B.F. (Benjamin Franklin) Keith was a highly influential vaudeville and early motion picture theater owner. Born in 1846, at 17 Keith moved from New Hampshire to New York and began working at Bunnell’s museum and then in various circuses, including P.T. Barnum’s. In 1883, with Colonel William Austin, he opened his own museum which they named the Gaiety. A 123 seat lecture hall was soon added above the curio museum where vaudeville shows began to appear.

 In 1886 he co-purchased the Bijou Theatre in Boston with Edward Franklin Albee II. Eight years later Keith opened a $600,000 self-named theatre next door to the Bijou, “B.F. Keith’s Theatre” which became their flagship location. Keith had strong belief in physical and moral cleanliness, partly in thanks to his pious Roman Catholic wife, and helped changed the way vaudeville was seen. The theatres he and his partner opened were morally clean, physically opulent and his stars were treated very well.

He and Albee went on to purchase the exclusive American rights to the Lumière patented cinematograph equipment (effectively the first motion pictures, which, unlike Edison’s single view viewer, allowed multiple people to watch the same film at once) in 1896, opening theatres in Boston, New York, Pennsylvania, and then across America, buying up smaller locations.

 By 1909 when he withdrew from business he had over 400 theatres with his name on them. He died in Florida in 1914.