THS Archive

The American Theatre Architecture Archive house by the Theatre Historical Society of America contains records and artifacts that document America’s historic movie theatres. The collection contains well over 100,000 items covering over 18,000 theatres across the United States and dating back to the late 19th century. Documents such as photographs, blueprints, photo negatives and slides, operational ledgers, scrapbooks, programs, oral history recordings, artifacts from theatres, equipment manuals, and others tell the story of these amazing buildings and how they operated, from nickelodeon to movie palace to multi-plex. Stop on by the website to see what we are about and start exploring in our online catalog today! Here are a few examples of what you may find.

This is a rendering for the facade of the Clintonia theatre in Clinton, IL. Done on translucent paper with colored pencils the pre-construction drawing gave planners a visual of the design and color scheme that would be used in the theatre. The initials in the corner are for the architect of the building Alex Classon. The theatre was opened in 1937 and sadly demolished around 1990.

Here is a tri-fold handbill advertising a weeks of movies at our former headquarters, the beautiful York theatre in Elmhurst, IL. The handbill is from 1953, and shows a common method to publicize the coming attractions for theatres at the time. The York opened as a single screen theatre in 1924 and has since expanded to 10 screens while still keeping the charm of a classic movie palace.

Our New England Special Collection comprises reports conducted by MGM in the 1940s. The reports represent a survey of New England  theatres to track which were owned by MGM and exhibiting their movies. Each of the 600+ cards in the collection features a photograph of the exterior of the theatre, some information about the theatre and the city population as of the 1940 census. This collection represents some rare documentation of a number of small town theatres that may have existed for only a short period of time.

Ben Hall was one of the founding members of THS and a movie palace scholar. The Roxy in Manhattan was one of his favorite theatres and when it was torn down in 1961 Hall managed to recover a number of artifacts before they were completely lost. The medallion above was affixed to the ticket booth in the theatre’s lobby. It shows some of the classical design themes that were present in many of the theatres designed in the early 20th century.

For nearly 50 years THS has been the guardian of the history of America’s greatest theatres and cinemas. However, we can’t do it alone. Support from cinema lovers, architects, historians and people like you are paramount to our success. Become a member today, and help us preserve the rich history of America’s greatest theatres.