Please don't forget to make a donation. We need your help in these difficult times. Donate now.

Walt Disney

You can read this article also on Wikipedia

Walt Disney's baby picture - ENLARGE
Walter Elias "Walt" Disney (December 5, 1901 – December 15, 1966) was an American animator, film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, entrepreneur, entertainer, international icon, and philanthropist, well known for his influence in the field of entertainment during the 20th century. Along with his brother Roy O. Disney, he co-founded the Walt Disney Productions, which later became one of the best-known motion picture producers in the world. The corporation is now known as The Walt Disney Company and had an annual revenue of approximately US$36 billion in the 2010 financial year.
Disney was particularly noted as a film producer and a popular showman, as well as an innovator in animation and theme park design. He and his staff created some of the world's most well-known fictional characters including Mickey Mouse, for whom Disney himself provided the original voice. During his lifetime he received four honorary Academy Awards and won 22 Academy Awards from a total of 59 nominations, including a record four in one year, giving him more awards and nominations than any other individual in history. Disney also won seven Emmy Awards and gave his name to the Disneyland and Walt Disney World Resort theme parks in the U.S., as well as the international resorts like Tokyo Disney Resort, Disneyland Paris, and Hong Kong Disneyland.
He died in December 15, 1966 from lung cancer in Burbank, California. A year later, construction of the Walt Disney World Resort began in Florida. His brother Roy Disney inaugurated the Magic Kingdom on October 1, 1971.

Walt Disney
Walt disney portrait.jpg
Walt Disney on January 1, 1954
Born Walter Elias Disney
December 5, 1901[1]
Hermosa, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Died December 15, 1966 (aged 65)
Burbank, California, U.S.
Cause of death Lung cancer
Resting place Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale, California, U.S.
Residence Burbank, California
Nationality American
Education McKinley High School, Chicago Academy of Fine Arts
Occupation Film producer,
Co-founder of The Walt Disney Company, formerly known as Walt Disney Productions
Years active 1920–1966
Home town Chicago, Illinois
Political party Republican
Board member of The Walt Disney Company
Religion Christian (Congregationalist)[2]
Spouse(s) Lillian Bounds (1925–66)
Children Diane Marie Disney
Sharon Mae Disney
Parents Elias Disney
Flora Call Disney
Relatives Ronald William Miller (son-in-law)
Robert Borgfeldt Brown (son-in-law)
Roy Edward Disney (nephew)
Family Herbert Arthur Disney (brother)
Raymond Arnold Disney (brother)
Roy Oliver Disney (brother)
Ruth Flora Disney (sister)
Awards 7 Emmy Awards
22 Academy Awards
Cecil B. DeMille Award
Signature Walt Disney 1942 signature.svg

1901–1937: Beginnings

Childhood

Walt’s parents, Elias and Flora (Call) Disney
 
Disney was born on December 5, 1901, at 2156 N. Tripp Avenue in Chicago's Hermosa community area to Irish-Canadian father Elias Disney and Flora Call Disney, who was of German and English descent.[7][8] His great-grandfather, Arundel Elias Disney, had emigrated from Gowran, County Kilkenny, Ireland where he was born in 1801. Arundel Disney was a descendant of Robert d'Isigny, a Frenchman who had travelled to England with William the Conqueror in 1066.[9] With the d'Isigny name anglicized as "Disney", the family settled in a village now known as Norton Disney, south of the city of Lincoln, in the county of Lincolnshire.
In 1878, Disney's father Elias had moved from Huron County, Ontario, Canada to the United States at first seeking gold in California before finally settling down to farm with his parents near Ellis, Kansas, until 1884. Elias worked for the Union Pacific Railroad and married Flora Call on January 1, 1888, in Acron, Florida, just 40 miles north of where Walt Disney World would ultimately be developed. The family moved to Chicago, Illinois, in 1890,[10] hometown of Elias' brother Robert[10] who helped Elias financially for most of Walt's early life.[10] In 1906, when Walt was four, Elias and his family moved to a farm in Marceline, Missouri,[11] where his brother Roy had recently purchased farmland.[11] In Marceline, Disney developed his love for drawing[12] with one of the family's neighbors, a retired doctor named "Doc" Sherwood, paying him to draw pictures of Sherwood's horse, Rupert.[12] His interest in trains also developed in Marceline, a town that owed its existence to the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway which ran through it. Walt would put his ear to the tracks in anticipation of the coming train[8] then try and spot his uncle, engineer Michael Martin, conducting the train.
10-year old Walt Disney (center right) at a gathering of Kansas City newsboys in 1912.
The Disneys remained in Marceline for four years,[13] before moving to Kansas City in 1911[14] where Walt and his younger sister Ruth attended the Benton Grammar School. At school he met Walter Pfeiffer who came from a family of theatre aficionados, and introduced Walt to the world of vaudeville and motion pictures. Before long Walt was spending more time at the Pfeiffers' than at home.[15] As well as attending Saturday courses at the Kansas City Art Institute,[16] Walt often took Ruth to Electric Park, 15 blocks from their home, which Disney would later acknowledge as a major influence of his design of Disneyland.[citation needed]

Teenage years

In 1917, Elias acquired shares in the O-Zell jelly factory in Chicago and moved his family back to the city,[17] where in the fall Disney began his freshman year at McKinley High School and took night courses at the Chicago Art Institute.[18] He became the cartoonist for the school newspaper, drawing patriotic topics and focusing on World War I. Despite dropping out of high school at the age of sixteen to join the army, Disney was rejected for being underage.[19]
After his rejection by the army, Walt and a friend decided to join the Red Cross.[20] Soon after joining he was sent to France for a year, where he drove an ambulance, but only after the armistice was signed on November 11, 1918.[21]
Disney as an ambulance driver immediately after World War I
Hoping to find work outside the Chicago O-Zell factory,[22] in 1919 Walt moved back to Kansas City to begin his artistic career.[23] After considering whether to become an actor or a newspaper artist, he decided on a career as a newspaper artist, drawing political caricatures or comic strips. But when nobody wanted to hire him as either an artist or even as an ambulance driver, his brother Roy, then working in a local bank, got Walt a temporary job through a bank colleague at the Pesmen-Rubin Art Studio[23] where he created advertisements for newspapers, magazines, and movie theaters.[24] At Pesmen-Rubin he met cartoonist Ubbe Iwerks[25] and when their time at the studio expired, they decided to start their own commercial company together.[26]
In January 1920, Disney and Iwerks formed a short-lived company called, "Iwerks-Disney Commercial Artists". However, following a rough start, Disney left temporarily to earn money at the Kansas City Film Ad Company, and was soon joined by Iwerks who was not able to run their business alone.[27] While working for the Kansas City Film Ad Company, where he made commercials based on cutout animations, Disney became interested in animation, and decided to become an animator.[28] The owner of the Ad Company, A.V. Cauger, allowed him to borrow a camera from work to experiment with at home. After reading the Edwin G. Lutz book Animated Cartoons: How They Are Made, Their Origin and Development, Disney considered cel animation to be much more promising than the cutout animation he was doing for Cauger. Walt eventually decided to open his own animation business,[29] and recruited a fellow co-worker at the Kansas City Film Ad Company, Fred Harman, as his first employee.[29] Walt and Harman then secured a deal with local theater owner Frank L. Newman, arguably the most popular "showman" in the Kansas City area at the time,[30] to screen their cartoons at his local theater, which they titled Laugh-O-Grams.[30]

Laugh-O-Gram Studio

Presented as "Newman Laugh-O-Grams",[30] Disney's cartoons became widely popular in the Kansas City area[31] and through their success, he was able to acquire his own studio, also called Laugh-O-Gram,[32] for which he hired a vast number of additional animators, including Fred Harman's brother Hugh Harman, Rudolf Ising, and his close friend Ubbe Iwerks.[33] Unfortunately, studio profits were insufficient to cover the high salaries paid to employees. Unable to successfully manage money,[34] Disney's studio became loaded with debt[34] and wound up bankrupt[35] whereupon he decided to set up a studio in the movie industry's capital city, Hollywood, California.[36]

Hollywood

Disney and his brother Roy pooled their money and set up a cartoon studio in Hollywood[37] where they needed to find a distributor for Walt's new Alice Comedies, which he had started making while in Kansas City[35] but never got to distribute. Disney sent an unfinished print to New York distributor Margaret Winkler, who promptly wrote back to him that she was keen on a distribution deal for more live-action/animated shorts based upon Alice's Wonderland.[38]

Alice Comedies

Virginia Davis, the live-action star of Alice’s Wonderland and her family relocated from Kansas City to Hollywood at Disney's request, as did Iwerks and his family. This was the beginning of the Disney Brothers' Studio located on Hyperion Avenue in the Silver Lake district, where it remained until 1939. In 1925, Disney hired a young woman named Lillian Bounds to ink and paint celluloid. After a brief courtship, the pair married that same year.
The new series, Alice Comedies, proved reasonably successful, and featured both Dawn O'Day and Margie Gay as Alice with Lois Hardwick also briefly assuming the role. By the time the series ended in 1927, its focus was more on the animated characters and in particular a cat named Julius who resembled Felix the Cat, rather than the live-action Alice.

