Crawford Theater

Issuing Company: Crawford Theatre Country of Issue: USA Year of Issue: 1919 Color/B&W: B&W Number of Cards in Set: Card Size: Issued as insert with what product: Given to patrons of the theater.

Notes: Checklist probably incomplete. Unnumbered. The backs show the name of the theater with complete show information for the upcoming week. This was a continuing series of cards, with a new card each week.

The cards state that the Crawford Theater is "Canton's Center of Amusement." There is no mention of the state on the cards, but Sylvia Beadnell tells me the theater was in Canton, PA. According to Sylvia, "the theatre is now the Rialto and used to be owned by George Bullock. My parents bought the house in which Bullock used to live and while they were tearing out the walls found a note from George Kleine dated November 14, 1916 to play Gloria's Romance." I checked the Internet Movie Database, and George Kleine was a movie producer and distributor from about 1915 to 1918, and the Imdb lists "Gloria's Romance" as one of his films from 1916.

Date info: The date and year (1919) are both listed. I have seen five cards from this set, all dated from February to April, 1919. The earliest dated card from this group contains a statement at the top that reads "Save These Programs - A New Star Will Be Given Away Every Saturday - Next Saturday Douglas Fairbanks." This statement is not on any of the later cards I've seen, leading me to believe that this may have been the first card in the series, though it is possible there could have been some issued before this. It is unknown how long this series lasted.

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