the collection, however, is the fourth series, 150 oversize (9 inches x 15
inches, often four or more inches thick) record books offering a level of detail available
nowhere else. Volumes 1-24 contain weekly reports covering the period 1902-1923 from
the managers of vaudeville theaters around the Keith/Albee circuit. The reports from
Boston, Providence, New York, Washington, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and
Detroit are virtually continuous, while several other cities are represented only partially.

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                                                                     THE KEITH-ALBEE COLLECTION

Each report (averaging two pages) details the manager’s evaluation of the week’s pro-
gram. We learn not only who performed, but in what order, how many times a day, for
how many minutes, using what portion of the stage, and what the manager thought of
the act. Better than any other collection, these managers’ reports make it possible to trace
when films were programmed in vaudeville theaters, where they were located in the pro-
gram, which exact films were shown, and how they were received. We discover which
films were held over, which ones were brought back, and from time to time we even find
out which portions of a film were cut by the manager, and why. For every week of the peri-
od covered an average of eight to ten reports provide precious information.
   Volumes 25-137 are clipping books covering the period 1894-1941. From legitimate the-
ater and vaudeville to nickelodeons, picture palaces, and neighborhood sound film the-
aters, these well-kept oversized books offer programs, other in-house materials, and clip-
pings from the local press (including French- and German-language newspapers).
Researchers on early film theaters will be especially interested in volumes118-121 on the
Providence Nickel Theatre and Bijou Theatre (1906-1916), volumes 122-126 on the
Pawtucket, RI, Keith’s Theatre and Scenic Music Hall (1903-1924), and volumes 128-130 on
the Pawtucket Bijou Theatre and Star Theatre (1909-1923). Students of silent feature exhi-
bition will pay special attention to volumes 56-70 on the Providence Victory Theatre
(1919-1932), volumes 71-76 on the Woonsocket, RI, Bijou Theatre (1913-1926), and vol-
umes 77-95 on the Providence E.F. Albee Theatre (1919-1929). Sound film researchers will
want to consult volumes 96-109 on the Providence RKO Albee (1929-1941).
   Volumes 138-150 contain miscellaneous materials, including two volumes of cast
lists, a volume of caricatures, five volumes describing new acts, and several cash books
from the 1918-1921 period.
   The scrapbooks are not indexed in any way, so in general it is possible to trace specific per-
formers or titles only if relatively precise possible dates of performance are known from
other sources or if a researcher is able to spend many hours, potentially, in the search.
Graduate students in the School of Library and Information Science can often be hired to
do this work at a researcher’s direction and expense. The Special Collections Department,
located on the third floor of the University of Iowa Library, can help in locating student
workers. The Department is open from 8:30 A.M. to 5:00 P.M., Monday to Friday, except on
national and some University holidays; scholars visiting from a distance are urged to check
service hours on the Department website (http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/spec-coll) or to com-
municate prior to their visit, preferably using the e-mail address listed above.
   The Department generally does not have staff resources to search the record books or
to make large numbers of photocopies for readers. A limited number of photocopies
can be made from some of the volumes in this collection, others are too fragile to per-
mit copying. The web address listed above provides a complete inventory of the entire
Keith/Albee Collection.

  Special Collections Department - University of Iowa Libraries
  Iowa City, Iowa 52242 USA
  Telephone: 319/335-5921
  Fax: 319/335-5900
  e-mail: lib-spec@uiowa.edu
  web: http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/spec-coll/MSC/ToMsC356/msc356.html


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