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Keith/Albee

Pages

: Albee Theatre liquidation sale, June 1970

: RKO Albee Theatre building permit, 1949

: Liberman advertising for new seating, 1948

: Albee Theatre newspaper and radio budget, 1946

: War Production Board communication, 1943

: Chamber of Commerce letter to RKO Albee Theater, October 1943

: National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis thank you letter, July 7, 1943

: J. Henry Walters correspondence, July 2, 1943

: Foote, Cone & Belding correspondence, 1943

: Providence Public Library correspondence, 1943

: Malcolm Kingsberg letters to David Levin, 1943

: Jack Lamont correspondence, 1943

: Blanche F. Livingston correspondence, 1943

: Ruth Lowenthal correspondence, 1943

: Alex E. Reoch correspondence, 1943

: United Jewish Appeal Campaign correspondence, 1943

: Theater war efforts, 1943

: Paramount Film Distributing Corporation correspondence, November 23, 1942

: Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation correspondence, November 1942

: Design a Dress for Peggy Ryan contest, August 1942

: J. Walter Thompson Company correspondence, July 10, 1942

: J. H. Knight letter, May 14, 1942

: What Cheer Printing Company correspondence, May 13, 1942

: John L. Stewart correspondence, April 3, 1942

: William Levy letter to the Providence Journal, March 1942

: Terry Turner telegram, February 9, 1942

: Building lease, 1942

: Correspondence on boiler maintenance, 1942

: Al O. Bondy correspondence, 1942

: E. L. Alperson letters, 1942

: March of Time, 1942

: Master Motion Picture Company correspondence, 1942

: O.R. McMahon correspondence, 1942

: United War Fund correspondence, 1942

: United Artists Corporation correspondence, 1942

: RKO Albee daily booth reports, January 1942

: David Cummins correspondence, November 1941

: Sears, Roebuck and Co. correspondence, November 1941

: Letters of congratulations, 1941

: Matthew Polon, Booking, RKO Film Booking Corporation correspondence, September 16, 1941

: Howard Winner correspondence, August 27, 1941

: Letter to Charles Levy, August 1941

: Myer Mulman letter, August 1941

: Ben A. Boyar telegram to George French, May 10, 1941

: Motion Picture Herald letter to RKO Albee Theatre manager, May 2, 1941

: Royal B. Farnum correspondence, April 1941

: William Fields letter to George French, March 3, 1941

: Greek War Relief letter, March 1941

Pages

In collections

University of Iowa

Description

Details

Title: Keith/Albee
Contributor: Albee, Edward Franklin, 1857-1930
Keith, B. F. (Benjamin Franklin), 1846-1914
Date Created: 1894/1935
Description: Benjamin Franklin Keith and Edward Franklin Albee became partners in the late 1880s to promote "polite" vaudeville. They lavishly remodeled several theaters on the east coast and began producing a brand of "high class" vaudeville. Crude remarks and risque costumes were censored from performances, and they even attempted to prohibit rude behavior by audiences. Keith was the financial head of the circuit, while Albee was the general manager and owner of several theaters. In 1906, Keith and Albee established the United Booking Office. Every act that sought employment at any of the member theaters had to work through this central office, which in turn charged a five percent commission per act. Thus Keith and Albee expanded their power base. In the 1920s the Keith/Albee circuit merged with a western chain of vaudeville theaters to form the Keith-Albee-Orpheum Circuit. In 1928, $4,500,000 worth of stock was sold to Joseph P. Kennedy's Radio Corporation of America (RCA) establishing the Radio-Keith-Orpheum (RKO). After this merger, motion pictures became the primary form of entertainment, while vaudeville survived only as an accompaniment to the feature film. The Keith/Albee collection primarily reports vaudeville programming in Rhode Island between 1894 and 1935, but it includes unique resources for studying vaudeville throughout the east coast and Ohio with a series of Managers' Reports spanning 1902-1923. The Keith/Albee circuit, as represented in these Reports, involves theaters in Providence, Pawtucket, and Woonsocket, Rhode Island; Boston and Webster, Massachusetts; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Cleveland, Ohio. Theaters in Detroit, Washington, D.C., and New York City also appear with some regularity. The records of Keith/Albee chronicle the expansion of their circuit, changes in its leadership, and the eventual decline of vaudeville. Items dating as late as 1952 are as diverse as usher's manuals to building permits, air raid precautions to price schedules, and cash books to correspondence. The bulk of the collection is made up of 150 oversized scrapbooks (each about 16"Hx12"W and averaging over 250 pages). There are 29,216 scrapbook pages total.
Subjects: Library of Congress Subject Headings: Motion picture industry
Vaudeville
Theater management
Theatrical managers
Subjects: Corporate Bodies: Edward F. Albee Stock Co.
B.F. Keith (Firm)
Archival Collection: Keith/Albee
Keith/Albee Collection
Collection Identifier: MSC0356
Collection Guide: http://aspace.lib.uiowa.edu/repositories/2/resources/2
Host institution: University of Iowa. Libraries. Special Collections Department
Rights Management: Educational use only, no other permissions given. U.S. and international copyright laws may protect this item. Commercial use or distribution of this digital object is not permitted without written permission.
Contact Information: Contact the Special Collections Department at the University of Iowa Libraries: http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/sc/contact
Item Type (DCMI): Collection
Item Type (AAT): scrapbooks
clippings (information artifacts)
correspondence