ABSTRACT
Published by America and Canada’s largest mail order company, the 10.8 x 8.5 inches (27.4 x 21.6 cm), 1120-page catalog was filled with illustrations, descriptions, and testimonials regarding every possible commodity, including motion-picture-related items. Several million copies per year found their way to farms and small towns across the continent. The Consumers Guide offered projectors and films for sale, itemizing the medium’s technological requirements, its business models, and programming possibilities for the general public. It provides a highly detailed documentation of what the turn-of-the-century public could be expected to know about the film medium shortly after its birth.
