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Vox
04-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Vox
The bizarre true story of Disney's failed US history theme park
How we tell the story of the United States — and who's included in it and how — has been an ongoing battle in the country for decades. It's one currently being waged by the Trump administration, such as when it scrubbed references to Jackie Robinson and Harriet Tubman from government webpages in the name of clamping down on 'DEI.' And in the 1990s, Disney had a particularly zany idea of how to tell the story of America — one that set off a culture war as the company sought to create an amusement park focused on US history, warts and all. Disney's America, the doomed amusement park, would have contained the story of immigration told through the Muppets' musical-comedy stylings. It would have had sections dedicated to the Industrial Revolution, Native America, and the Civil War. It would, as Disney executives put it at the time, 'make you a Civil War soldier. We want to make you feel what it was like to be a slave.' The ensuing battle over Disney's America would be one of Disney's biggest failures — and a precursor to battles we're still fighting today. To learn more about what Disney tried to do, what ended up happening, and what it all means, Today, Explained co-host Sean Rameswaram spoke with historian Jacqui Shine. Below is an excerpt of their conversation, edited for length and clarity. There's much more in the full podcast, so listen to Today, Explained wherever you get podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and Spotify. Where does this story begin? It begins with Michael Eisner, who came to Disney as its CEO and chairman in 1984. Eisner is ambitious, aggressive. Over the next 10 years, in what Disney buffs called the Disney Renaissance, the company has this enormous critical and commercial success with a run of animated movies. The juggernaut of this is The Little Mermaid, followed by Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King and Aladdin. Maybe high on that supply, Eisner announces this plan for what he calls the Disney decade, which is this broad expansion of the company's parks and resorts. The most high-profile project here was Euro Disney Resort, which is now Disneyland Paris. And there's high expectations for the Disney decade and for the success of the Parks program. This doesn't go quite the way that they hope it will. Euro Disney doesn't do well at opening. It loses nearly a billion dollars in its first year. So the failure of Euro Disney leads the company to want to pivot to more US expansion on smaller park projects. In 1991, the head of the parks division brings Eisner and Disney's president Frank Wells to Colonial Williamsburg. This inspires this plan for a history-themed Disney Park, Disney's America. They want to put it in Virginia because they imagine that it can become part of the DC-area tourist economy, and that a Disney theme park that is about American history will fit really well into this context. This is not a project that was supposed to involve Mickey Mouse or any of the Disney icons. Disney was starting work on Pocahontas. Eisner says that he was reading a lot about John Smith and Pocahontas and that internally, the company was interested in democracy as a sort of, as a thematic subject. So Eisner and Disney have an idea of what they don't want to do, and perhaps more importantly, what they do want to do with this park. To build it, obviously you're going to need some land. I imagine Disney just didn't already have a huge parcel of property in northern Virginia-ish. Do they buy some? They do. Between 1991 and 1993, Disney secretly begins buying up parcels of land in the area through shell companies. The guy who was in charge of buying apparently used a fake persona; this was very undercover, this is all happening secretly. It is also less than five miles from a National Park Service Civil War Battlefield: Manassas. This is a place where about 3,700 men died and where there were about 25,000 total casualties. They're doing this secretly. At what point does Manassas find out that Mickey Mouse is buying up their land? Almost everybody finds out in November 1993 when Disney announces the project. I think initially people receive this warmly, because Disney's promising a significant amount of economic development for the region and Disney is promising a complex experience of American history there. The guy who heads the Disney's America project, Bob Weis, says in the press release they envisioned Disney's America as a place to debate and discuss the future of our nation and to learn more about the past by living it. And they are quick to say that this is a project that is not going to whitewash American history. Eisner is interviewed in the Washington Post the next day. He says that the park will present painful, disturbing, agonizing history. We're going to be sensitive, but we will not be showing the absolute propaganda of the country. We will show the Civil War with all this racial conflict. This was a very serious, very powerful, very successful entertainment executive saying, 'We're gonna make a kiddy theme park that will take our most brutal history seriously.' Yes. And I think, like you, a lot of people had trouble with that contradiction. The day after this press release is issued, Disney holds a press conference in Haymarket. At this presser, Bob Weis, who is the senior vice president of imagineering, which is Disney's creative division, says, 'This will be entertaining in the sense that it would leave you something you could mull over. We want to make you a Civil War soldier. We want to make you feel what it was like to be a slave or what it was like to escape through the underground railroad.' This moment, I think, comes to define this conflict in the public eye. It's such a nutty thing to hear a serious person say. Your kids could come to our theme park, home of Mickey Mouse, and find out what it's like to be a slave. I imagine at this point, people are just like, 'I'm sorry, I'm gonna need some more specifics.' Yes. They put out a brochure, which is where a lot of the information that we have about what this would've been like comes from. 