Oswald the Lucky Rabbit

By 1927, Charles Mintz had married Margaret Winkler and assumed control of her business. He then ordered a new, all-animated series to be put into production for distribution through Universal Pictures. The new series, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, was an almost instant success, and the character, Oswald – drawn and created by Iwerks – became a popular figure. The Disney studio expanded and Walt re-hired Harman, Rudolph Ising, Carman Maxwell, and Friz Freleng from Kansas City.
Disney went to New York in February 1928 to negotiate a higher fee per short and was shocked when Mintz told him that not only did he want to reduce the fee he paid Disney per short but also that he had most of his main animators, including Harman, Ising, Maxwell, and Freleng—but not Iwerks, who refused to leave Disney—under contract and would start his own studio if Disney did not accept the reduced production budgets. Universal, not Disney, owned the Oswald trademark, and could make the films without Walt. Disney declined Mintz's offer and as a result lost most of his animation staff whereupon he found himself on his own again.[39]
It subsequently took his company 78 years to get back the rights to the Oswald character when in 2006 the Walt Disney Company reacquired the rights to Oswald the Lucky Rabbit from NBC Universal, through a trade for longtime ABC sports commentator Al Michaels.[40]

Mickey Mouse

After losing the rights to Oswald, Disney felt the need to develop a new character to replace him, which was based on a mouse he had adopted as a pet while working in his Laugh-O-Gram studio in Kansas City.[41] Ub Iwerks reworked the sketches made by Disney to make the character easier to animate although Mickey's voice and personality were provided by Disney himself until 1947. In the words of one Disney employee, "Ub designed Mickey's physical appearance, but Walt gave him his soul."[41] Besides Oswald and Mickey, a similar mouse-character is seen in the Alice Comedies, which featured "Ike the Mouse". Moreover, the first Flip the Frog cartoon called Fiddlesticks showed a Mickey Mouse look-alike playing fiddle. The initial films were animated by Iwerks with his name prominently featured on the title cards. Originally named "Mortimer", the mouse was later renamed "Mickey" by Lillian Disney, who thought that the name Mortimer did not sound appealing. Mortimer eventually became the name of Mickey's rival for Minnie – taller than his renowned adversary and speaking with a Brooklyn accent.
The first animated short to feature Mickey, Plane Crazy was a silent film like all of Disney's previous works. After failing to find a distributor for the short and its follow-up, The Gallopin' Gaucho, Disney created a Mickey cartoon with sound called Steamboat Willie. A businessman named Pat Powers provided Disney with both distribution and Cinephone, a sound-synchronization process. Steamboat Willie became an instant success,[42] and Plane Crazy, The Galloping Gaucho, and all future Mickey cartoons were released with soundtracks. After the release of Steamboat Willie, Disney successfully used sound in all of his subsequent cartoons, and Cinephone also became the new distributor for Disney's early sound cartoons.[43] Mickey soon eclipsed Felix the Cat as the world's most popular cartoon character[41] and by 1930, despite their having sound, cartoons featuring Felix had faded from the screen after failing to gain attention.[44] Mickey's popularity would subsequently skyrocket in the early 1930s.[41]

Silly Symphonies

Following in the footsteps of Mickey Mouse series, a series of musical shorts titled, Silly Symphonies were released in 1929. The first, The Skeleton Dance was entirely drawn and animated by Iwerks, who was also responsible for drawing the majority of cartoons released by Disney in 1928 and 1929. Although both series were successful, the Disney studio thought it was not receiving its rightful share of profits from Pat Powers,[45] and in 1930, Disney signed a new distribution deal with Columbia Pictures. The original basis of the cartoons was their musical novelty with the first Silly Symphony cartoons featuring scores by Carl Stalling.[46]
Iwerks was soon lured by Powers into opening his own studio with an exclusive contract, while Stalling would also later leave Disney to join Iwerks.[47] Iwerks launched his Flip the Frog series with the first voiced color cartoon Fiddlesticks, filmed in two-strip Technicolor. Iwerks also created two other cartoon series, Willie Whopper and the Comicolor. In 1936, Iwerks shut down his studio in order to work on various projects dealing with animation technology. He would return to Disney in 1940 and go on to pioneer a number of film processes and specialized animation technologies in the studio's research and development department.
By 1932, although Mickey Mouse had become a relatively popular cinema character, Silly Symphonies was not as successful. The same year also saw competition increase as Max Fleischer's flapper cartoon character, Betty Boop, gained popularity among theater audiences.[48] Fleischer, considered Disney's main rival in the 1930s,[49] was also the father of Richard Fleischer, whom Disney would later hire to direct his 1954 film 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Meanwhile, Columbia Pictures dropped the distribution of Disney cartoons to be replaced by United Artists.[50] In late 1932, Herbert Kalmus, who had just completed work on the first three-strip technicolor camera,[51] approached Walt and convinced him to reshoot the black and white Flowers and Trees in three-strip Technicolor.[52] Flowers and Trees would go on to be a phenomenal success and would also win the first Academy Award for Best Short Subject: Cartoons in 1932. After the release of Flowers and Trees, all subsequent Silly Symphony cartoons were in color while Disney was also able to negotiate a two-year deal with Technicolor, giving him the sole right to use their three-strip process,[53][54] a period eventually extended to five years.[46] Through Silly Symphonies, Disney also created his most successful cartoon short of all time, The Three Little Pigs (1933).[55] The cartoon ran in theaters for many months, featuring the hit song that became the anthem of the Great Depression, "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf".[56]
One of two stars dedicated to Walt Disney on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

First Academy Award

In 1932, Disney received a special Academy Award for the creation of "Mickey Mouse", a series which switched to color in 1935 and soon launched spin-offs for supporting characters such as Donald Duck, Goofy, and Pluto. Pluto and Donald became standalone cartoons in 1937,[57] with Goofy following in 1939.[58] Of all Mickey's partners, Donald Duck, who first teamed up with Mickey in the 1934 cartoon, Orphan's Benefit, was arguably the most popular, going on to become Disney's second most successful cartoon character of all time.[59]

Children

The Disneys' first attempt at pregnancy ended in miscarriage. Lillian became pregnant again and gave birth to a daughter, Diane Marie Disney, on December 18, 1933.[60] Later, the Disneys adopted Sharon Mae Disney (December 31, 1936 – February 16, 1993).[61]
Diane married Ron Miller at the age of 20 and is known as Diane Disney Miller. The Millers established and own a winery called Silverado Vineyards in California.[62] Diane and Ron Miller have seven children: Christopher, Joanna, Tamara, Jennifer, Walter, Ronald and Patrick.[63] Years later, Diane went on to become the cofounder of The Walt Disney Family Museum, with the aid of her children.[60] The museum was created to preserve her father's image and reach out to millions of Disney fans worldwide.[64] The museum displays a chronological view of Walt Disney's life through personal artifacts, interactive kiosks and various animations.[64]
Sharon Mae Disney was born December 31, 1936, in Los Angeles, California and was later adopted by the Disneys, due to Lillian's several birth complications.[63][65] In 1950, Sharon went on to star as herself in the Walt Disney Studios special One Hour in Wonderland.[66] Sharon married Robert Brown in 1958, with whom she had one child, and they remained married until his death in 1967.[65] Sharon married William Lund in 1969 and had two children with him, but six years later they divorced.[65][67] Sharon was a philanthropist and had contributed to charities such as the Marianne Frostig Center of Educational Therapy and the Curtis School foundation.[68] In 1993 at the age of 57, Sharon died from cancer at St. John's Hospital in Santa Monica, California.[65] After Sharon's death, her estate donated $11 million to the California School of Performing Arts, where she was a member of the board of trustees for almost two decades. Sharon's donation was commemorated by renaming the School of Dance the Sharon D. Lund School of Dance.[60][69]

1937–1941: Golden age of animation

"Disney's Folly": Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

Walt Disney introduces each of the Seven Dwarfs in a scene from the original 1937 Snow White theatrical trailer.
Following the creation of two cartoon series, in 1934 Disney began planning a full-length feature. The following year, opinion polls showed that another cartoon series, Popeye the Sailor, produced by Max Fleischer, was more popular than Mickey Mouse.[70] Nevertheless, Disney was able to put Mickey back on top as well as increase his popularity by colorizing and partially redesigning the character to become what was considered his most appealing design to date.[41] When the film industry learned of Disney's plans to produce an animated feature-length version of Snow White, they were certain that the endeavor would destroy the Disney Studio and dubbed the project "Disney's Folly". Both Lillian and Roy tried to talk Disney out of the project, but he continued plans for the feature, employing Chouinard Art Institute professor Don Graham to start a training operation for the studio staff. Disney then used the Silly Symphonies as a platform for experiments in realistic human animation, distinctive character animation, special effects, and the use of specialized processes and apparatus such as the multiplane camera – a new technique first used by Disney in the 1937 Silly Symphonies short The Old Mill.[71]
All of this development and training was used to increase quality at the studio and to ensure that the feature film would match Disney's quality expectations. Entitled Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the feature went into full production in 1934 and continued until mid-1937, when the studio ran out of money. To obtain the funding to complete Snow White, Disney had to show a rough cut of the motion picture to loan officers. The film premiered at the Carthay Circle Theater on December 21, 1937 and at its conclusion the audience gave Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs a standing ovation. Snow White, the first animated feature in America made in Technicolor, was released in February 1938 under a new distribution deal with RKO Radio Pictures. RKO had been the distributor for Disney cartoons in 1936, after it closed down the Van Beuren Studios in exchange for distribution.[72] The film became the most successful motion picture of 1938 and earned over $8 million on its initial release, the equivalent of $130,477,540 today.

