A history of the engineering marvels behind one of America’s most innovative and beloved entertainment experiences

When Disneyland opened to the public in 1955, it demystified the hidden world of factory automation through its extraordinary new attractions. In this fascinating book, Roland Betancourt tells the story of how the visionary engineers and designers at Disney transformed the technologies of the postwar assembly line into an entertainment experience unlike anything the world had ever seen.

Disneyland and the Rise of Automation traces the origins and evolution of these technical innovations during the theme park’s first three decades in operation, exploring how engineers reimagined the systems and machines of industrial manufacturing and the military. The magnetic tape used to test ballistic missiles was repurposed to animate the talking macaws in the Enchanted Tiki Room. Programmable Logic Controllers, widely used on automotive assembly lines, brought to life the spectacular rides of the Matterhorn Bobsleds and Space Mountain. Betancourt shows how these and other attractions helped to allay fears about automation and job displacement in 1950s America. Along the way, he situates Disneyland’s remarkable creations within a broader history of the technologies that increasingly order and construct the world around us, from the Fordist factory to artificial intelligence.

Essential reading for anyone interested in engineering, corporate histories, or popular culture, Disneyland and the Rise of Automation invites us to consider how technology and the logic of automation become integrated into our lives through entertainment.

"Compelling. . . . Betancourt’s text, supplemented by a plethora of archival photographs, charts, and other images, is sure to be an important contribution to future discussions of humans versus machines. A superbly researched, structured, and written treatise on how two behemoth 20th-century trends converged." - Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review

"

Richly supported by advertisements, comics, TV documentaries, magazine articles, technical drawings, and more, Betancourt's history contextualizes the public’s changing attitudes toward automation and how its gradual popularity affected—and devalued—human labor, specialization, and unions. . . . The parallels between automation history and today’s anxiety about AI do make for a timely read.

"Disneyland and the Rise of Automation is the kind of book that changes what you notice. After reading it, you will not be able to walk through a theme park, or a fully automated warehouse, or any of the increasing number of spaces in American life where the human and the mechanical are becoming difficult to separate, without thinking about the argument Betancourt has made. That is the highest thing one can ask of a work of cultural history." - Six Degrees of Robotics