Who Knew? Using Digital Trade Papers to Explore Ethnic Programming in American Picture Palaces

Abstract

Taking as an example research on cinemagoing in Broadway picture palaces during Jewish holidays and the interpretation of these findings within the larger context of Jewish-American acculturation, this chapter reflects upon digital cinema historiography and the usage of digitized periodicals. Judith Thissen and Paula Eisenstein Baker argue that ephemeral textual traces of film exhibition and audience practices in newspapers, trade journals and fan magazines allow film historians to visualize the historical dynamics of film culture across time and space. Operationalizing a systematic survey of Variety (1905–1940), supplemented by more traditional archival research, this chapter reveals an ethnic practice of cinemagoing that has been long forgotten and also overlooked by film historians.