Tuesday, October 7, 1919

Beautiful bight cool ideal fall day. To College 7:45 to 12 noon. To Amsterdam to Aunt Alma Cramer's funeral in P.M. Chored around. To K.S.P. meeting at nite. To Van Curler opera house with Doris Smith to Howe's moving pictures. To bed 11:30 P.M.

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Aunt Alma Cramer was Alma T. Cramer, Catherine Cramer's younger sister and therefore Stillman's aunt and Stanford's great aunt. She was born in 1829 and lived her whole life in the Amsterdam area. According to the Amsterdam Directory, she was a dressmaker and in 1919 she lived at 416 Division Street in Amsterdam, about 20 miles northwest from Schenectady. She never married, apparently. She's buried in Christian Church Cemetery in Charleston Four Corners, NY. There wasn't much more information than that on her.

The Van Curler Opera House was in Schenectady. Here is a postcard picture of it:

 

I'd never heard of Howe's moving pictures, so I looked it up and discovered that Edison had a rival in the early days of cinema, Mr. Lyman H. Howe from Wilkes-Barre, PA, whose specialty was showing "high class" motion pictures. Appropriately, his venues were also high class. Below is an excerpt from a newspaper article about Mr. Howe, featured in the online newspaper, The Citizens' Voice, from Wilkes-Barre:

In 1890, Howe discovered a new mechanical marvel to bring to the masses - the Edison phonograph. For the next six years, he toured eastern Pennsylvania and upstate New York offering recorded musical concerts and speeches at any venue where he could get a booking. 

Billing himself as "Professor," Howe emphasized the moral and educational qualities of his presentations. His "high class" imprimatur distinguished him from other traveling acts like P.T. Barnum's circus, and appealed to the wide range of social and economic groups, all of whom felt better about themselves after an evening in his company. 

The advent of motion pictures in the mid-1890s presented a natural segue for Howe's "high class" formula. Unable to secure a license from Thomas Edison to use his Kinetoscope, a single-reel film projector, Howe built his own two-reel projector (Animotiscope) and spliced Edison's films together to offer a longer, uninterrupted show and used a phonograph to add sound. By doing so, he was the first to use these mediums in tandem commercially. Audiences flocked to the shows which were conducted at a range of venues, including church halls, community centers, legitimate theaters and opera houses throughout the region. His "high class" programming featured primitive newsreels, local scenes and travelogues.

I wonder what "high class" movie Stanford and Doris saw?