Promotional Strategies

           On May 15, 1909, readers of the Oregon Daily Journal were greeted with the front page news of the arrival of the mysterious Mr. Raffles. Also known as Edward F. Girard, this man reportedly baffled “thousands of people in other cities of America” and was now saying that doing the same in Portland would be “easy” (9). Raffles was his name, eluding people was his game, and all Portlanders had to do was identify him to win the promised prize of five hundred dollars (8).

On September 4, 1904, the

The release of The Birth of A Nation (D.W. Griffith, 1915) around the country made big waves. D.W. Griffith and James Q.

On Saturday, July 26, 1926, an advertisement was posted in

After a short run as a theater, according to available newspaper clippings, The Nickelodion had its first ad in January 1907.

In 1922, Para

When the Bagdad Theatre opened on January 14, 1927 in the Hawthorne District audiences were drawn to the theater by bright lights, live music, and street dancers.

In the dawn of our first world war, with Christmas right around the corner, the people of Portland in December of 1914 seemed to enjoy the basic shopping and merriment that comes around the holiday season.