Disney's Land

October 1, 2019
How nostalgia, fantasy, and cutting-edge engineering merged into the "tireless commercial dynamo" of Disneyland. For Snow (Iron Dawn: The Monitor, the Merrimack, and the Civil War Sea Battle That Changed History, 2016, etc.), former editor-in-chief of American Heritage magazine, a fascination with amusement parks began at Playland in Rye, New York, and intensified when he raptly watched Disneyland, a show airing weekly on ABC that whetted viewers' appetite for Walt Disney's ambitious project. When Snow finally visited, in 1959, at the age of 12, he arrived with high expectations that, he recalls happily, "were met and surpassed." The author's admiration for Disneyland infuses his brisk, thorough history of the huge theme park, from an idea conceived by "the powerful personality of one man" to its realization as a monument to "an America where all is prosperous and convivial"--a place, as writer Ray Bradbury commented, that "liberates men to their better selves." Snow portrays Disney as a tireless and demanding boss who was "often dissatisfied with things as he found them; his preferences changed from day to day, sometimes from hour to hour." He was a perfectionist determined to build his park no matter who (his brother, for example, who balked at the expense) or what (problems building a scale model of the Matterhorn, for one, and installing a jungle in arid California) got in the way of his dream: "something of a fair, an exhibition, a playground, a community center, a museum of living facts and a showplace of beauty and magic." Snow chronicles in detail the process of finding a site (Anaheim, in southern California); hiring engineers, designers, architects, landscapers, artists, and an ever increasing number of genial, polite staff; building the park's structures and rides; planning for visitors' movements through the park, expenditures, and needs such as water, toilets, and food; dealing with unions' demands; promoting the new destination as "a place for people to find happiness and knowledge"; and overcoming an opening described as nothing less than mayhem. An animated history of an iconic destination.

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October 7, 2019
Former American Heritage editor-in-chief Snow (Iron Dawn) tells the story of Disneyland from the park’s ground-breaking to its five-year anniversary in this immensely readable history. According to Snow, Walt Disney was inspired to create the world’s first “theme” park by the 1948 Chicago Railroad Fair and a visit to Henry Ford’s Greenfield Village outside Detroit. Because it was the first of its kind, Disneyland’s rides had to be built from scratch, frequently on-site, and data-tracking methods, such as “per capita visitor expenditures” and “on-site crowd densities,” had to be invented. Among the many people who helped create the park, Snow profiles Joe Fowler, a U.S. Navy submarine designer who built the Mark Twain steamboat, and landscape architect Ruth Shellhorn, who redesigned whole sections of the park after trees and shrubs were initially planted haphazardly. Expecting 11,000 visitors for its “Press Preview Day” in July 1955, the park got nearly 30,000. Many of the rides failed; none of the water fountains worked. Newspapers declared it a disaster, but paying guests weren’t deterred. By early 1956, Snow writes, Disneyland was “regularly drawing crowds 50 percent above the most optimistic projections.” This joyful, lavishly detailed account will entertain Disneyphiles and readers of popular American history.

November 1, 2019

Just as Walt Disney's animated and live movies changed cinema, his theme park changed the way America, and eventually the world, thought about amusement parks. In this accessible and well-researched history, Snow (Iron Dawn) recounts the personal histories of the people who helped make Disney's concept a reality. From the fabrication of scale-model trains and steamboats to the park's landscaping and architecture, the book reveals just how much attention to detail went into the construction of Disneyland in Anaheim, California. While the description of the opening day telecast and contemporary cultural criticism of the Disney model makes the narrative bloated, fans of Disney and amusement park history will find compelling accounts of the work and innovation that resulted in a park that was organic in its creation. Readers of Chad Denver Emerson's Project Future and Martin Sklar's Dream It! Do It! will relish the stories from the cast of characters who worked long hours under extreme pressure to open the happiest place on Earth. VERDICT Much has already been written about Disney's theme parks, but Snow's readable business history explores the work and innovation that went into launching the park.--John Rodzvilla, Emerson Coll., Boston

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 15, 2019
Disneyland, writes Snow (Iron Dawn, 2016), is the extension of the powerful personality of one man. The book tells the story of that man, Walt Disney, and how he willed his revolutionary theme park into existence. Though a cinematic success after the prewar hit Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Disney's dream of a more wholesome alternative to the seedy amusement parks of the day was far from a sure thing, given the expense and skepticism from potential financiers. Snow credits its success to Disney's determined research, skillful team-building, and savvy pursuit of partnerships, whether with the struggling ABC network by exchanging television content for funding or with businesses to sponsor spots on the iconic Main Street, which Snow dubs a triumph of historical imagination. Buoyed by a well of secondary sources, Snow's smooth narrative spotlights the hard work and heart that the happiest place on Earth required of the man with a watchmaker's precision, an artist's conviction, and the recklessness of a riverboat gambler. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)