Movie poster and associated materials collection

In the early 20th century, movie studios used the poster as a commercial tool to publicize a movie and draw audiences into theaters because they were mobile, conveyed an immediate and understandable message to mass audiences, and were cheap to produce. Posters created during this period were lithographs on cheap paper, and subsequently few examples from the early period of film history survive today and the ones that do are usually in poor condition. Between the 1930's-1940's Hollywood studios printed approximately 7,000-20,000 posters per movie, depending on the promotional budget for the film. Usually studios rented or sold posters to exhibitors for a minimal fee who displayed them in theaters. Exhibitors employed frames to display posters which lead to creating standard sizes for posters which included one-sheets, half-sheets, three-sheets, inserts, and lobby cards. Between 1940's to the mid-1980's, most major studios handed the production and distribution of all movie paper advertising to the National Screen Service (NSS ) which distributed an estimated 90 percent of movie posters in the United States. By the mid 1980's movie theaters with individual screens were replaced by multiplex theaters which used multiple theaters to screen a variety of films. Promotion of individual films gave way to promotion of multiple films in a limited space. This resulted in the phasing out of various sizes of movie posters including half-sheets, three-sheets, inserts, and lobby cards.