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Disney's Land: Walt Disney and the Invention of the Amusement Park That Changed the World
432Available on Compatible NOOK Devices and the free NOOK Apps.
Overview
One day in the early 1950s, Walt Disney stood looking over 240 acres of farmland in Anaheim, California, and imagined building a park where people “could live among Mickey Mouse and Snow White in a world still powered by steam and fire for a day or a week or (if the visitor is slightly mad) forever.” Despite his wealth and fame, exactly no one wanted Disney to build such a park. Not his brother Roy, who ran the company’s finances; not the bankers; and not his wife, Lillian. Amusement parks at that time, such as Coney Island, were a generally despised business, sagging and sordid remnants of bygone days. Disney was told that he would only be heading toward financial ruin.
But Walt persevered, initially financing the park against his own life insurance policy and later with sponsorship from ABC and the sale of thousands and thousands of Davy Crockett coonskin caps. Disney assembled a talented team of engineers, architects, artists, animators, landscapers, and even a retired admiral to transform his ideas into a soaring yet soothing wonderland of a park. The catch was that they had only a year and a day in which to build it.
On July 17, 1955, Disneyland opened its gates…and the first day was a disaster. Disney was nearly suicidal with grief that he had failed on a grand scale. But the curious masses kept coming, and the rest is entertainment history. Eight hundred million visitors have flocked to the park since then. In Disney’s Land, “Snow brings a historian’s eye and a child’s delight, not to mention superb writing, to the telling of this fascinating narrative” (Ken Burns) that “will entertain Disneyphiles and readers of popular American history” (Publishers Weekly).
Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9781501190827 |
---|---|
Publisher: | Scribner |
Publication date: | 12/03/2019 |
Sold by: | SIMON & SCHUSTER |
Format: | NOOK Book |
Pages: | 432 |
Sales rank: | 308,385 |
File size: | 51 MB |
Note: | This product may take a few minutes to download. |
About the Author
Table of Contents
1 Sunday, July 17, 1955, 4 a.m. 1
2 How I Got to Disneyland 7
3 A Horrible Name for a Mouse 17
4 The Railroad Fair 25
5 The Lilly Belle 35
6 World's Fairs, Coney Island, and the Decline of the Amusement Park 45
7 Dwarf Land 53
8 Getting Started 59
9 Buzz and Woody 67
10 Orange County 73
11 Buying on the Sly 77
12 Roy 83
13 Like Nothing Else in the World 91
14 The Almost Broadcasting Company 95
15 Selling the Idea 103
16 Imagineering 113
17 The Admiral 119
18 The Instant Jungle 129
19 Arrow 135
20 Harriet and the Model Shop 141
21 Real Trains 147
22 King of the Wild Frontier 155
23 The Struggle for Sponsors 167
24 Van Arsdale France Founds a School 175
25 The Pony Farm 189
26 Demands of the Jungle Cruise 193
27 Milking the Elephant 199
28 Autopia 203
29 The Moonliner 211
30 Through the Castle Gate 215
31 The Perfectionist at Work 221
32 Ruth's Role 225
33 Union Troubles 231
34 "We're Not Going to Make It" 237
35 Tempus Fugit 249
36 Dateline: Disneyland 257
37 Dateline Behind the Cameras: Black Sunday 285
38 Damage Control 295
39 Something Worthwhile 309
40 Plussing 319
41 The Mountain and the Monorail 327
42 Disneyland '59 335
43 "Do You Have Rocket-Launching Pads There?" 341
44 Suing God in Heaven 345
45 A Perfect Fascist Regime 349
46 The Greatest Piece of Urban Design 353
47 The First Goodbye 359
48 Beautiful? 363
Afterword, and a Note on the Sources 373
Bibliography 379
Illustration Credits 387
Index 389