Peep shows with erotic themes have been a staple of carnivals and sideshows and boardwalks since forever. Such enterprises were early adopters of each new “moving pictures” technology as soon as it was invented. But good photographs of peep shows are rare, and information about the material shown, even more rare:

four men in schoolboy short pants watching mutoscope peep shows

Closeup view of the three rotoscope films being shown at these peepshow booths

Here we see four eager scholars (judging by their schoolboy pants) who paid a penny apiece to watch such titles as Spring Chicken, Dance of Love, and Three Against One, that last title starring actor Leo Maloney, pictured here on an old postcard published by Exhibit Supply Company of Chicago. The machines that so captivated this audience are coin-operated Mutascope machines, according to Seth Grahame-Smith in his The Big Book Of Porn (Quirk Books, 2005), whence I got this image.

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