“Ladies, kindly remove your hats.” “Please don’t forget your umbrella or other parcels.”

These are some of the friendly reminders you would receive if attending your local movie theater in the year 1912. It’s a bit different from today’s requests to silence cell phones, refrain from texting, and visit your concession stand for a delicious kosher hot dog.

We stumbled upon this charming and hilarious series of vintage posters illustrating proper movie-going etiquette in the early days of cinema courtesy of DesignTaxi
. The images, which are available via the ever-surprising treasure trove that is the Library of Congress, capture a bygone era filled with profoundly polite theater patrons and what we can only gauge to be extremely large hats.

Just as we were starting to wax nostalgic over this pure time in history — when people need be reminded to clap only with their hands — we came across this message: “Ladies and children are cordially invited to this theater. No offensive pictures are ever shown here.” We’ll take “offensive” movies of today over unwieldy hat-wearers any day. Nonetheless, travel back in time with the glorious ads below.