Golden age of animation

Following the success of Snow White, for which Disney received one full-size, and seven miniature Oscar statuettes, he was able to build a new campus for the Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, which opened for business on December 24, 1939. Snow White was not only the peak of Disney's success, but also ushered in a period that would later be known as the Golden Age of Animation for the studio.[73][74] Feature animation staff, having just completed Pinocchio, continued work on Fantasia and Bambi as well as the early production stages of Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan and Wind in the Willows while the shorts staff carried on working on the Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, and Pluto cartoon series, ending the Silly Symphonies at this time.[clarification needed More info needed on end of the Silly Symphonies to make a new and separate sentence.] Animator Fred Moore had redesigned Mickey Mouse in the late 1930s after Donald Duck overtook him in popularity among theater audiences.[75]
Pinocchio and Fantasia followed Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs into the movie theaters in 1940, but both proved financial disappointments. The inexpensive Dumbo was then planned as an income generator, but during production most of the animation staff went on strike, permanently straining relations between Disney and his artists.

1941–1945: World War II era

In 1941, the U.S. State Department sent Disney and a group of animators to South America as part of its Good Neighbor policy, at the same time guaranteeing financing for the resultant movie, Saludos Amigos.[76]
Shortly after the release of Dumbo in October 1941, the US entered World War II. The U.S. Army and Navy Bureau of Aeronautics[77] contracted most of the Disney studio's facilities where the staff created training and instruction films for the military, home-front morale-boosting shorts such as Der Fuehrer's Face and the 1943 feature film Victory Through Air Power. Military films did not generate income, and the feature film Bambi underperformed on its release in April 1942. Disney successfully re-issued Snow White in 1944, establishing a seven-year re-release tradition for his features. In 1945, The Three Caballeros was the last animated feature released by the studio during the war.
In 1944, Encyclopædia Britannica publisher William Benton entered into unsuccessful negotiations with Disney to make six to twelve educational films per annum. Disney was asked by the US Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs, Office of Inter-American Affairs (OIAA), to make an educational film about the Amazon Basin, which resulted in the 1944 animated short, The Amazon Awakens.[78][79][80][81][82]

1945–1955: Post-war period

Disney studios also created inexpensive package films, containing collections of cartoon shorts, and issued them to theaters during this period. These included Make Mine Music (1946), Melody Time (1948), Fun and Fancy Free (1947) and The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949). The latter had only two sections, the first based on The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame, and the second on The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving. During this period, Disney also ventured into full-length dramatic films that mixed live action and animated scenes, including Song of the South and So Dear to My Heart. After the war ended, Mickey's popularity would also fade.[83]
By the late 1940s, the studio had recovered enough to continue production on the full-length features Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan, both of which had been shelved during the war years. Work also began on Cinderella, which became Disney's most successful film since Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. In 1948 the studio also initiated a series of live-action nature films, titled True-Life Adventures, with On Seal Island the first. Despite its resounding success with feature films, the studio's animation shorts were no longer as popular as they once were, with people paying more attention to Warner Bros. and their animation star Bugs Bunny. By 1942, Leon Schlesinger Productions, which produced the Warner Bros. cartoons, had become the country's most popular animation studio.[84] However, while Bugs Bunny's popularity rose in the 1940s, so did Donald Duck's,[85] a character who would replace Mickey Mouse as Disney's star character by 1949.[86]
During the mid-1950s, Disney produced educational films on the space program in collaboration with NASA rocket designer Wernher von Braun: Man in Space and Man and the Moon in 1955, and Mars and Beyond in 1957.
Walt Disney meets Wernher von Braun in 1954.

Disney and the Second Red Scare

Disney was a founding member of the anti-communist group Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals.[citation needed] In 1947, during the Second Red Scare,[87] Disney testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), where he branded Herbert Sorrell, David Hilberman and William Pomerance, former animators and labor union organizers as Communist agitators. All three men denied the allegations and Sorrell went on to testify before the HUAC in 1946 when insufficient evidence was found to link him to the Communist Party.[88][89]
Disney also accused the Screen Cartoonists Guild of being a Communist front, and charged that the 1941 strike was part of an organized Communist effort to gain influence in Hollywood.[87]

1955–1966: Theme parks and beyond

Planning Disneyland

Disneyland: aerial view, August 1963, looking SE. New Melodyland Theater at top. Santa Ana Freeway (US 101 at the time, now I-5) upper left corner.
On a business trip to Chicago in the late-1940s, Disney drew sketches of his ideas for an amusement park where he envisioned his employees spending time with their children. The idea for a children's theme park came after a visit to Children's Fairyland in Oakland, California. It also said that Disney may have been inspired to create Disneyland in the park Republic of the Children located in Manuel B. Gonnet, La Plata, Argentina, and opened in 1951.[90] This plan was originally intended to be built on a plot located across the street to the south of the studio. These original ideas developed into a concept for a larger enterprise that would become Disneyland. Disney spent five years developing Disneyland and created a new subsidiary company, WED Enterprises, to carry out planning and production of the park. A small group of Disney studio employees joined the Disneyland development project as engineers and planners, and were dubbed Imagineers.[citation needed]
As Disney explained one of his earliest plans to Herb Ryman, who created the first aerial drawing of Disneyland presented to the Bank of America during fund raising for the project, he said, "Herbie, I just want it to look like nothing else in the world. And it should be surrounded by a train."[91] Entertaining his daughters and their friends in his backyard and taking them for rides on his Carolwood Pacific Railroad had inspired Disney to include a railroad in the plans for Disneyland.

Disneyland grand opening

Walt Disney giving the dedication day speech July 17, 1955
On Sunday, July 17, 1955, Disneyland hosted a live TV preview, among the thousands of people in attendance were Ronald Reagan, Bob Cummings and Art Linkletter, who shared cohosting duties, as well as the mayor of Anaheim. Walt gave the following dedication day speech:
To all who come to this happy place; welcome. Disneyland is your land. Here age relives fond memories of the past .... and here youth may savor the challenge and promise of the future. Disneyland is dedicated to the ideals, the dreams and the hard facts that have created America ... with the hope that it will be a source of joy and inspiration to all the world.

Carolwood Pacific Railroad

The Lilly Belle on display at Disneyland Main Station in 1993. The caboose's woodwork was done entirely by Walt himself.
During 1949, Disney and his family moved to a new home on a large piece of land in the Holmby Hills district of Los Angeles, California. With the help of his friends Ward and Betty Kimball, who already had their own backyard railroad, Disney developed blueprints and immediately set to work on creating a miniature live steam railroad for his backyard. The name of the railroad, Carolwood Pacific Railroad, came from his home's location on Carolwood Drive. The railroad's half-mile long layout included a 46-foot (14 m) long trestle bridge, loops, overpasses, gradients, an elevated berm, and a 90-foot (27 m) tunnel underneath his wife's flowerbed. He named the miniature working steam locomotive built by Disney Studios engineer Roger E. Broggie Lilly Belle in his wife's honor and had his attorney draw up right-of-way papers giving the railroad a permanent, legal easement through the garden areas, which his wife dutifully signed; however, there is no evidence of the documents ever recorded as a restriction on the property's title.[clarification needed]

Expansion into new areas

As Walt Disney Productions began work on Disneyland, it also began expanding its other entertainment operations. In 1950, Treasure Island became the studio's first all-live-action feature, soon followed by 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (in CinemaScope, 1954), Old Yeller (1957), The Shaggy Dog (1959), Pollyanna (1960), Swiss Family Robinson (1960), The Absent-Minded Professor (1961), and The Parent Trap (1961). The studio produced its first TV special, One Hour in Wonderland, in 1950. Disney began hosting a weekly anthology series on ABC entitled Disneyland, after the park, on which he aired clips of past Disney productions, gave tours of his studio, and familiarized the public with Disneyland as it was being constructed in Anaheim. The show also featured a Davy Crockett miniseries, which started the "Davy Crockett craze" among American youth, during which millions of coonskin caps and other Crockett memorabilia were sold across the country.[92] In 1955, the studio's first daily television show, Mickey Mouse Club debuted on ABC. It was a groundbreaking comedy/variety show aimed specifically for children. Disney took a strong personal interest in the show and even returned to the animation studio to voice Mickey Mouse in its animated segments during its original 1955–59 production run. The Mickey Mouse Club would continue in various incarnations in syndication and on the Disney Channel into the 1990s.
As the studio expanded and diversified into other media, Disney devoted less of his attention to the animation department, entrusting most of its operations to his key animators, whom he dubbed the Nine Old Men. Although he was spending less time supervising the production of the animated films, he was always present at story meetings.[93] During Disney's lifetime, the animation department created the successful Lady and the Tramp (the first animated film in CinemaScope) in 1955, Sleeping Beauty (the first animated film in Super Technirama 70mm) in 1959, One Hundred and One Dalmatians (the first animated feature film to use Xerox cels) in 1961, and The Sword in the Stone in 1963.
Production of short cartoons kept pace until 1956, when Disney shut down the responsible division although special shorts projects would continue for the remainder of the studio's duration on an irregular basis. These productions were all distributed by Disney's new subsidiary, Buena Vista Distribution, which had taken over all distribution duties for Disney films from RKO by 1955. Disneyland, one of the world's first theme parks, finally opened on July 17, 1955, and was immediately successful. Visitors from around the world came to visit Disneyland, which contained attractions based on a number of successful Disney characters and films.
After 1955, the Disneyland TV show was renamed Walt Disney Presents. It switched from black-and-white to color in 1961 and changed its name to Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color, at the same time moving from ABC to NBC,[94] and eventually evolving into its current form as The Wonderful World of Disney. The series continued to air on NBC until 1981, when it was picked up by CBS.[95] Since then, it has aired on ABC, NBC, the Hallmark Channel and the Cartoon Network via separate broadcast rights deals. During its run, the Disney series offered some recurring characters, such as the newspaper reporter and sleuth "Gallegher" played by Roger Mobley with a plot based on the writings of Richard Harding Davis.
Disney had already formed his own music publishing division in 1949 and in 1956, partly inspired by the huge success of the television theme song The Ballad of Davy Crockett, he created a company-owned record production and distribution entity called Disneyland Records.

