THE AMERICAN THEATRE AND WORLD WAR I

In 1917, the United States Armed Forces took over a large percentage of the railroad tracks in the United States in order to move troops to and from training camps prior to deployment overseas.  This created an emergency in the American theatrical business.

This business relied on trains to get shows and performers to the huge amount of operating theatres in this country.  When shows and plays could not fulfill commitments, everyone suffered.  This included the producers of the shows, the actors in them, the theatre proprietors in hundreds of cities, their employees, and numerous others.

How did local theatre owners and managers deal with this crisis situation?  By obtaining films.  These films drew good houses--with far less expense and far less work required.

Many of these theatres never returned to the live stage; their owners simply stayed with running films and made, in many instances, more profit.  A good number of people who had worked in the live theatre lost their jobs; movie houses needed fewer employees.

This scenario took place in city after city.  And the trend continued after World War I was over.  The result was less employment for the actor as well as for house managers, gaffers, stagehands, et. al., as time went by.

The Great Depression, commercial radio, and sound films devastated the professional theatre in the early 1930s.  Of this there is no doubt.  But the American actor had lost much of his employment years before that.

It was always a rough business.
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