When Disneyland opened in 1955, it demystified the hidden world of factory automation through its extraordinary new attractions. Historian Roland Betancourt tells the story of how Disney’s visionary engineers and designers transformed the technologies of the postwar assembly line into an entertainment experience unlike any other.
Betancourt traces the origins and evolution of these technical innovations during the theme park’s first three decades, exploring how engineers reimagined the systems and machines of industrial manufacturing and the military: Magnetic tape used to test ballistic missiles animated the Enchanted Tiki Room’s talking macaws, while programmable logic controllers, widely used on automotive assembly lines, brought to life the Matterhorn Bobsleds and Space Mountain. Betancourt shows how these and other attractions helped to allay fears about automation and job displacement in 1950s America. He also situates Disneyland’s creations within a broader history of the technologies that increasingly order and construct the world around us, from the Fordist factory to artificial intelligence.
Betancourt’s book, Disneyland and the Rise of Automation: How Technology Created the Happiest Place on Earth (Princeton University Press), is available for purchase.
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