Houdini in The master mystery a super-serial in fifteen episodes.

The collection includes posters advertising individual plays and operettas, burlesque, vaudeville, and specialty acts, dance companies, extravaganzas produced by the Kiralfy Brothers, portraits of entertainers, and stock posters. Featured performers include Julia Arthur, De Wolfe Hopper, Joseph Hart Vaudeville Co., Thomas W. Keene, Andrew Mack, Robert B. Mantell, Mathews & Bulger, Lewis Morrison, Phil Sheridan's New City Sports Co., Royal Lilliputians, and Jennie Yeamans. Directors, managers, and producers include Edward J. Abraham, Blaney, and Vance, William A. Brady, Sidney R. Ellis, W.J. Fielding, Charles Frohman, Hoyt & McKee, the Kiralfy Brothers, Jacob Litt, Rice & Burton, Rich & Harris, A.Q. Scammon, Sam S. Schubert, Thall & Kennedy, Fred E. Wright, Charles H. Yale, and others. Playwrights include David Belasco, George H. Broadhurst, Bartley Campbell, Charles Turner Dazey, Gilbert & Sullivan, William Gillette, Seymour Hicks, David Higgins, Bronson Howard, Cecil Raleigh, William Shakespeare, Sutton Vane, and others. Plays include such popular titles as Arizona, At Piney Ridge, By the sad sea waves, Devil's auction, Evangeline, Faust, Female drummer, H.M.S. Pinafore, The hidden hand, The last of the Rohans, Ole Olson, The Queen of Chinatown, Shenandoah, Siberia, The sporting life, Uncle Tom's cabin, Venice, The war of wealth, Way down East, Yon Yonson, and others. Images depicted include scenes from plays, portraits of performers, and performers performing. Featured entertainers are not always depicted in the image. Some posters are mainly textual with peripheral images.

The popularity of “moving pictures” grew in the 1920s. Movie "palaces" sprang up in all major cities. For a quarter or 25 cents, Americans escaped their problems and lose themselves in another era or world. People of all ages attended the movies with far more regularity than today, often going more than once per week. By the end of the decade, weekly movie attendance swelled to 90 million people. The silent movies gave rise to the first generation of movie stars. At the end of the decade, the dominance of silent movies began to wane with the advance of sound technology.