Disney, 2
Cleansing the Past, Selling the Future:
Disney’s Corporate Exhibits at the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair
Introduction
Between April 22, 1964 and October 17, 1965 fifty-one million people experienced the New
York World’s Fair.
1
The mid-1960s was a time of both turmoil and prosperity for America. President
Kennedy had been assassinated only months before the Fair’s opening. In southern states such as
Alabama the civil rights protest movement was drawing national attention. While cold war tensions
remained high following the Cuban Missile Crisis, the nation was enjoying the height of postwar
economic prosperity and geo-political power. The Fair’s twin themes of “Man’s Achievements in an
Expanding Universe” and “A Millennium of Progress” captured the exuberance of the times, celebrating
“the boundless potential of science and technology for human betterment.”
2
The 1939 New York World’s Fair was in many ways a predecessor to the 1964-65 exhibition.
While both offered a distinct focus on new technologies, as has been the pedigree of World's Fairs since
London’s Crystal Palace in 1851, the former suffered from an overdose of corporate propaganda in
seeking to lift American hearts from the melancholy and suffering of the 1930s.
3
Still, the 1939
corporate pavilions established consumption-based themes, introducing the American public to the latest
1
The Fair closed for the winter months. Thus, it actually was open from April 22 to October 18, 1964 and in 1965
from April 21 to October 17, for grand total of 360 days. Official Guide: New York World’s Fair, 1964/1965. New York:
Time Inc., 1964. The Fair was held at Flushing Meadow in Queens, New York, on the site of the 1939 fair. The 1964-65 Fair
featured 140 pavilions on 646 acres. Due to a stipulation that no nation can host a World’s Fair more than once a decade and
that an official World’s Fair was held in Seattle in 1962, the New York Fair did not enjoy the official sanction of the Bureau
of International Expositions. While several Communist Bloc and European nations boycotted the Fair due to its unofficial
status, many Latin American and Pacific countries did host exhibits. Jeffrey Stanton. New York 1964 Word’s Fair, 1997.
(February 29, 2002). <http://naid.sppsr.ucla.edu/ny64fair/>.
2
Stanton.
3
Mike Wallace notes that the heavy-handed social message of many of the corporate exhibits led many visitors to
turn away. He quotes Walter Lippmann, noting that “General Motors spent a small fortune to convince the American public
that if it wishes to enjoy the full benefit of private enterprise in motor manufacturing, it will have to rebuild its cities and its
highways.” Michael Wallace, “Mickey Mouse History: Portraying the Past at Disney World,” in History Museums in the
United States: A Critical Assessment, eds. Warren Leon and Roy Rosenzweig (Urbana: U of Illinois, 1989), 41.
Convention