Cinema Lobby Cards
name: label: Series Creator
content: Warshaw, Isadore, 1900-1969
setName: label: See more items in
content: Warshaw Collection of Business Americana Subject Categories: Motion Pictures
unitdate: label: Date
content: 1910-1944
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Archives Center, National Museum of American History
objectType: label: Type
content: Archival materials
arrangement: label: Arrangement
content: The lobby cards are arranged alphabetically by name of film.
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents note
content: The following information is provided, when available or appropriate, for each lobby card: (1) box number, (2) folder number, (3) title of motion picture, (4) number of cards in the collection, (5) the name of the motion picture company that released the film, (6) and the name of star in the film.

Consists of 11x14 inch placards advertising motion pictures. These cards were displayed in the theater lobby in the same manner that posters are used today. Lobby cards, along with posters and photographic stills, were issued by all the major movie studios to publicize their films. The cards were to be returned to the company that printed them after use. These materials are important because movie audiences got their first impression of coming attractions. Some of the lobby cards in the collection are in complete sets. Many of these cards are tinted. A number of the cards include images of such stars as Douglas Fairbanks, Rudolph Valentino, and Mary Pickford from the teens and twenties. Most of the cards in the collection, however, are from the 1930s.