Early 1960s successes

(Left to right) Robert B. Sherman, Richard M. Sherman and Walt Disney sing "There's a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow" (1964)
By the early 1960s, the Disney empire had become a major success, and Walt Disney Productions had established itself as the world's leading producer of family entertainment. Walt Disney was the Head of Pageantry for the 1960 Winter Olympics.
After decades of pursuit, Disney acquired the rights to P. L. Travers' books about a magical nanny. Mary Poppins, released in 1964, was the most successful Disney film of the 1960s and featured a song score written by Disney favorites, the Sherman Brothers. The same year, Disney debuted a number of exhibits at the 1964 New York World's Fair, including Audio-Animatronic figures, all of which were later integrated into attractions at Disneyland and a new theme park project which was to be established on the East Coast.
Although the studio would probably have proved major competition for Hanna-Barbera, Disney decided not to enter the race and mimic Hanna-Barbera by producing Saturday morning television cartoon series. With the expansion of Disney's empire and constant production of feature films, the financial burden involved in such a move would have proven too great.

Plans for Disney World and EPCOT

In late 1965, Disney announced plans to develop another theme park to be called Disney World a few miles southwest of Orlando, Florida. Disney World was to include "the Magic Kingdom", a larger, more elaborate version of Disneyland. It would also feature a number of golf courses and resort hotels. The heart of Disney World, however, was to be the Experimental Prototype City (or Community) of Tomorrow, known as EPCOT for short.

Mineral King Ski Resort

During the early to mid-1960s, Walt Disney developed plans for a ski resort in Mineral King, a glacial valley in California's Sierra Nevada mountain range. He brought in experts such as the renowned Olympic ski coach and ski-area designer Willy Schaeffler, who helped plan a visitor village, ski runs and ski lifts among the several bowls surrounding the valley. Plans finally moved into action in the mid-1960s, but Walt died before the actual work started. Disney's death and opposition from conservationists ensured that the resort was never built.

Illness and death

Walt Disney was a chain smoker his entire adult life, although he made sure he was not seen smoking around children.[96] In 1966, Disney was scheduled to undergo surgery to repair an old neck injury[97] caused by many years of playing polo at the Riviera Club in Hollywood.[98] On November 2, during pre-operative X-rays, doctors at Providence St. Joseph Medical Center, across the street from the Disney Studio, discovered a tumor in his left lung.[99] Five days later a biopsy showed the tumor to be malignant and to have spread throughout the entire left lung.[99] After removing the lung on November 11, the surgeons informed Disney that his life expectancy was six months to two years.[100] After several cobalt therapy sessions, Disney and his wife spent a short time in Palm Springs, California.[100] On November 30, Disney collapsed at his home. He was revived by fire department personnel and rushed to St. Joseph's. There, ten days after his 65th birthday, on December 15, 1966, at 9:30 a.m., Disney died of acute circulatory collapse, caused by lung cancer.[97] The last thing he reportedly wrote before his death was the name of actor Kurt Russell, the significance of which remains a mystery, even to Russell.[101]
Roy O. Disney continued with the Florida project, insisting that the name be changed to Walt Disney World in honor of his brother.
The final productions in which Disney played an active role were the animated feature The Jungle Book and the animated short Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day, as well as the live-action musical feature The Happiest Millionaire, all released in 1967. Songwriter Robert B. Sherman recalled of the last time he saw Disney:
He was up in the third floor of the animation building after a run-through of The Happiest Millionaire. He usually held court in the hallway afterward for the people involved with the picture. And he started talking to them, telling them what he liked and what they should change, and then, when they were through, he turned to us and with a big smile, he said, 'Keep up the good work, boys.' And he walked to his office. It was the last we ever saw of him.[102]

Hibernation urban legend

A long-standing urban legend maintains that Disney was cryonically frozen, and his frozen corpse stored beneath the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland,[103] but Disney's remains were cremated on December 17, 1966, and his ashes interred at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California. The first known human cryonic freezing was in January 1967, more than a month after Disney's death.[103]
According to "at least one Disney publicist", as reported in the French magazine Ici Paris in 1969, the source of the rumor was a group of Disney Studio animators with "a bizarre sense of humor" who were playing a final prank on their late boss.[104]
His daughter Diane wrote in 1972, "There is absolutely no truth to the rumor that my father, Walt Disney, wished to be frozen. I doubt that my father had ever heard of cryonics."[104]

Legacy: 1967–present

Continuing Disney Productions

Plaque at the entrance that embodies the intended spirit of Disneyland by Walt Disney: to leave reality and enter fantasy
After Walt Disney's death, Roy Disney returned from retirement to take full control of Walt Disney Productions and WED Enterprises. In October 1971, the families of Walt and Roy met in front of Cinderella Castle at the Magic Kingdom to officially open the Walt Disney World Resort.
After giving his dedication for Walt Disney World, Roy asked Lillian Disney to join him. As the orchestra played "When You Wish upon a Star", she stepped up to the podium accompanied by Mickey Mouse. He then said, "Lilly, you knew all of Walt's ideas and hopes as well as anybody; what would Walt think of it [Walt Disney World]?". "I think Walt would have approved," she replied.[105] Roy died from a cerebral hemorrhage on December 20, 1971, the day he was due to open the Disneyland Christmas parade.
1968 US postage stamp
During the second phase of the "Walt Disney World" theme park, EPCOT was translated by Disney's successors into EPCOT Center, which opened in 1982. As it currently exists, EPCOT is essentially a living world's fair, different from the functional city that Disney had envisioned. In 1992, Walt Disney Imagineering took the step closer to Disney's original ideas and dedicated Celebration, Florida, a town built by the Walt Disney Company adjacent to Walt Disney World, that hearkens back to the spirit of EPCOT. EPCOT was also originally intended to be devoid of Disney characters which initially limited the appeal of the park to young children. The company later changed this policy and Disney characters can now be found throughout the park, often dressed in costumes reflecting the different pavilions.

Disney entertainment empire

Walt Disney's animation/motion picture studios and theme parks have developed into a multi-billion dollar television, motion picture, vacation destination and media corporation that carry his name. Among other assets The Walt Disney Company owns five vacation resorts, eleven theme parks, two water parks, thirty-nine hotels, eight motion picture studios, six record labels, eleven cable television networks, and one terrestrial television network. As of 2007, the company had annual revenues of over U.S. $35 billion.[106]

Disney Animation

Walt Disney was a pioneer in character animation. He was one of the first people to move away from basic cartoons with just "impossible outlandish gags" and crudely drawn characters to an art form with heartwarming stories and characters the audience can connect to on an emotional level. The personality displayed in the characters of his films and the technological advancements remain influential today. He was considered by many of his colleagues to be a master storyteller and the animation department did not fully recover from his death until the late 1980s in a period known as the Disney Renaissance. The most financially and critically successful films produced during this time include Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), The Little Mermaid (1989), Beauty and the Beast (1991), Aladdin (1992) and The Lion King (1994). In 1995, Walt Disney Pictures distributed Pixar's Toy Story, the first computer animated feature film. Walt Disney's nephew Roy E. Disney claimed that Walt would have loved Toy Story and that it was "his kind of movie".[107] With the rise of computer animated films a stream of financially unsuccessful Traditional hand-drawn animated features in the early years of the 2000s (decade) emerged. This led to the company's controversial decision to close the traditional animation department. The two satellite studios in Paris and Orlando were closed, and the main studio in Burbank was converted to a computer animation production facility, firing hundreds of people in the process. In 2004, Disney released what was announced as their final "traditionally animated" feature film, Home on the Range. However, since the 2006 acquisition of Pixar, and the resulting rise of John Lasseter to Chief Creative Officer, that position has changed with the largely successful 2009 film The Princess and the Frog. This marked Disney's return to traditional hand-drawn animation and the studio hired back staff who had been laid-off in the past. Today, Disney produces both traditional and computer animation.[citation needed]

CalArts

In his later years, Disney devoted substantial time to funding The California Institute of the Arts (CalArts). Formed in 1961 through a merger of the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music and the Chouinard Art Institute, which had helped in the training of the animation staff during the 1930s, when Disney died, one-fourth of his estate went to CalArts, which helped in building its campus. In his will, Disney paved the way for the creation of several charitable trusts which included one for the California Institute of the Arts and other for the Disney Foundation.[108] He also donated 38 acres (0.154 km2) of the Golden Oaks ranch in Valencia for construction of the school. CalArts moved onto the Valencia campus in 1972.
In an early admissions bulletin, Disney explained: "A hundred years ago, Wagner conceived of a perfect and all-embracing art, combining music, drama, painting, and the dance, but in his wildest imagination he had no hint what infinite possibilities were to become commonplace through the invention of recording, radio, cinema and television. There already have been geniuses combining the arts in the mass-communications media, and they have already given us powerful new art forms. The future holds bright promise for those who imaginations are trained to play on the vast orchestra of the art-in-combination. Such supermen will appear most certainly in those environments which provide contact with all the arts, but even those who devote themselves to a single phase of art will benefit from broadened horizons."[109]

