(ISSN 004.^-6534) WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY The State Historical Society ofWisconsin • Vol. 78, No. 2 • Winter, 1994-1995 MtSSHfliispos^T™^^ -••-^' ' ? "«^»^^ pARANooiuPjayim A»e ni TOIIGBT id PREMIER i ii iii, ', CTWWI lilfll tli trj<S«»irk tW toOUCTIONS *roif» fry THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN H. NiCHOiAS MuLi.ER IU, Director Officers FANNIE E. HICKLIN, President GERALD D. VISTE, Treasurer GLENN R. (IOATES, First Vice-President H. NiciioiAs MULLER III, Secretary JANE BERNiiARnr, .Second Vice-President The State Historical Society of Wisconsin is both a state agency and a private membership organization. Founded in 1846—two years before statehood—and chartered in 1853, it is the oldest American historical society to receive continuous public funding. By statute, it is charged with collecting, advancing, and disseminating knowledge ofWisconsin and ofthe trans-Allegheny West. The Society serves as the archive ofthe State ofWisconsin; it collects all manner of books, periodicals, maps, manuscripts, relics, newspapers, and aural and graphic materials as they relate to North America; it maintains a museum, library, and research facility in Madison as well as a statewide .system of historic sites, school services, area research centers, and affiliated local societies; it administers a broad program of historic preservation; and publishes a wide variety of historical materials, both scholarly and popular. Membership in the Society is open to the public. Individual membership (one person) is $27.50. Senior Citizen Individualmemhership is $22.50. Family memhership is$.S2.50. Senior Citizen Familymemhership is $27.50. .VM/»/)ortj«^membershipis$100. Sui<ammg-membership is $250. A Patron contributes $500 or more. Lj/e membership (one person) is $1,000. Membership in the Friends ofthe SHSW is open to the public, /nrfj'f jdwa/membership (one person) is $20. Family membership is $30. The Society is governed by a Board of Curators which includes twenty-four elected members, the Governor or designee, three appointees of the Governor, a legislator from the majority and minority from each house, and ex officio, the President ofthe University ofWisconsin System, the President ofthe Friends ofthe State Historical Society, the President ofthe Wisconsin History Foundation, Inc., and the President of the Administrative Committee of the Wisconsin Council for Local History. A complete listing of the Curators appears inside the back cover. The Society is headquartered at 816 State Street, Madison, Wisconsin 53706-1488, at the juncture of Langdon and Park streets on the University of Wisconsin campus. The State Historical Museum is located at 30 North Carroll Street. A partial listing of phone numbers (Area Code 608) follows: General Administration 264-6400 Hours of operation 264-6.588 Affiliated local societies 264-6.583 Institutional advancement 264-6585 Archives reading room 264-6460 Library Circulation desk 264-65.S4 Contribution of manuscript materials 264-6477 Maps 264-64.58 Editorial offices 264-6461 Membership 264-6587 Fax 264-6404 Microforms reading room 264-65.S6 Film collections 264-6470 Mu.seum tours 264-6555 Genealogical and general reference inquiries 264-6.5.S5 Newspaper reference 264-65.SI Government publications and reference 264-6.52.5 Picture and sound collections 264-6470 Historic preservation 264-6500 Public information office 264-6586 Historic sites 264-6586 School services 264-6579 ON THF COVER; Matt Pfeifher and E. Adler standing in front of Adler Advertising Company billboards on East .Second Street in Marshfield across the street from the Adler Theater in 1914. An article on the A dlerfa mily 's movie house empire begins on page 83. All photographs in this article acknowledged in the author's note. Volume 78, Number 2 / Winter, 1994-1995 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY Published quarterly by the .State Historical Society ofWisconsin, Big Ambitions in a Sinall Town: 816 State Street, Madison, Wi-sconsin S.^VOB-HSS. The Story of J. P. Adler and the Movies 83 Distributed to meinbers as part of fan Coombs their dues. Individual membership, $27.50; senior citizen individual, $22.50; family, $32.50; senior citizen family, $27.50; supporting, $100; sustaining, $250; Married Women's Property Rights patron, $500 or more; life (one person), $1,000. Single numbers in Wisconsin, 1846-1872 110 from Volume 57 forward are $5 Catherine B. Cleary phis postage. Microfilmed copies available through tJniversily Microfilms, .