We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
MOKAN THEATERS, INCORPORATED 527
was the largest but was not so strong competitively as a newly erected theater controlled by a large distributing company. Of the four theaters in Clearwater, the Princess was third in size and competitive position. Larson and Clearwater were cities with a large percentage of foreign-born citizens employed in the leather, cigar, and electrical industries. The Rialto Theater was the second largest and the most enterprising of the five theaters in Bradford, a city of industrial and agricultural interests. Newton, New York, was the location of a large eastern university; the Empress was the third largest theater in the city. In Mohawk, Connecticut, the New Palace was the most modern theater in the city and the next to the largest in seating capacity.
The entertainment in the seven Mokan theaters varied in several respects. At the Grand Theater the program was changed weekly. This theater had been one of the first to install sound reproducing equipment; it presented all-sound programs without orchestra or organ. The Gem Theater maintained a combination vaudeville and picture program. On Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday the program included a feature picture, newsreel, comedy, and organ solo. On Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, a "tab" show, that is, a burlesque production that was taken from city to city, was substituted for the comedy and organ. On Sunday, a double feature picture program without vaudeville was shown. The Modern Theater showed only motion pictures; a splitweek change in program was in effect. At the Rialto Theater a picture program changed on a split-week basis was accompanied by a full week of vaudeville. The Princess Theater ran a sound picture program from Sunday to Wednesday, a silent program for the balance of the week, and exhibited vaudeville features on Thursday and Sunday of each week. The program at the Empress Theater was changed weekly and included feature pictures, sound and silent, and vaudeville. The New Palace Theater maintained a full-week program with a sound feature and six acts of vaudeville. Newsreels were shown in every theater.
Mr. Mokan believed that local conditions demanded different types of entertainment. A more frequent change in entertainment was required in the smaller cities. In the three cities of over 100,000 population there were large numbers of transients, and hence it probably would be uneconomical to change the