U.S. Census Bureau Daily Feature for June 6: Movie Nights

WASHINGTON, June 6, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Following is the daily "Profile America" feature from the U.S. Census Bureau:

MOVIE NIGHTS

Profile America — Tuesday, June 6th. A major pop culture phenomenon, lasting several decades, began on this date in 1933. With the automobile increasingly reshaping Americans' habits, Richard Hollingshead opened the nation's first drive-in movie theater in Camden, New Jersey. Soon, drive-in movies became a fixture across the country and a popular place for teenage dating and family outings. Drive-ins reached their peak in the 1950s. There were some 20,000 movie theaters then, and almost 5,000 of them were drive-ins. Now, there are some 4,450 enclosed movie theaters around the country — many, if not most of them with multiple screens — while there are only about 325 drive-ins remaining in operation. You can find current data on the country's economy by downloading the 'America's Economy' mobile application at www.census.gov/mobile.

Sources: 
First drive-in/accessed 3/30/2017: http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa980121.htm 
Movie theaters in the 50's: Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1970, p. 855/
https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/1975/compendia/hist_stats_colonial-1970/hist_stats_colonial-1970p2-chT.pdf 
Popularity/accessed 3/30/2017: www.driveintheater.com/history/1950.htm 
Movie theaters/County Business Patterns/NAICS 512131: https://factfinder.census.gov/bkmk/table/1.0/en/BP/2014/00A1//naics~512131 
Drive-ins/accessed 3/30/2017: www.uditoa.org/media.html

Profile America is produced by the Center for New Media and Promotion of the U.S. Census Bureau. Statistics and accounts drawn from cited non-Census sources are employed for illustrative or narrative purposes, and are not attested to by the U.S. Census Bureau. These daily features are available as produced segments, ready to air, on the Internet at http://www.census.gov (look for "Audio" in the "Library" pull-down menu). 

SOURCE U.S. Census Bureau

Related Links

http://www.census.gov

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