Walt Disney Family Museum

In 2009, The Walt Disney Family Museum opened in the Presidio of San Francisco. Thousands of artifacts from Disney's life and career are on display, including 248 awards that he received.[110]

Controversy

Accusations of antisemitism and racism

Disney was long rumored to be antisemitic during his lifetime, and such rumors persisted after his death. Indeed, in the 1930s he welcomed German filmmaker and Nazi propagandist Leni Riefenstahl to Hollywood to promote her film Olympia.[111] Even after news of Kristallnacht broke in November 1938, Disney did not cancel his invitation to Riefenstahl.[112][113][114]
However, in 2006 Disney biographer Neal Gabler, the first writer to gain unrestricted access to the Disney archives, concluded that available evidence did not support accusations of antisemitism. In a CBS interview Gabler summarized his findings:
That's one of the questions everybody asks me... My answer to that is, not in the conventional sense that we think of someone as being an antisemite. But he got the reputation because, in the 1940s, he got himself allied with a group called the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, which was an anti-Communist and antisemitic organization. And though Walt himself, in my estimation, was not antisemitic, nevertheless, he willingly allied himself with people who were antisemitic, and that reputation stuck. He was never really able to expunge it throughout his life.[115]
Disney eventually distanced himself from the Motion Picture Alliance in the 1950s.[116] Gabler also claims in regards to Riefenstahl's visit, the invitation was suggested to Disney by Jay Stowitts and that although Walt knew who Riefenstahl was, he didn't know exactly what she represented in terms of politics, as he had no particular political leaning during the 1930s.[116]
The Walt Disney Family Museum acknowledges that Disney did have "difficult relationships" with some Jewish individuals, and that ethnic stereotypes common to films of the 1930s were included in some early cartoons, such as Three Little Pigs and The Opry House; however, the museum points out that he befriended many Jewish school mates,[116] donated to several Jewish charities (The Hebrew Orphan Asylum, Yeshiva College,[116] Jewish Home for the Aged, The American League for a Free Palestine[116]) and was named "1955 Man of the Year" by the B'nai B'rith chapter in Beverly Hills.[116][117]
Disney was also rumored to be a racist. According to Gabler, although he was not, he would however occasionally make racially insensitive remarks that were commonly used by white Americans at the time.[118] For example during a story meeting on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs he referred to the scene when the dwarfs pile ontop of each other as a "nigger pile", and while casting Song of the South he used the term pickaninny. Like many Hollywood film and cartoon producers of the time, Disney had engaged in racial stereotyping, and Disney cartoons of the period sometimes displayed racially insensitive material.[118] Examples include Mickey's Mellerdrammer in which Mickey Mouse dresses in blackface, the "black" bird in the short Who Killed Cock Robbin, Sunflower the half donkey-half black centarette in Fantasia, the feature film Song of the South, the Indians in Peter Pan, and the crows in Dumbo (although in that particular instance they were made sympathetic to Dumbo's plight).[118] Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies director Bob Clampett, director of the controversial but highly acclaimed short Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs, claimed that
Everybody, including blacks had a good time when these cartoons first came out. All the controversy developed in later years merely because of changing attitudes toward black civil rights that have happened since then.
Despite Disney's occasional slurs, there is no evidence that he expressed any hatred or bigotry against any racial group, publicly or privately, and he hired employees of all racial backgrounds, religions, and nationalities throughout his career.[118] He also thoroughly enjoyed To Kill a Mockingbird, a film dealing with racial justice, claiming "That's the kind of film I wish I could make."[116]

Academy Awards

This display case in the lobby of the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco shows many of the Academy Awards he won, including the distinctive special award at the bottom for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
Walt Disney holds the record for both the most Academy Award nominations (59) and the number of Oscars awarded (22). He also earned four honorary Oscars. His last competitive Academy Award was posthumous.[119]
  • 1932: Best Short Subject, Cartoons: Flowers and Trees (1932)
  • 1932: Honorary Award for creation of Mickey Mouse.
  • 1934: Best Short Subject, Cartoons: Three Little Pigs (1933)
  • 1935: Best Short Subject, Cartoons: The Tortoise and the Hare (1934)
  • 1936: Best Short Subject, Cartoons: Three Orphan Kittens (1935)
  • 1937: Best Short Subject, Cartoons: The Country Cousin (1936)
  • 1938: Best Short Subject, Cartoons: The Old Mill (1937)
  • 1939: Best Short Subject, Cartoons: Ferdinand the Bull (1938)
  • 1939: Honorary Award for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) The citation read, "For Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, recognized as a significant screen innovation which has charmed millions and pioneered a great new entertainment field." (The award, unique in the history of the Oscars, is one large statuette and seven miniature statuettes.)[5]
  • 1940: Best Short Subject, Cartoons: Ugly Duckling (1939)
  • 1941: Honorary Award for Fantasia (1940), shared with: William E. Garity and J.N.A. Hawkins. The citation for the certificate of merit read, "For their outstanding contribution to the advancement of the use of sound in motion pictures through the production of Fantasia."[5]
  • 1942: Best Short Subject, Cartoons: Lend a Paw (1941)
  • 1943: Best Short Subject, Cartoons: Der Fuehrer's Face (1942)
  • 1949: Best Short Subject, Two-reel: Seal Island (1948)
  • 1949: Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award (Honorary Award)
  • 1951: Best Short Subject, Two-reel: Beaver Valley (1950)
  • 1952: Best Short Subject, Two-reel: Nature's Half Acre (1951)
  • 1953: Best Short Subject, Two-reel: Water Birds (1952)
  • 1954: Best Documentary, Features: The Living Desert (1953)
  • 1954: Best Documentary, Short Subjects: The Alaskan Eskimo (1953)
  • 1954: Best Short Subject, Cartoons: Toot Whistle Plunk and Boom (1953)
  • 1954: Best Short Subject, Two-reel: Bear Country (1953)
  • 1955: Best Documentary, Features: The Vanishing Prairie (1954)
  • 1956: Best Documentary, Short Subjects: Men Against the Arctic
  • 1959: Best Short Subject, Live Action Subjects: Grand Canyon
  • 1969: Best Short Subject, Cartoons: Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day

Other honors

Walt Disney was the inaugural recipient of a star on the Anaheim walk of stars awarded in recognition of his significant contribution to the city of Anaheim and specifically Disneyland, which is now the Disneyland Resort. The star is located at the pedestrian entrance to the Disneyland Resort on Harbor Boulevard. Disney has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, one for motion pictures and the other for his television work.
Walt Disney received the Congressional Gold Medal on May 24, 1968 (P.L. 90-316, 82 Stat. 130–131) and the Légion d'Honneur awarded by France in 1935.[120] In 1935, Walt received a special medal from the League of Nations for creation of Mickey Mouse, held to be Mickey Mouse award.[121] He also received the Presidential Medal of Freedom on September 14, 1964.[122] On December 6, 2006, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and First Lady Maria Shriver inducted Walt Disney into the California Hall of Fame located at The California Museum for History, Women, and the Arts.
A minor planet, 4017 Disneya, discovered in 1980 by Soviet astronomer Lyudmila Karachkina, is named after him.[123]
The Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, California, opened in 2003, was named in his honor.
Waltograph, a freeware typeface, is based on the Walt Disney Company's typography.
In 1993, HBO began development of a Walt Disney biographical film, directed by Frank Pierson and produced by Lawrence Turman, but the project never materialized and was soon abandoned.[124] However, Walt - The Man Behind the Myth, a biographical documentary about Disney, was later made.[125]
Actor Tom Hanks will be playing Disney in the upcoming film Saving Mr. Banks. It will be the first instance of an actor portraying Walt Disney in film. The film is scheduled to be released in 2013.[126]
Preceded by
None
Voice of Mickey Mouse
1928–1947, 1955–1959
Succeeded by
Jimmy MacDonald

