615. Disneyland: The Modern American Utopia

Today on The Rest is History, we are visiting Disneyland and we are exploring the backstory of theme parks because Dominic, you love a theme park, don't you? So I actually do because I'm an adrenaline junkie as you know, Tom, so I really enjoy doing this episode and actually the deeper we went into it the more fascinating it is. So you know the first roller coasters? Tsarist Russia, the age of Catherine the Great, serfs building great hills of ice and aristocrats going tobogganing down them. And then you get into the 19th century, you have gravity switchback, railroads, people traveling on these kind of mad railways against a painted background.

But there's other predecessors to Disneyland, aren't there? So I know you love a Vauxhall pleasure garden. Well, yes, because it's nice to know that ultimately uh the origins of Disneyland lay in um lay in South London where I live. That was a revelation for me. Yeah, fountains, fireworks, houses made of glass, all that kind of thing.

So that's all great. And then we end by talking about Disneyland itself. A mad story actually when it opened in 1955. Basically, Walt Disney faced one of history's most difficult and most perilous dilemmas.

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