Today, Explained - Disney's America

Episode Date: July 3, 2025

There’s no shortage of fights over American history right now, but let’s see what we can learn from that one time in the '90s when Disney tried to build a theme park that tackled slavery. This episode was produced by Peter Balonon-Rosen, edited by Jolie Myers, fact checked by Laura Bullard, engineered by Patrick Boyd and Andrea Kristinsdottir, and hosted by Sean Rameswaram. Listen to Today, Explained ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. Transcript at vox.com/today-explained-podcast. Photo of Minnie Mouse at Disneyworld in Orlando by Peter Bischoff/Getty Images. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

There's a historic number of fights over American history right now. Take your pick. They range from the outlandish, President Trump directed the most complex and secretive military operation in history, Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated, to the sketchy, critics attacked the US Department of Defense after a web page was removed that honored the military career of sports legend Jackie Robinson. To the existential. The internet's talking about this one today. The National Park Service has removed a reference to Harriet Tubman from a web page about the

Underground Railroad. But since it's the fourth, we at Today Explained thought we'd take a look at a very different fight over our history to see if we can learn anything from it. On the show today we're gonna talk about the one time Disney tried to make a theme park out of American history. Warts and all. Spoiler alert, it did not go well. No Frills delivers. Get groceries delivered to your door from No Frills with PC Express. Shop online and get $15 in PC Optimum Points on your first five orders.

Shop now at NoFrills.ca. This episode is brought to you by Dzone. For the first time ever, the 32 best soccer clubs from across the world are coming together to decide who the undisputed champions of the world are in the FIFA Club World Cup. The world's best players, Messi, Holland, Kane and more are all taking part. And you can watch every match for free on Dazone starting on June 14th and running until July 13th. Sign up now at Dazone.com slash FIFA.

That's D-A-Z-N dot com slash FIFA. Hey, hey everybody. It's Today Explained. Jackie Shines, a historian at DePaul University in Chicago, who knows a thing or two about Disney. So we asked them where the story of Disney's America begins. The story of Disney's America, one of the most high profile failed Disney projects, probably in the company's history, begins with Michael Eisner,

who came to Disney as its CEO and chairman in 1984. Eisner is ambitious, aggressive. I can assure you that I did not come to this organization to watch it be dismantled. It's essential to do what I'm sure Walt Disney himself would have done, which is to experiment with every new and innovative kind of entertainment possible. Over the next 10 years, in what Disney buffs call 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. Aladdin. Maybe high on that supply, Eisner announces this plan for what he calls the Disney decade. Tonight, the world of Walt Disney comes alive here in Europe. Which is this broad expansion of the company's parks and resorts. With the grand opening of Euro Disney. This doesn't go quite the way that they hope it will. It loses nearly a billion dollars in its first year. So the failure of Euro Disney leads the company to sort of 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, which they want to put in Virginia because they imagine that it can become part of the DC area tourist economy. 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 or any of the Disney icons. Disney was starting work on Pocahontas. Can you paint with all the colors of the wind?

Eisner says that he was reading a lot about John Smith and Pocahontas. Okay, my man, whatever. And that internally, the company was interested in democracy as a sort of as a thematic subject. Okay, 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, what, Northern Virginia-ish. Do they buy some?

They do. Between 1991 and 1993, Disney secretly begins up buying parcels of land in the area through shell companies. The guy who was in charge of buying apparently used fake persona. Ho, ho, ho. Land please. Like this was very undercover. Huh. 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. And they're doing this secretly. At what point does Manassas, does Virginia find out that Mickey Mouse is buying up their land? Almost everybody finds out in November 1993 when Disney announces the project. The newest magic kingdom will actually be more a democracy. Disney's America will serve, we think, as an ideal complement to people visiting this area's museums, monuments, and national treasures.

See and feel and be a part of history. I think initially people receive this warmly because Disney is promising a significant amount of economic development for the region. And Disney is promising a complex experience of American history there. This park, because it's not Disneyland, because it's a new kind of park for us, is going to give us an opportunity to really get some gutsy emotional views in there. And we're hoping to really be a little controversial. To fairly represent things that are negative about America.