«5od North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Michigan 4810(i. Ccjmmunications should be addressed to the editor. The Book Reviews 138 Society does not assume responsibility for statements made Book Review Index 142 by contributors. Second-class postage paid at Madison, Wisconsin. Accessions 143 POSIMASTER: Send address changes to Wisconsin Magazine Wisconsin History Checklist 146 of History, Madison, Wisconsin 53706-1488. Copyright © 1995 by the State Historical Society of Proceedings t:)f the One Hundred and Wisconsin. Forty-Eighth Annual Meeting of the State Historical Society 150 The Wisconsin Magazine of History is indexed annually by the editors; cuinulative indexes are assembled Contribittors 160 decennially. In addition, articles are abstracted and indexed in America: History and Life, Historical Abstracts, Index to Literature on the American Indian, and the Combined Retrospective Index to lournals in Editor Hisloiy, 18^8-1974.' PAUL H. H.A,SS Associate Editors Photographs identified with WHi negative numbers are from the Wii.i.iAM C. MARTEN Historical Societv's collections. JOHN O. HorzHUEtRR NEW ADLER THEATRE 'The interior of the New Adler 'Theater in Marshfield at its opening in 1937. All photographs in this article acknoioledged in the autlior's note. 82 Big Ambitions in a Small Town: The Story of J. P. Adler and the Movies By Jan Coombs OR the greater part of sixty-two years, who, from the outset, had a front-row F John Peter Adler was in the movie seat. business. He never made it to Hollywood J.P., as he was called by almost every­ as a director or a producer, not even as a one who knew him, was born in Marshfield bit-part actor. Instead, he built a remark­ on September 28, 1887, to Philip and able career in the small central Wisconsin Margaret Hoffman Adler. He was the sev­ community of Marshfield, where he be­ enth of thirteen Adler children and one came an independent movie exhibitor of five sons. Philip and Margaret both and, eventually, the owner of a sizable were born in America to German immi­ chain of theaters. From 1897, when he grant parents, and they married in (]hi- and his father showed the first "moving cago, where Philip apprenticed as a shoe­ pictures" in Marshfield, to bis death in maker. In the 1880's the couple moved 1959, American movie attendance soared their growing family to the newly formed from near-zero to 90 million a week dur­ village of Marshfield, where Philip started ing the 1940'.s—and then plummeted to a farm, opened a shoe store, and invested 30 million a week by the 1950's. J. P. in real estate. He seemed to prosper in all Adler's career thus encompassed the these spheres. While amassing what be­ birth, the golden age, and the decline of came "a small fortune" in commercial a significant American institution. As the and residential properties, he launched motion picture industry completes its first his youngest son, either by design or by hundred years, it is both appropriate and chance, into a lifelong career in show instructive to examine the first six de­ business.' cades of the movie business from the During Marshfield's early years, enter­ perspective ofan independent exhibitor tainment centered around churches and fraternal organizations and—to the de­ light of some and consternation of oth- AUTHOR'S NCJII:: The author is greatly indebted to Mr. er.s—in the many saloons lining Central Adler's daughters, Elizabeth and Anne, for their gener­ ous cooperation and assistance, to Maxine Feind and John Christner for their photographic contributions, and to many Adler family friends and former employees for ' Pholoccjpy of unlabeled 1915 newspaper article in their willingness to share their memories. .-Xdler family files, Marshfield. Copyi-iglit © 1995 by the State Historical Society ol Wisconsin 83 All rights of reproduction in any form reserved. • I Philip Adler (father of f.P.), entrepreneur, real-estate developer, farmer, "capitalist, " and one of Marshfield's wealthiest men, standing on the sideiualk ofa very muddy Central Avenue. Avenue. Some of the more refined resi­ Street. During its construction, Philip dents offered lectures, evening musicals, enlistedJ.P., then nine years old, to haul and dances in their homes for small bricks for the masons. Then on May 5, groups of guests; but when they required 1897, shortly after Adler Hall's comple­ larger facilities, their options were lim­ tion, J.P. helped his father set up the ited to a few rather inelegant fraternal chairs for Marshfield's first movie, a halls associated with saloons, most of Magniscope exhibition. which were run by the Germans who con­ The Magniscope, touted in the press stituted by far the largest immigrant group as "one of the wonders of the world," in town. Fred Korth and his partner projected images upon a large curtain Michel Bast built the Korth Opera House "with every object ... moving about as in at 214 South Maple Street in 1890 in real life." The Marshfield exhibition in­ answer to the need for a nicely appointed cluded "amazing" scenes ofthe renowned meeting hall. When that wooden facility Black Diamond Express train speeding burned to the ground four years later,- along at seventy miles an hour; the inau­ Philip Adler laid plans for his own dance guration of President William McKinley and meeting hall, a substantial brick struc­ with immense crowds of people waving ture which he built at 107 East Second hats and handkerchiefs for the camera as he took his oath of office; the Chicago fire chief and his department responding - The Sanborn-Penis map of .Marshfield, 1891, shows the Korth Opera House stage ecjiiippcd wilh kerosene to an alarm; and a kissing scene with "a footlights.