What would Orlando and Central Florida be without Disney?

It would be, “Lakeland...a pretty town with lakes” is a quote attributed to former Orange County Commission Chair Linda Chapin in a recent Orlando Sentinel story on the park’s 50^th Anniversary (https://www.orlandosentinel.com/travel/attractions/disney-world-50th-anniversary/os-prem-et-disney-world-50th-anniversary-no-orlando-20210505-onbjdy7xtbedxanucjeygtu3g4-story.html).

  Author and art historian Cher Krause Knight (https://www.emerson.edu/faculty-staff-directory/cher-knight) shares her take on the Disney story in an interview on the Florida Frontiers radio show (https://myfloridahistory.org/frontiers/radio/program/422) as she did in her 2014 book “Power and Paradise in Walt Disney’s World.” Her book and many others with various takes on the Disney story can be found in the collection of the Library of Florida History in Cocoa Village. They range from the fawning to the hostile. You can always compare them to the official narrative at the Disney Family Museum: https://www.waltdisney.org/.

  As Knight points out, marketing Florida as a tourist destination is nothing new (https://myfloridahistory.org/webextras/webextras/76); it has been a growth industry since the years after the Civil War.

  In fact, she speculates on the role one of Florida’s leading pre-Disney attractions played in Walt Disney’s designs. How much did he want to capture the feeling of isolation from reality, the immersion in a restorative space the gardens engendered?

  The library’s collection has some illustrations of that as well. In a collection of black and white photographs from the 1940s and 50s, by U.S. Navy photographer Hugh Phillips (https://navy.togetherweserved.com/usn/servlet/tws.webapp.WebApp?cmd=ShadowBoxProfile&type=AssignmentExt&ID=1205175) we find images of his home state.

  This includes several that clearly demonstrate that blend of human activity and environmental perfection you can associate with memorable Florida moments.