AKA: Disney, Walt, Company, Disneyland, Tomorrowland, Anaheim, CA

Structure Type: built works - recreation areas and structures - amusement parks

Designers: [unspecified]

Dates: constructed 1954-1955

Disneyland, Anaheim, CA

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Tomorrowland, a depiction of daily life in 1986, was an original themed section of Disneyland when it opened on 07/17/1955, albeit in a bare, and scaled-back form. Due to budget constraints, Tomorrowland's attractions filled in gradually, with the early years consisting of a number of corporate-sponsored exhibits. Tomorrowland originally consisted of the colossal TWA Moonliner, a rocket-shaped structure depicting everyday moon travel financed by Howard Hughes's Trans-World Airways (TWA) Corporation, and, to the west, two pavilions, the North and South Buildings. Both buildings originally had a tripartite design, with a round central section flanked symmetrically by angled square portions. In the North Building on opening day, Disney prepared exhibits called "The Art of Animation," and "Space Station X-1," showing the US from space, and the newly conglomerated American Motors Corporation (AMC) sponsored "Circarama," a circular movie theatre utilizing nine screens first screening the film, "A Tour of the West." Led by George Romney (1907-1995), AMC formed in 01/1954, a merger between Nash-Kelvinator Corporation and the Hudson Motor Car Company; the new company looked for advertising opportunities to highlight its new line of vehicles, and established a sponsorship agreement with the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) and Disney for its new television program, "Disneyland," which aired from 1954-1958. The auto company discontinued its sponsorship of Circarama by the 1960s. The South Building contained sets from Disney's 1954 movie adaptation of Jule Verne's "20,000 Leagues under the Sea," the Monsanto Chemical Company's "Hall of Chemistry," and locally-based Richfield Oil Company backed two opening day features, the "World Beneath Us," a diorama and movie focusing on geology and the development of oil, and "Autopia," an exhibit/ride running from 1955-1970 focused on the new National Interstate Highway System. (The Monsanto Chemical Company, a diversified producer of chemicals including DDT and agricultural products, would also open Tomorrowland's famous "House of the Future" in 1957.) Other corporate sponsors included the Kaiser Aluminum Corporation (headquartered in Oakland, CA) which backed the "Aluminum Hall of Fame," and Dutch Boy Paint Company, a lead-paint manufacturer that targeted its marketing to children, which funded the "Dutch Boy Color Gallery" in 1956.

PCAD id: 18045