See also

Notes

  1. ^ "Walt Disney". IMDB. Retrieved 2008-05-21.
  2. ^ "Walt Disney on Faith". Disneydreamer.com. July 17, 1955. Retrieved September 5, 2012.
  3. ^ Dave Bryan (August 13, 2002). "Walt Disney Helped Wernher von Braun Sell Americans on Space". Associated Press. Archived from the original on May 24, 2009. Retrieved 2010-09-27.
  4. ^ "2010 Form 10-K, Walt Disney Company". United States Securities and Exchange Commission.
  5. ^ a b c "Walt Disney Academy awards". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Retrieved 2008-05-21.
  6. ^ "Results Page – Academy Awards Database". Retrieved February 16, 2012.
  7. ^ Lori Rackl (September 27, 2009). "Walt Disney, the man behind the mouse". Chicago Sun-Times. Archived from the original on October 3, 2009. Retrieved 2010-10-21.
  8. ^ a b "Walt Disney biography". Just Disney. Archived from the original on June 5, 2008. Retrieved 2008-05-21.
  9. ^ Disneyland Paris. Michelin. August 7, 2002. p. 38. ISBN 2-06-048002-7.
  10. ^ a b c Neal Gabler, "Walt Disney:The Triumph of the American Imagination" (2006), p. 7.
  11. ^ a b Neal Gabler, "Walt Disney:The Triumph of the American Imagination" (2006), p. 9-10.
  12. ^ a b Neal Gabler, "Walt Disney:The Triumph of the American Imagination" (2006), p. 15.
  13. ^ "Walt Disney Hometown Museum". Walt Disney Museum. Retrieved 2008-05-21.
  14. ^ Neal Gabler, "Walt Disney:The Triumph of the American Imagination" (2006), p. 18.
  15. ^ Thomas 1991, pp. 33–41
  16. ^ "Biography of Walt Disney, Film Producer – kchistory.org – Retrieved September 14, 2009". Kchistory.org. Retrieved 2011-05-31.
  17. ^ Neal Gabler, "Walt Disney:The Triumph of the American Imagination" (2006), p. 30.
  18. ^ Thomas 1991, pp. 42–43
  19. ^ Neal Gabler, "Walt Disney:The Triumph of the American Imagination" (2006), p. 36.
  20. ^ Neal Gabler, "Walt Disney:The Triumph of the American Imagination" (2006), p. 37.
  21. ^ Neal Gabler, "Walt Disney:The Triumph of the American Imagination" (2006), p. 38.
  22. ^ Neal Gabler, "Walt Disney:The Triumph of the American Imagination" (2006), p. 42.
  23. ^ a b Neal Gabler, "Walt Disney:The Triumph of the American Imagination" (2006), p. 44.
  24. ^ Neal Gabler, "Walt Disney:The Triumph of the American Imagination" (2006), p. 45.
  25. ^ Neal Gabler, "Walt Disney:The Triumph of the American Imagination" (2006), p. 46.
  26. ^ Neal Gabler, "Walt Disney:The Triumph of the American Imagination" (2006), p. 48.
  27. ^ Neal Gabler, "Walt Disney:The Triumph of the American Imagination" (2006), p. 51.
  28. ^ Neal Gabler, "Walt Disney:The Triumph of the American Imagination" (2006), p. 52.
  29. ^ a b Neal Gabler, "Walt Disney:The Triumph of the American Imagination" (2006), p. 56.
  30. ^ a b c Neal Gabler, "Walt Disney:The Triumph of the American Imagination" (2006), p. 57.
  31. ^ Neal Gabler, "Walt Disney:The Triumph of the American Imagination" (2006), p. 58.
  32. ^ Neal Gabler, "Walt Disney:The Triumph of the American Imagination" (2006), p. 64.
  33. ^ Neal Gabler, "Walt Disney:The Triumph of the American Imagination" (2006), p. 64-71.
  34. ^ a b Neal Gabler, "Walt Disney:The Triumph of the American Imagination" (2006), p. 68.
  35. ^ a b Neal Gabler, "Walt Disney:The Triumph of the American Imagination" (2006), p. 72.
  36. ^ Neal Gabler, "Walt Disney:The Triumph of the American Imagination" (2006), p. 75.
  37. ^ Neal Gabler, "Walt Disney:The Triumph of the American Imagination" (2006), p. 78.
  38. ^ Neal Gabler, "Walt Disney:The Triumph of the American Imagination" (2006), p. 80.
  39. ^ Neal Gabler, "Walt Disney:The Triumph of the American Imagination" (2006), p. 109.
  40. ^ Stay 'tooned: Disney gets 'Oswald' for Al Michaels, at ESPN web site. Retrieved January 4, 2010
  41. ^ a b c d e Solomon, Charles. "The Golden Age of Mickey Mouse". Disney. Archived from the original on July 10, 2008. Retrieved 2008-05-21.
  42. ^ Neal Gabler, "Walt Disney:The Triumph of the American Imagination" (2006), p. 128.
  43. ^ Neal Gabler, "Walt Disney:The Triumph of the American Imagination" (2006), p. 129.
  44. ^ Gordon, Ian (2002). "Felix the Cat". St. James Encyclopedia of Pop Culture. Retrieved 2008-05-21.
  45. ^ Neal Gabler, "Walt Disney:The Triumph of the American Imagination" (2006), p. 142.
  46. ^ a b Merritt, Russell. "THE BIRTH OF THE SILLY SYMPHONIES". Disney. Retrieved 2008-05-21.
  47. ^ "Chronology of the Walt Disney Company". Island Net. Retrieved 2008-05-21.
  48. ^ Langer, Mark (July 1997). Popeye From Strip To Screen (PDF) 2 (4). Animation Magazine. pp. 17–19. Retrieved 2008-05-21.
  49. ^ "Fleischer brothers". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 2008-05-21.
  50. ^ "Chronology of the Walt Disney Company". Island Net. Retrieved 2008-05-21.
  51. ^ "System 4". Widescreen Museum. Retrieved 2008-05-21.
  52. ^ "System 4". Widescreen Museum. Retrieved 2008-05-21.
  53. ^ "Walt Disney at the Museum?". Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. Retrieved 2008-05-21.
  54. ^ "Once Upon a Time: Walt Disney: The Sources of Inspiration for the Disney Studios". fps magazine. Retrieved 2008-05-21.
  55. ^ Danks, Adrian. "Huffing and Puffing about Three Little Pigs". Senses of Cinema. Archived from the original on April 22, 2008. Retrieved 2008-05-21.
  56. ^ "Three Little Pigs". Disney. Retrieved 2008-05-21.
  57. ^ "Chronology of the Walt Disney Company". Island Net. Retrieved 2008-05-21.
  58. ^ "GOOFY BIOGRAPHY". Tripod.com. Retrieved 2008-05-21.
  59. ^ "Donald Duck". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 2008-05-21.
  60. ^ a b c "The Windows on Main Street: Sharon Lund « WDW Central". Wdwcentral.wordpress.com. December 1, 2008. Retrieved April 8, 2012.
  61. ^ "Social Security Death Index". Ssdi.rootsweb.ancestry.com. May 26, 2011. Retrieved 2011-05-31.
  62. ^ "Silverado Vineyards". Silverado Vineyards. Retrieved April 8, 2012.
  63. ^ a b Diane Disney – Biography
  64. ^ a b Zakarin, Jordan (February 7, 2012). "Diane Disney Miller Remembers Dad: Walt's Secret Disneyland Apartment, His Passions & More (PHOTOS)". Huffington Post. Retrieved April 8, 2012.
  65. ^ a b c d Sharon Disney – Biography
  66. ^ One Hour in Wonderland (TV 1950) – IMDb
  67. ^ Barrier, 2008, p.324
  68. ^ "Sharon Disney Lund | Sharon Lund; Daughter of Walt Disney". Los Angeles Times. October 17, 1993. Retrieved 2012-04-08.
  69. ^ "CalArts Honors Major Donors To Its $125 Million Campaign". Calarts.edu. Retrieved April 8, 2012.
  70. ^ "Popeye's Popularity – Article from 1935". Golden Age Cartoons. Retrieved 2008-05-21.
  71. ^ "Walt Disney, Biography". Just Disney. Archived from the original on July 10, 2007. Retrieved 2008-05-21.
  72. ^ "Cartoons that Time Forgot". Images Journal. Retrieved 2008-05-21.
  73. ^ "Walt Disney Studio Biography". Animation USA. Archived from the original on May 31, 2010. Retrieved 2008-05-21.
  74. ^ "The Golden Age of Animation". Disney. Retrieved 2008-05-21.
  75. ^ "Fantasia Review". The Big Cartoon Database. Retrieved 2008-05-21.
  76. ^ Walt & El Grupo (documentary film, 2008).
  77. ^ "U.S. Naval Activities World War II by State". Patrick Clancey. Retrieved 2012-03-19.
  78. ^ Gabler, 2006, p.444
  79. ^ Cramer, Gisela; Prutsch, Ursula, "Nelson A. Rockefeller's Office of Inter-American Affairs (1940–1946) and Record Group 229", Hispanic American Historical Review 2006 86(4):785–806; doi:10.1215/00182168-2006-050. Cf. p.795 and note 28.
  80. ^ Bender, Pennee."Hollywood Meets South American and Stages a Show" Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Studies Association. 2009-05-24 Archived May 27, 2007.
  81. ^ Niblo, Stephen R., "Mexico in the 1940s: Modernity, Politics, and Corruption", Wilimington, Del. : Scholarly Resources, 1999. ISBN 0-8420-2794-7. Cf. "Nelson Rockefeller and the Office of Inter-American Affairs", p.333
  82. ^ Leonard, Thomas M.; Bratzel, John F., Latin America during World War II, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2007. ISBN 978-0-7425-3741-5. Cf. p.47.
  83. ^ Solomon, Charles. "Mickey in the Post-War Era". Disney. Retrieved 2008-05-21.
  84. ^ "Warner Bros. Studio Biography". Animation USA. Archived from the original on May 24, 2009. Retrieved 2008-05-21.
  85. ^ "Disney's Animated Classics". Sandcastle VI. Retrieved 2008-05-21.
  86. ^ "Donald Duck". Pet Care Tips. Retrieved 2008-05-21.
  87. ^ a b "Testimony of Walter E. Disney before HUAC". CNN. October 24, 1947. Archived from the original on May 14, 2008. Retrieved 2008-05-21.
  88. ^ Cogley, John (1956) Report on Blacklisting, Volume I, Movies Fund for the Republic, New York, p. 34 OCLC 3794664; reprinted in 1972 by Arno Press, New York ISBN 0-405-03915-8
  89. ^ "Communist brochure" Screen Actors Guild Retrieved October 20, 2008
  90. ^ "República de los Niños – Historia del Proyecto". Fundacionvalorar.org.ar. Retrieved April 8, 2012.
  91. ^ "Walt Disney Quotes". Tripod.com. Retrieved 2008-05-21.
  92. ^ Cotter, Bill. "The Television Worlds of Disney – PART II". Disney. Retrieved 2008-05-21.
  93. ^ John Lasseter-Commentary-Sleeping Beauty-2008 DVD
  94. ^ "Chronology of the Walt Disney Company". Island Net. Retrieved 2008-05-21.
  95. ^ "Chronology of the Walt Disney Company". Island Net. Retrieved 2008-05-21.
  96. ^ Gabler, Neal 2006 Walt Disney: The Triumph of Imagination, Alfed A. Knofph Inc, New York City
  97. ^ a b "The Day Walt Died". Disney. Retrieved 2008-05-21.
  98. ^ "Horsing Around With Walt and Polo". Mouse Planet. Retrieved 2008-05-21.
  99. ^ a b "Chronology of the Walt Disney Company". Island Net. Retrieved 2008-05-21.
  100. ^ a b "Walt Is Sick". waltdisney.com. Retrieved February 3, 2013.
  101. ^ "Kurt Russell Confirms Disney's Last Words". Star Pulse. Retrieved 2007-04-24.
  102. ^ Greene, K&R (2001). Inside The Dream: The Personal Story Of Walt Disney. Disney Editions. p. 180. ISBN 0-7868-5350-6.
  103. ^ a b Mikkelson, B & DP (August 24, 2007). "Suspended Animation". Snopes.com. Retrieved 2008-05-21.
  104. ^ a b "Suspended Animation" Urban Legends Reference Pages 1995–2001 by Barbara and David P. Mikkelson
  105. ^ Griffiths, Bill. "Grand opening of Walt Disney world". Retrieved 2008-05-21.
  106. ^ "Walt Disney corporate website". Disney. Retrieved 2008-05-21.
  107. ^ Roy E. Disney-The Legacy of Toy Story-Toy Story-2005, DVD
  108. ^ "Walt Disney's will". Do Your Own Will. Retrieved 2008-01-03.
  109. ^ Plagens, Peter (2000). Sunshine Muse: Art on the West Coast, 1945–1970. University of California Press. p. 159. ISBN 0-520-22392-6.
  110. ^ Rothstein, Edward (September 30, 2009). "Exploring the Man Behind the Animation". The New York Times.
  111. ^ Dargis, Manohla (21September 2011). "And Now a Word From the Director". The New York Times. Retrieved September 26, 2011.
  112. ^ Tunzelmann, Alex von (June 14, 2012). "The shameful legacy of the Olympic Games". The Guardian. Retrieved June 15, 2012.
  113. ^ James, Clive (March 25, 2007). "Reich Star". The New York Times. pp. XX.
  114. ^ Olympia in America, 1938: Leni Riefenstahl, Hollywood, and the Kristallnacht" by Cooper C. Graham (LOC), Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, Vol. 13, No. 4,1993
  115. ^ "Walt Disney: More Than 'Toons, Theme Parks". CBS News. November 1, 2006.
  116. ^ a b c d e f g Gabler, Neal (2007). Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination. Random House. p. 458. ISBN 978-0-679-75747-4.
  117. ^ "Walt Disney Family Museum". Disney.go.com.
  118. ^ a b c d Gabler, Neal (2006) Walt Disney, The Triumph of American Imagination, Page 433, Alfred A. Knopf Inc. New York City, U.S.A
  119. ^ Walt Disney – Awards
  120. ^ "Disney, Walt" (in French). Bedetheque. Retrieved 2008-05-21.
  121. ^ Krasniewicz, Louise (2010). Walt Disney: A Biography. ABC-CLIO. p. xxviii. ISBN 9780313358302. Retrieved August 20, 2012.
  122. ^ Krasniewicz, Louise (2010). Walt Disney: A Biography. ABC-CLIO. p. xxxiv. ISBN 9780313358302. Retrieved August 20, 2012.
  123. ^ Schmadel, Lutz D. (2003). Dictionary of Minor Planet Names. New York: Springer Science+Business Media. p. 342. ISBN 3-540-00238-3.
  124. ^ David Rooney (March 3, 1994). "Disney wins Houston and Washington teaming ...". Variety. Retrieved 2009-03-31.
  125. ^ "Walt: The Man Behind the Myth (TV 2001) – IMDb". Internet Movie Database. IMDb.com, Inc. 2011. Retrieved 2011-07-14.
  126. ^ ""Saving Mr. Banks" Begins Production in Los Angeles". disney.go.com. Retrieved July 21, 2012.

