Thursday, October 1 marks the re-opening of the newly restored Capitol Theatre in the Detroit Shoreway Neighborhood on the city's near west side.
The Capitol Theatre features several framed reproductions from Cleveland Public Library's W. Ward Marsh Lantern Slide Collection. When visiting this new destination be sure to stop on the second floor to check out the beautiful images, or view the collection online.
This project was made possible with support from the Friends of the Cleveland Public Library.
Learn more about the W. Ward Marsh Lantern Slide Collection and Cinema Archive here.
In 1926, Cleveland Public Library, in cooperation with local theaters, began to produce bookmarks. The bookmarks were designed to promote Hollywood feature films of the day as well as the Library's vast collection of print materials, which many of those films were based on. This collection represents Cleveland Public Library’s ongoing commitment to the arts. The CPL Literature Department continues to collect a wide-ranging array of books on films and filmmaking along with its many volumes of classic literature.
An article in the Christian Science Monitor from 1927 praised CPL's bookmark initiative:
Perhaps this Library’s most successful experiment in co-operative book advertising is the bookmark....Three things have been fundamental in this co-operation: The library has reserved the right to decide what productions are worthy of this publicity, the producer or the exhibitor pays for the printing, and the bookmarks are distributed not only throughout the library system but in the movie theater...thus introducing the library to a public which may not have even a bowing, let alone even a borrowing acquaintance with it, and gaining hundreds of readers not only for the book or play on which the movie was based but for those on the biography, history and social setting of the period.