The guy who heads the Disney's America project, this guy, Bob Weiss, says in the press release that Disney releases that they envision 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 going to make a kiddie 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 Weiss, he says, this will be entertaining in the sense that it would leave you something you could mull over. BOB WEISS 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. Weiss told a packed room of reporters, The Washington Post, November 11th, 1993.

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. Yes. 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 going to 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 have been like comes from. You enter at Crossroads USA.

It is from Crossroads USA that visitors can either head forward or backward in time. And there you board an 1840s train that takes you first to President's Square, which they say celebrates the birth of democracy. It's about the revolution. Or one if by land, two if by sea. 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 have done a show called The Muppets Take America. Oh, wow. Right by the Statue of Liberty! She's so tall and so green, just like me! Eyes off that green lady, Germit! That makes sense because they all look different. I'm confident that it would have ripped. The Muppets rule.

The Muppets don't fail. They can't miss. Right. Where can you find it in 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 bat of molten steel. Then you go to Victory Field. Guests at Victory Field may parachute from a plane or operate tanks and weapons in combat. You then hit the last two areas, State Fair and Family Farm. Learn how to make homemade ice cream or milk a cow, even participate in a nearby country wedding,

barn dance, and buffet. Mm-mm-mm. Tasty. 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. You're listening to Today Explained. With writer and historian Jackie Shine. Jackie, when we left off, we got a big doozy of a brochure from the Walt Disney Company trying to sell this park to the good people of Virginia in particular. But you say that it does not really convince everyone, but Disney CEO Michael Eisner is not ready to give up. How does he persist? People hook in in particular to this idea that Disney is going to include some sort of element about

American chattel slavery. And he is aggressive about saying, you know, no, we weren't going to do that. Why would you think that? Eisner said critics of the concept of a slavery exhibit have assumed something before the fact, which is always dangerous. He added, I really don't think they think that to feel like being a slave, we're going to whip them. The Washington Post, December 18th, 1993. He has 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, you know, 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. Disney's business is selling entertainment. Mr. Eisner would do better to simply admit that

than to pretend that Disney's America is going to significantly expand the nation's appreciation of its history. It wasn't entertaining to work in cotton and tobacco fields from sun up to sun down, and it wasn't entertaining to make in cotton and tobacco fields from sun up to sun down, and it wasn't entertaining to make decisions you knew would cost lives. Real history isn't entertaining. With the advent of Disney's America, the big bad wolf is standing right outside the door, poised to devour our past.

One of the early kind of high watermarks is in February 1994 when the New York Times editorial board weighs in on illness in an unsigned editorial. For parents who want to give their children history, let them like generations before them, make the trip to Prince William County. Let them sit still at Manassas and listen for the presence of the dead. Don't cater to the kids. Make the kids consume adult history.

Right, right. And that, you know, this veneration of the Civil War battlefield as a site that demands specific careful interpretation and that will be demeaned or diminished by the presence of a Disney park. And what happens when national papers, opinion columns start weighing in on this debate? So, a few things happen. And in early 1994, a strong coalition of opponents develops, including people in Prince William County who are concerned about preserving the environment there, a coterie of powerful people who own land in that area. 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. If you were to search from here to California, you could hardly find a more inappropriate place for a huge sprawling commercial development. And yet that is exactly what the Disney Corporation intends to do. And the irony is they want to do it in the name of history. In very short order, dozens and dozens of historians volunteer their time to write editorials, to comment to the media. They are really fired up about this.

They want to move in and destroy real history in order to create a facsimile, something synthetic, plastic. One of the people who becomes really involved in this is Don Henley of the Eagles. What? Take it easy. I don't really know why, but Don Henley becomes one of the big names attached to protect historic America. I guess the Eagles have some songs that are like loosely about U.S. history, like The

Last Resort. And they came from everywhere to fight over Disney's America. I read that this fight also somehow made it to the United States Congress. Why is this even Congress's business? Well, this is one of the interesting things that comes out of Senate energy and natural resources subcommittee hearings. Gentlemen, we thank all of you for being with us this morning. This is a very obviously controversial project. The entree into this is that this involves public lands of national importance. Our first witness this morning is David McCulloch.

