With the onset of the Spanish-American War the motion-picture industry discovered a new role and exploited it, gaining in confidence and size as a result. The cinema's capacity as a visual newspaper was extended as exhibitors unspooled scene after scene related to the struggle. Even more impressively, however, motion picture showmen evoked powerful patriotic sentiments in their audiences, revealing the new medium's ideological and propagandistic force in the post-novelty era. Across the country, exhibitors found ways to tell the story of the war with slides and motion pictures. While special evening-length productions, like those discussed in the previous chapter, expanded the boundaries of cinema practice, they operated at the periphery of the small and vulnerable industry. It was the ongoing production of a few firms that provided the commercial foundation for the American industry, and it was the...