'Any kind of debate about public history is always going to be about trying to stake some sort of political or ideological claim about the meaning of American history.' You enter at Crossroads USA, and there you board an 1840s train that takes you first to President Square, which they say celebrates the birth of democracy. It's about the Revolutionary War. You follow that to Native America. They say, 'guests may visit an Indian village representing such eastern tribes as the Powhatans, or join in a harrowing Lewis and Clark raft expedition through pounding rapids and churning whirlpools.' We're going to be educating people about Manifest Destiny here. We move from Native America to the Civil War fort, where they say you're going to experience the reality of a soldier's daily life. After the Civil War fort, you go to a section on American immigration. And they're going to build a replica Ellis Island building. Some sources indicate they would've done a show called The Muppets Take America. The next section is a factory town called Enterprise that centers on a high-speed adventure ride called the Industrial Revolution. That involves a narrow escape from its fiery vat of molten steel. Then you go to Victory Field, where guests may parachute from a plane or operate tanks and weapons in combat. You then hit the last two areas, State Fair and Family Farm, to learn how to make homemade ice cream or milk a cow and even participate in a nearby country wedding, barn dance, and buffet. This sounds like one doozy of a brochure. Does it work? Does it convince everyone? Yes and no. Does that slow down Michael Eisner? Is he ready to give up? No. And that is where the fight begins. People hook in, in particular, to this idea that Disney's going to include some element about American chattel slavery. And he is aggressive about saying, No, we weren't going to do that. Why would you think that? He is really persuaded that Disney's big swing can work, that this idea has value and merit, and that the people who are standing against it are misguided. At this point, is this fight relegated to Virginia, or is it getting bigger? This is obviously an international company with a huge cultural footprint. It's getting bigger. One of the things that contributes to this is that the Washington Post does a lot of coverage of this, which makes it go national. And it starts this debate in editorial pages about whether or not Disney can responsibly represent American history and whether or not the Disneyfication of American history is advisable. And what happens when national papers, opinion columns start weighing in on this debate? A few things happen. In early 1994, a strong coalition of opponents develops, including people who are concerned about preserving the environment there. But then the historians get involved. The big guns come out when this group called Protect Historic America launches. This is a group of big-name, high-powered academic historians. This group of major figures stepped forward to say they're concerned about education around the Civil War and about the park's location near Manassas. In very short order, dozens and dozens of historians volunteer their time to write editorials, to comment to the media. They're really fired up about this. I read that this fight also somehow made it to the United States Congress. Why is this even Congress's business? This is one of the interesting things that comes out of Senate Energy and Natural Resources subcommittee hearings. The entree into this is that this involves public lands of national importance. Five hundred people come to the Senate hearing, and Eisner's really combative. He says about the people who are opposed to this, 'I sat through many history classes where I read some of their stuff and I didn't learn anything. It was pretty boring.' At this point you've got historians speaking out about this. You've got op-ed columns being written, it sounds like all over the country. You've got a hearing on Capitol Hill. Are people out in the streets protesting this somewhere? They are. Eisner is on the Hill trying to make nice with DC politicians and invites them to a special screening of The Lion King. But when they leave the theater, there are about a hundred protestors outside. Bigger than this though, in September 1994, 3,000 people march on the National Mall to protest Disney's America. Nationally, public support for the park has dropped to like 25 percent. At the end of September 1994, the company announces that Disney is withdrawing from the Virginia site. It's clear that people don't want it to be sited where it is, and they're giving up. It's over for Disney's America. It is curtains for Disney's America. How do you think what happened in the '90s connects to the kinds of fights we're having about our history right now? Any kind of debate about public history is always going to be about trying to stake some sort of political or ideological claim about the meaning of American history. Right now we see this very direct, very aggressive effort to insist on a positivist narrative about American history. One of the things that I think people found puzzling about the early days of the Trump administration was that the National Endowment for the Humanities cut an enormous amount of active grants. And they issued new guidelines seeking projects, they say, that instill 'an understanding of the founding principles and ideals that make America an exceptional country.' I think partly this is the administration's backlash to efforts in the last decade to bring a more nuanced and complex understanding to structural oppression in US history.