David, please proceed. 500 people come to this Senate hearing. It's the wrong place for any such project, however well-intentioned. And the wonder is that Mr. Michael Eisner and the other Disney executives and Disney stockholders don't see this. And Eisner is really combative. He says, I sat through many history classes where I read some of their stuff and I didn't learn anything It was pretty boring. He said of the historians work the Washington Post June 14th 1994 oh

The historians loved that oh this one it went over really well just some of the headlines Eek a mouse step on it Virginians in civil war over Disneyland. Disney's land of make believe. Slavery's pain, Disney's gain. Bigger than this though, in September 1994, 3000 people march on the national mall to protest Disney's America. Close to 3000 opponents, including activist Ralph Nader,

came from as far away as Florida, California, and New York, and as close as various counties in Virginia to have their say about Disney's America, chanting, hey, hey, ho, ho, Disney's got to go. Los Angeles Times, September 18th, 1994. Nationally, public support for the park has dropped to like 25% in national polls. At the end of September 94, the company announces that Disney was withdrawing from the Virginia

site. It's clear that people don't want it to be cited where it is and they're giving up. It's over for Disney's America. It is curtains for Disney's America. I'm sure any number of executives at Disney at the time in the mid-90s and since have said, wow, that was a crazy idea. I mean, just hearing you tell this story, I'm sitting here going, wow, that was a crazy idea. I mean, just hearing you tell this story, I'm sitting here going, wow, that

was a crazy idea. But in reading a little bit about this history, this moment, it's funny because other people have tried it. There are literally existing Civil War theme parks. I mean, Freedomland USA? Freedomland USA is really interesting because it was a very short-lived theme park in New York. That actually was launched by somebody who had worked for Walt Disney. And it did have a civil war reenactment section, but I don't think Freedom Land faced the same hostility as Disney's America. And that may have been partly because it was located in the Bronx. Like, you know, I do think a big part of this is that people were drawn into

this fight by this broadly shared idea that civil war battlefields are sacred sites. And interestingly, one of the things that Eisner says in his memoir is that he was inspired partly by the US Holocaust Museum in DC, which is a place that used a lot of multimedia immersive strategies and has had as its goal giving visitors some sense of what the experience of the Holocaust was like. So it's not that nobody had tried those things and it's certainly not that nobody has tried them since. How do you think what happened in the 90s connects to the kinds of fights we're having about our history right now, if it does at all?

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. You know, one of the things that I think people found sort of puzzling about the early days of the Trump administration was that one thing that they did was 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 but don't represent extreme ideologies based on race and gender. I think partly this is about the administration's backlash

to efforts in the last decade to bring a more nuanced and complex understanding to structural oppression in US history. We fantasize about American history in all kinds of ways, in all kinds of places. I don't know that Disney, in seeking to do that, was necessarily doing anything out of step with how we represent the American story. Jackie Schein, DePaul University, thanks for making notes for us. Peter Ballinon Rosen also made notes and also the show. Jolie Meyers edited, Laura Bullard was on Facts, Andrea Christensdottir and Patrick

Boyd were on the mix, Amina Alsatis, our supervising editor, Miranda Kennedy's our executive producer, Gabrielle Burbae, Devin Schwartz, Denise Guerra, Miles Bryan, Avishai Artsy, and Harima Waghdi also produced, and Noelle King is... Victoria Chamberlain was a producer of this program. For many years, she made some of our favorite episodes ever. She made some of your favorite episodes ever, whether you know it or not. Today's her last day at Explained, but she's got big, bright things in her future,

and we are most happy for her. Interesting times. Thank you, Victoria, and thank you for listening to Today Explained. We are distributed by WNYC. The show is a part of Vox. You can listen to this show and all Vox podcasts ad free by signing up for our membership program at vox.com slash members.

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