How and when did popcorn become *the* movie snack?

This question has been asked before, and previous answers focus on what happened during and after the Great Depression. For those previous answers, refer to the thread "When/How did popcorn become so strongly linked to movies and movie theaters?", where user Mictlantecuhtli links to previous replies in earlier threads provided by /u/texpeare, /u/Gadarn, and /u/tunaman808.

However, those answers are all pretty old at this point, and don't always live up to the present standards of AskHistorians. The answers focusing on the Great Depression only tell half the story.

Popcorn becoming a movie snack is a holdover of Vaudeville days, and the early urbanization of the United States. Popcorn was a popular, cheap, and ubiquitous street food in urban America at the turn of the 20th Century, and during the early years of moviegoing, there weren't particular rules or expectations about bringing outside food into a theater to eat while you watched.

Even before movie theaters, popcorn sales were often connected with urban entertainment, such as circuses and county fairs. As just a sampling:

The Pokeepsie Evening Enterprise in Poughkeepsie, New York, ran an item about the circus on Page 8 of their June 4, 1896, edition:

"This circus seemed more of a dress-up affair than is usually the case. Women wore their prettiest hats regardless of the fact that they might be sprinkled plentifully with candied popcorn. Such an abandon from the formality of the theatre, concert, etc.!"

Page 3 of the November 26, 1901, edition of the Barre Evening Telegram in Barre, Vermont, ran an ad for the Barre Opera House (not actually an opera house, but a Vaudeville theater), for an upcoming week-long engagement of "the brilliant and successful authoress Miss Florence Corbin" whose "polite Vaudeville" performance would temporarily cease the sales of in-theater snacks:

"All candy and peanuts and popcorn [will be] cut out during our engagement."

Page 3 of the May 17, 1904, edition of the Ithaca Daily Journal in Ithaca, New York, had a notice about a county fair that featured both popcorn and Vaudeville:

"Around one side a number of booths have been attractively arranged where peanuts, popcorn, soft drinks, groceries, and fancy goods are sold. On the other side circus seats have been set so that all may obtain a view of the vaudeville acts."

The July 21, 1905, edition of the Omaha Daily Bee in Omaha, Nebraska, wrote of an event called the "Lawn Social":

"It very much resembled, and so it was intended, a county fair. There was a quaint country store, where could be bought everything from baking powder to a washing machine; booths where popcorn and lemonade were sold; a vaudeville show; tables for ice cream; a band; a place where you hit the baby and get a cigar..."

Similarly, a 1909 article in the New York Dramatic Mirror described a Vaudeville show being held on a riverboat, with the promoter mentioning:

"We sell lemonade, popcorn, peanuts, and candies to the audiences on the boat, but no liquors."

Before there were movie theaters, motion pictures were often displayed at booths at fairs and at midways and boardwalks in tourist cities. Page 2 of the June 18, 1901, edition of the White Plains Argus in White Plains, New York, described an upcoming Port Chester Police Patrol festival and carnival:

"On the grounds will be thirty-two tents...to be used for vaudeville shows, swings, dancing pavilion, restaurant, carous[e]l, pop-corn, candy, ice cream, soft drinks, bioscope [i.e., a motion picture machine], electric theater, gypsy camp, glass blowers, Punch and Judy, bicycles, and a number of other exhibition tents."

A 1908 volume of the Electric Railway Review, described the Ramona Pavilion opened by the Grand Rapids Railway, near the train station in Grand Rapids, which the railway company was promoting as "The Coney Island of the Middle West". The description of the pavilion mentions both a movie theater and popcorn stands among its attractions:

"Around the pavilion 'on the circle' are the following concessions: 'Figure Eight', laughing gallery, 'Ye Olde Mill', roller rink, miniature railway, photograph gallery, shooting gallery, 'Razzle Dazzle', Japanese ball game, box ball alleys, moving picture theater, circle swing, together with candy stand, soft drink booths, popcorn stands, etc."

The following year, another article in the Electric Railway Journal made passing reference to the consumption of popcorn by Vaudeville theater-goers, when claiming that theater attendance was down due to recent economic conditions:

"It is a noteworthy fact that despite the reduced attendance last year[,] the vaudeville suffered less than other attractions. The people did not have as much money to spend, but were willing to economize in popcorn and sodas that they might forget their financial worries by going to the theater."

A 1909 book by University of Pennsylvania professor Simon N. Patten, entitled Product and Climax, features an early description of the movie-going experience in an urban entertainment district (he doesn't name the town, except that he visited on a summer vacation to a "Puritan commonwealth"):

"[The street] was festooned with lights and cheap decorations meant only for fair weather; the doors of shops stood wide open, and soda-water fountains were crowded with boys and girls; there were fruit and nut stands, popcorn wagons decorated with flags, ice cream parlors with every table filled, and people waiting their turn over by the candy counter; beside penny shows and the gay vestibules of Nickel theatres. Opposite the barren school yard was the arcade entrance to the Nickelodeon, finished in white stucco, with the ticket seller throned in a chariot drawn by an elephant trimmed with red, white, and blue lights."

An item on Page 8 of the November 20, 1924, edition of the Monroe County Mail in Fairport, New York, described the boardwalk in Coney Island, Brooklyn, with:

"A spectacular cluster of domes, spires, and odd-looking buildings, cafes, dance floors, shooting galleries, roller coasters, movies, merry-go-rounds, freak stunts, peanut, popcorn, ice cream, and hot dog stands, one can see here every form of thriller yet invented and many that can be seen nowhere else, hear noises and experience confusions before unknown."

The 1918 book Vaudeville Theatre, Building, Operation, Management, gives more insight into the theater-going experience of the time than most. Here, Vaudeville theater-owners are given advice on running their business, where they encourage respectable theaters to avoid noisy snacks such as popcorn:

"Concessions. Candy and other concessions of this kind are a source of considerable revenue in many theatres, but in many of the first class houses these have been discontinued although a few of such houses are still using the candy case in foyer or lobby. In general, contracts covering these concessions should specify the quality of the products which are to be sold; the price at which they are to be sold; the container (guarding against paper bags that rustle loudly);...A badly behaved candy boy, a noisy 'peddler' or one who runs up and down aisles or seats himself amongst patrons during the performance, is not desirable...A peanut or popcorn stand, or similar enterprise, does not belong in the lobby of a well-conducted theatre, and if candy is to be sold at all, it should be dispensed for a case in lobby or foyer, instead of by vendors passing up and down aisles..."

(...cont'd...)