Monday Open Line


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 nearly 4,500 movie theaters around the country — many, if not most of them with multiple screens — while there are only about 350 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>.