The Women Who Made Early Disneyland

Book excerpt: Although historians have begun to recognize the accomplishments of Disney Studio’s female animators, the women who contributed to the early success of Disneyland remain, for the most part, unacknowledged. Indeed, in celebrating the park’s ten-year anniversary in 1965, Walt Disney thanked “all the boys . . . who’ve been a part of this thing,” even though hundreds of women had also been instrumental in designing, building and operating Disneyland since before its grand opening in July 1955. Seeking to reclaim women’s place in the early history of Disneyland, The Women Who Made Early Disneyland highlights the female Disney employees and contract workers who helped make the park one of the most popular U.S. destinations during its first ten years. Some, like artist Mary Blair, Imagineers Harriet Burns and Alice Davis, “Slue Foot Sue” Betty Taylor, and Disneyland’s first “ambassador,” Julie Reihm, eventually became Disney “legends.” Others remain less well known, including landscape architect Ruth Shellhorn, parade choreographer Miriam Nelson, Aunt Jemima’s Kitchen hostess Alyene Lewis, and Tiny Kline, who at age seventy-one became the first Tinker Bell to fly over Disneyland. This one-of-a-kind book examines the lives and achievements of the women who made early Disneyland.