References

Further reading

How secure is your PIN number?

keywords: personal identification number
Source: Wikipedia

A personal identification number (PIN, pronounced "pin"; often erroneously PIN number) is a secret numeric password shared between a user and a system that can be used to authenticate the user to the system. Typically, the user is required to provide a non-confidential user identifier or token (the user ID) and a confidential PIN to gain access to the system. Upon receiving the user ID and PIN, the system looks up the PIN based upon the user ID and compares the looked-up PIN with the received PIN. The user is granted access only when the number entered matches with the number stored in the system. Hence, despite the name, a PIN does not personally identify the user.

PINs are most often used for automated teller machines (ATMs) but are increasingly used at the point of sale, for debit cards and credit cards. Throughout Europe and Canada the traditional in-store credit card signing process is increasingly being replaced with a system in which the customer is asked to enter their PIN instead of signing. In the UK and Ireland this goes under the term 'Chip and PIN', since PINs were introduced at the same time as EMV chips on the cards. In other parts of the world, PINs have been used before the introduction of EMV.
In 2006, James Goodfellow, the inventor of the personal identification number, was awarded an OBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours.

PIN length

The concept of a PIN originates with the inventor of the ATM, John Shepherd-Barron. One day in 1967, while thinking about more efficient ways banks could dispense cash to their customers, it occurred to him that the vending machine model was a proven fit. For authentication Shepherd-Barron at first envisioned a six-digit numeric code, given what he could reliably remember. His wife however preferred four digits, which became the most commonly used length.[3] ISO 9564-1, the international standard for PIN management and security, allows for PINs from four up to twelve digits, but also notes that "For usability reasons, an assigned numeric PIN should not exceed six digits in length."[4]
Apart from financial uses, GSM mobile phones specify a PIN of between four and eight digits.[5] The PIN is recorded in the SIM card.

PIN validation

There are several main methods of validating PINs. The operations discussed below are usually performed within a hardware security module (HSM).

IBM 3624

The IBM method is used to generate what is termed a natural PIN. The natural PIN is generated by encrypting the primary account number (PAN), using an encryption key generated specifically for the purpose.[6] This key is sometimes referred to as the PIN generation key (PGK). This PIN is directly related to the primary account number. To validate the PIN, the issuing bank regenerates the PIN using the above method, and compares this with the entered PIN.
Natural PINs can not be user selectable because they are derived from the PAN. If the card is reissued with a new PAN, a new PIN must be generated.
Natural PINs allow banks to issue PIN reminder letters as the PIN can be generated.

IBM 3624 + offset

To allow user selectable PINs it is possible to store a PIN offset value. The offset is found by subtracting natural PIN from the customer selected PIN using modulo 10.[7] For example, if the natural PIN is 1234, and the user wishes to have a PIN of 2345, the offset is 1111.
The offset can be stored either on the card track data,[8] or in a database at the card issuer.
To validate the PIN, the issuing bank calculates the natural PIN as in the above method, then adds the offset and compares this value to the entered PIN.

VISA method

The VISA method is used by many card schemes and is not VISA-specific. The VISA method generates a PIN verification value (PVV). Similar to the offset value, it can be stored on the card's track data, or in a database at the card issuer. This is called the reference PVV.
The VISA method takes the rightmost eleven digits of the PAN excluding the checksum value, a PIN validation key index (PVKI, chosen from one to six) and the required PIN value to make a 64 bit number, the PVKI selects a validation key (PVK, of 128 bits) to encrypt this number. From this encrypted value, the PVV is found.[9]
To validate the PIN, the issuing bank calculates a PVV value from the entered PIN and PAN and compares this value to the reference PVV. If the reference PVV and the calculated PVV match, the correct PIN was entered.
Unlike the IBM method, the VISA method doesn't derive a PIN. The PVV value is used to confirm the PIN entered at the terminal, was also used to generate the reference PVV. The PIN used to generate a PVV can be randomly generated or user selected or even derived using the IBM method.