Boston Globe
09-04-2025
- Business
- Boston Globe
Pilot sues influencer on X in latest test of defamation law
Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up MANUFACTURING Advertisement Lego says its billion-dollar factory in Vietnam will make toys without pumping out harmful emissions Attendees stand by a full-scale model made with Lego bricks during the inauguration of the Lego factory in Vietnam on April 9. AFP via Getty Images Lego opened a $1 billion factory in Vietnam on Wednesday that it says will make toys without adding planet-warming gas to the atmosphere by relying entirely on clean energy. The factory in the industrial area of Binh Duong, close to Ho Chi Minh City, is the first in Vietnam that aims to run entirely on clean energy. Lego says it will do that by early 2026. It's the Danish company's sixth worldwide and its second in Asia. It will use high-tech equipment to produce colorful Lego bricks for Southeast Asia's growing markets. The factory is an important factor in Lego's quest to stop adding greenhouse gases by 2050. It has a shorter-term target of reducing emissions by 37 percent by 2032. The privately held group makes its bricks out of oil-based plastic and says it has invested more than $1.2 billion in a search for more sustainable alternatives. But those efforts have not always been successful. Fast-industrializing Vietnam also aims to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, so it needs more of its factories to use clean energy. The country hopes the plant's 12,400 solar panels and energy storage system will help set a precedent for more sustainable manufacturing. — ASSOCIATED PRESS Advertisement ENTERTAINMENT Britain lost out on Euro Disney. Now it's getting a Universal theme park. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, left, shakes hands with President of Comcast Corporation Michael Cavanagh on the day that Comcast announced its first Universal theme park and resort in Europe on April 9 in Kempston Hardwick, England. Pool/Getty Universal Studios will build its first European theme park in Bedfordshire, England, studio officials said Wednesday, previewing a sprawling resort that could combine iconic American brands like 'Jurassic Park' with classic British characters like Paddington Bear, Dr. Who, and Harry Potter. The park is set to open in 2031,and British officials said the yet-to-be-named theme park would be Britain's largest single tourist attraction. Executives at Comcast, Universal's parent company, said the 476-acre complex would include themed lands, rides, a 500-room hotel, shops, and dining. 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The practice of including pronouns, such as 'he/him' or 'they/them,' in email signatures and social media bios has become widespread in recent years as a way of clarifying one's gender identity and conveying inclusivity and solidarity for transgender and nonbinary individuals. Conservative politicians and pundits zeroed in on the practice as an example of what they deemed runaway woke-ism and decried it as an attempt to normalize the concept that there are more than two biological genders, male and female. Contacted for comment, administration officials did not directly say if their responses to the journalists represented a new formal policy of the White House press office, or when the practice had started. — NEW YORK TIMES TAXES IRS to lose billions in revenue if migrants stop filing taxes The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) headquarters in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 18. Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg The Internal Revenue Service is projected to lose more than $313 billion in revenue in the coming decade as undocumented workers are poised to pay fewer taxes after the agency struck a deal to share data with US immigration authorities. The IRS is expected to lose $12 billion in revenue for the remainder of the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, according to a report out Tuesday by the Yale Budget Lab. The group estimates unauthorized workers paid about $66 billion in federal taxes in fiscal year 2023, with about two-thirds of that coming from payroll levies. The Treasury Department — which oversees the IRS — earlier this week reached a deal with the Department of Homeland Security to share taxpayer information in response to law enforcement requests related to migration. While federal officials say the agreement includes safeguards and applies only to criminal matters, it reverses longstanding IRS privacy policies. The report underscores the role undocumented workers play in paying into Social Security and Medicare benefit programs that they can't draw from in retirement because of their immigration status. — BLOOMBERG NEWS Advertisement BANKRUPTCY Publishers Clearing House, known for big checks, goes bankrupt Dave Sayer, right, of the Publishers Clearing House Prize Patrol delivered an oversized check for one million dollars to Mark Adair outside his home in South Boston in 2022. Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff/The Boston Globe Publishers Clearing House LLC, famous for handing out over-sized checks on the doorsteps of its surprised contestants, has filed bankruptcy. The 72-year-old company owes as much as $100 million to more than 100,000 creditors, it said in a Chapter 11 filing in Manhattan. PCH listed between $1 million and $10 million in assets on its bankruptcy petition. PCH rose to prominence through ads promoting its sweepstakes which flooded daytime televisions in the late 1980s and 1990s. The company said that it had awarded more than $500 million in prizes over the decades and continued to offer sweepstakes through social media and mobile apps, according to court papers. Company revenue shrank as online consumers demanded faster deliveries and free shipping, which PCH could not meet, according to court documents. Revenue fell from nearly $879 million in 2018 to $181 million last year, court documents show. — BLOOMBERG NEWS Advertisement MAIL US Postal Service seeks to hike cost of a first-class stamp to 78 cents The United States Postal Service logo on a mailbox in Pittsburgh on March 17. Gene J. Puskar/Associated Press The US Postal Service is seeking a rate increase this summer that includes hiking the cost of a first-class stamp from 73 cents to 78 cents. The request was made Wednesday to the Postal Regulatory Commission, which must OK the proposal. If approved, the 5 cent increase for a 'forever' stamp and similar increases for postcards, metered letters and international mail would take effect July 13. The proposed changes would raise mailing services product prices approximately 7.4 percent. The Postal Service contends, as it did last year when it enacted a similar increase, that it's needed to achieve financial stability. — ASSOCIATED PRESS LEGAL Top pro bono leader resigns from Paul Weiss, a firm hit in Trump's crackdown on Big Law A leader of the pro bono practice at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison is resigning from the law firm, within weeks of the elite firm striking a deal with President Trump to lift an executive order that had threatened its ability to represent clients with business before the federal government. Steven Banks, a former New York City social services commissioner who was special counsel at the New York-based law firm for the past three years, said in a statement that he was leaving to return to his roots and would resume working for the rights of the homeless by providing legal services to the Coalition for the Homeless and The Legal Aid Society. 'This has been weighing on me since the November election,' Banks said in the statement. 'At this historical moment, I know that I belong back on the front lines fighting for the things that I have believed in since I first walked in the door of The Legal Aid Society as a staff attorney in 1981.' While Banks, 68, did not mention the settlement with the White House, his departure comes as Paul Weiss has faced a barrage of criticism for not fighting Trump and his broader attacks on the legal system. — NEW YORK TIMES Advertisement
