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26 A HISTORY OF THE MOVIES
the wanderers constructed tents with black tops — black to keep out the sunlight, thereby creating the darkness in which pictures could be shown — and made the rounds of county fairs and street carnivals. For a while black tops gathered in so many rural dimes that other side-shows suffered.
Many recruits to the exhibiting branch of the new industry came from New York's East Side, where scores of ambitious young Jews were restlessly searching for "access to the sources of wealth and power." They were quick to see the possibilities of the penny arcade and living pictures on the screen. Those who had money enough joined with partners in the purchase of arcades; those who lacked capital became ticket sellers, machine operators, ushers, anything in the show-shops to learn the business; and soon they were operating shows of their own.
Marcus Loew, a small fur merchant, bought a penny arcade; then a small theater, and another. He became acquainted with David Warfield, famous stage star, and Warfield listened with interest to Loew's enthusiastic predictions that living pictures would develop into an important industry. Warfield told his manager, David Belasco, of Loew's vision, and both invested money in Loew's project. Adolph Zukor, another modest trader in furs, put his savings, amounting to a few thousand dollars, into a partnership in arcade and parlor enterprises. A little later he became an associate of Marcus Loew, and presently embarked on operations of his own. William Fox, a garment worker on the East Side, was one of several partners in a picture show which prospered, and Fox left the garment factory to become an exhibitor himself.
Not only in New York, but in many other cities, were eager men fascinated by this new form of popular entertainment. Carl Laemmle was the manager of a clothing store in Wisconsin. His ambition to live in a large city and to operate a business of his own led him to Chicago to search for a suitable location. Out on the west side he found a vacant room that had housed a picture show. The location was satisfactory and the landlord offered to include in the lease the show's equipment of kitchen