(Image courtesy of Washington State Library)

Our second Library Jewel for October is a collection of the Orpheum Circuit, Inc., programs and posters in 1916.

The collection includes programs and broadsides/posters for the Orpheum Theaters that were from around the country. The programs and posters are from different theaters from around the country.  They were published weekly to promote that week’s entertainment at the theater.

By the 1920s, every major vaudeville house in America had “Orpheum” or “Keith’s” on its marquee. Cooperation between the two giants made breaking into vaudeville even more appealing for performers like Houdini, who hoped to become as famous as possible. The Orpheum circuit was one of the largest vaudeville and variety franchises operating in the country. They had discovered such stars as Houdini, Eddy Foy, Lili Langtry, and The Marx Brothers.

The Orpheum circuit was in large part responsible for making vaudeville a more respected art form. Before this time most shows were made for a mostly male audience, i.e. Wild West shows with dancing girls. Martin Beck turned it around to appeal to the “decent woman.” Many Orpheum theatres were richly decorated to copy the fancy Parisian opera houses. The theatre quickly became a place people went to see, or be seen.

The Orpheum not only presented stage shows, but they were great innovators in the motion picture industry. They would show movies, then named photoplays, in between acts. As the popularity for Vaudeville waned in the 1920s, the motion picture industry was there to take its place and keep crowds packed in.

The Orpheum Circuit had many mergers over the years and eventually became Radio-Keith-Orpheum, the RKO famous for films like “King Kong” and “Citizen Kane.” There were more than 400-Orpheum linked theaters nationally. There are still many theaters that exist throughout the country that are Orpheum theaters that have been renovated and are still in use.