Patterns: Regional Non-Competing Itinerant Circuits

 

  • Generalized Pattern is Regional Non-Competition
  • Despite entrepreneurial, unregulated competition, showmen self-organize into regional territories (and even shift spatial patterns to avoid new competition)
  • Collectively competing showmen establish a continental mass market
  • Built upon established seasonal patterns from itinerant shows & amusements, but also built upon the political economic & public infrastructure of railway, newspaper, telegraph
  • Creates the established zones for film exchange territories, 1907-1913
  • Foreshadows the mutual non-compete zones of the “big three” vertically-integrated Hollywood producer-distributor-exhibitors (Paramount, Warner, Fox)