PIN security

Financial PINs are often four-digit numbers in the range 0000-9999, resulting in 10,000 possible numbers. Switzerland is a notable exception with six digit pins being given by default. However, some banks do not give out numbers where all digits are identical (such as 1111, 2222, ...), consecutive (1234, 2345, ...), numbers that start with one or more zeroes, or the last four digits of your social security number. Many PIN verification systems allow three attempts, thereby giving a card thief a 0.06% probability of guessing the correct PIN before the card is blocked. This holds only if all PINs are equally likely and the attacker has no further information available, which has not been the case with some of the many PIN generation and verification algorithms that banks and ATM manufacturers have used in the past.[10]
In 2002 two PhD students at Cambridge University, Piotr Zieliński and Mike Bond, discovered a security flaw in the PIN generation system of the IBM 3624, which was duplicated in most later hardware. Known as the decimalization table attack, the flaw would allow someone who has access to a bank's computer system to determine the PIN for an ATM card in an average of 15 guesses.[11][12]
If a mobile phone PIN is entered incorrectly three times, the SIM card is blocked until a Personal Unblocking Code (PUC or PUK), provided by the service operator, is entered. If the PUC is entered incorrectly ten times, the SIM card is permanently blocked, requiring a new SIM card.[citation needed]
Some research has been done on commonly used PINs.[13]

Reverse PIN hoax

Rumours have been in e-mail circulation claiming that in the event of entering a PIN into an ATM backwards, police will be instantly alerted as well as money being ordinarily issued as if the PIN had been entered correctly.[14] The intention of this scheme would be to protect victims of muggings; however, despite the system being proposed for use in some US states,[15][16] there are no ATMs currently[when?] in existence that employ this software.[citation needed]

See also

References

  1. ^ Your ID number is not a password, Webb-site.com, 8 November 2010
  2. ^ "Royal honour for inventor of Pin". BBC. 2006-06-16. Retrieved 2007-11-05.
  3. ^ "The Man Who Invented The CASH Machine". BBC. 2007-06-25. Retrieved 2007-03-02.
  4. ^ ISO 9564-1:2002 Banking -- Personal Identification Number (PIN) management and security -- Part 1: Basic principles and requirements for online PIN handling in ATM and POS systems, clause 7.1
  5. ^ GSM 02.17 Subscriber Identity Modules, Functional Characteristics, version 3.2.0, February 1992, clause 3.1.3
  6. ^ "3624 PIN Generation Algorithm". IBM.
  7. ^ "PIN Offset Generation Algorithm". IBM.
  8. ^ "Track format of magnetic stripe cards". Gae.ucm.es.
  9. ^ "PVV Generation Algorithm". IBM.
  10. ^ Kuhn, Markus (July 1997). Probability theory for pickpockets — ec-PIN guessing (PDF). Retrieved 2006-11-24.
  11. ^ Zieliński, P & Bond, M (February 2003). Decimalisation table attacks for PIN cracking (PDF). University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory. Retrieved 2006-11-24.
  12. ^ "Media coverage". University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory. Retrieved 2006-11-24.
  13. ^ Nick Berry (Friday 28 September 2012 12.28 BST). "The most common pin numbers: is your bank account vulnerable?". Guardian newspaper website. Retrieved 2013-02-25.
  14. ^ "Reverse PIN Panic Code". Retrieved 2007-03-02.
  15. ^ Full Text of SB0562 Illinois General Assembly, accessed 2011-07-20
  16. ^ sb379_SB_379_PF_2.html Senate Bill 379 Georgia General Assembly, published 2006, accessed 2011-07-20

Business term of the day - Term for June 17, 2013: «Business acumen»

Business acumen - ENLARGE
Business acumen is keenness and quickness in understanding and dealing with a business situation in a manner that is likely to lead to a good outcome. The term "business acumen" can be broken down literally as a composite of its two component words: Business literacy is defined in SHRM's Business Literacy Glossary as "the knowledge and understanding of the financial, accounting, marketing and operational functions of an organization." The Oxford English Dictionary defines acumen as "the ability to make good judgments and quick decisions". Given these textbook definitions, a strictly literal definition would be "keenness and quickness in understanding and dealing with a business situation."
Additionally, business acumen has emerged as a vehicle for improving financial performance and leadership development. Consequently, several different types of strategies have developed around improving business acumen.

Source: Wikipedia

Andrew Carnegie

Carnegie Museum of art - ENLARGE
Andrew Carnegie (/kɑrˈneɪɡi/ kar-NAY-gee, but commonly /ˈkɑrnɨɡi/ KAR-nə-gee or /kɑrˈnɛɡi/ kar-NEG-ee;[1] November 25, 1835 – August 11, 1919) was a Scottish-American industrialist who led the enormous expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century. He was also one of the highest profile philanthropists of his era; his 1889 article "Wealth" (known more commonly—particularly in colloquial parlance—as "The Gospel of Wealth") remains a formative advisory text for those who aspire to lead philanthropic lives.

Carnegie was born in Dunfermline, Scotland, and emigrated to the United States with his parents in 1848. Carnegie started as a telegrapher and by the 1860s had investments in railroads, railroad sleeping cars, bridges and oil derricks. He built further wealth as a bond salesman raising money for American enterprise in Europe. He built Pittsburgh's Carnegie Steel Company, which he sold to J.P. Morgan in 1901 for $480 million, creating the U.S. Steel Corporation. Carnegie devoted the remainder of his life to large-scale philanthropy, with special emphasis on local libraries, world peace, education and scientific research. With the fortune he made from business, he built Carnegie Hall, and founded the Carnegie Corporation of New York, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Carnegie Institution for Science, Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland, Carnegie Hero Fund, Carnegie Mellon University and the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh, among others. His life has often been referred to as a true "rags to riches" story. Read more »»»

Collective bargaining

Striking firefighters - ENLARGE
Collective bargaining is a process of negotiations between employers and a group of employees aimed at reaching agreements that regulate working conditions. The interests of the employees are commonly presented by representatives of a trade union to which the employees belong. The collective agreements reached by these negotiations usually set out wage scales, working hours, training, health and safety, overtime, grievance mechanisms, and rights to participate in workplace or company affairs.[1]
The union may negotiate with a single employer (who is typically representing a company's shareholders) or may negotiate with a group of businesses, depending on the country, to reach an industry wide agreement. A collective agreement functions as a labor contract between an employer and one or more unions. Collective bargaining consists of the process of negotiation between representatives of a union and employers (generally represented by management, in some countries such as Austria, Sweden and the Netherlands by an employers' organization) in respect of the terms and conditions of employment of employees, such as wages, hours of work, working conditions, grievance-procedures, and about the rights and responsibilities of trade unions. The parties often refer to the result of the negotiation as a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) or as a collective employment agreement (CEA).

History

The term "collective bargaining" was first used in the middle of 1891 by economic theorist Beatrice Webb.[2] However, collective negotiations and agreements had existed since the rise of trade unions during the 18th century.
The term collective bargaining itself was coined by a British labor historian named Mrs. Sidney Webb in 1891 (Hoffer). The National Railway Act and soon after the National Labor Relations Act made it illegal for any employer to deny union rights to an employee. Another step in this direction came in 1962 when president John F Kennedy issued an executive order granting Federal employees the right to unionize and collective bargain. Collective bargaining has even been recognized internationally as a basic human right and in 2007 the Canadian Supreme Court ruled that "The right to bargain collectively with an employer enhances the human dignity, liberty and autonomy of workers by giving them the opportunity to influence the establishment of workplace rules and thereby gain some control over a major aspect of their lives, namely their work. ... Collective bargaining is not simply an instrument for pursuing external ends ... rather [it] is intrinsically valuable as an experience in self-government" (Hoffer). Even the Catholic church has asserted that it is imperative to protect workers rights including collective bargaining. It is widely recognized that throughout history unionized employees, both public and private, enjoy a living wage and benefits that they deserve while not having to worry about unjust treatment, unfair labor practices, or termination without cause[citation needed].

International protection

...where free unions and collective bargaining are forbidden, freedom is lost.[1]
Ronald Reagan, Labor Day Speech at Liberty State Park, 1980
The right to collectively bargain is recognized through international human rights conventions. Article 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights identifies the ability to organize trade unions as a fundamental human right.[3] Item 2(a) of the International Labour Organization's Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work defines the "freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining" as an essential right of workers.[4]
In June 2007 the Supreme Court of Canada extensively reviewed the rationale for regarding collective bargaining as a human right. In the case of Facilities Subsector Bargaining Association v. British Columbia, the Court made the following observations:
The right to bargain collectively with an employer enhances the human dignity, liberty and autonomy of workers by giving them the opportunity to influence the establishment of workplace rules and thereby gain some control over a major aspect of their lives, namely their work... Collective bargaining is not simply an instrument for pursuing external ends…rather [it] is intrinsically valuable as an experience in self-government... Collective bargaining permits workers to achieve a form of workplace democracy and to ensure the rule of law in the workplace. Workers gain a voice to influence the establishment of rules that control a major aspect of their lives.[5]

Economic theory

Different economic theories provide a number of models intended to explain some aspects of collective bargaining:
  1. The so-called Monopoly Union Model (Dunlop, 1944) states that the monopoly union has the power to maximize the wage rate; the firm then chooses the level of employment.
  2. The Right-to-Manage model, developed by the British school during the 1980s (Nickell), views the labour union and the firm bargaining over the wage rate according to a typical Nash Bargaining Maximin (written as Ώ = UβΠ1-β, where U is the utility function of the labour union, Π the profit of the firm and β represents the bargaining power of the labour unions).
  3. The efficient bargaining model (McDonald and Solow, 1981) sees the union and the firm bargaining over both wages and employment (or, more realistically, hours of work).[citation needed]

Empirical findings

  • Union members and other workers covered by collective agreements get, on average, a wage markup over their nonunionized (or uncovered) counterparts. Such a markup is typically 5 to 10 percent in industrial countries.[6]
  • Unions tend to equalize the income distribution, especially between skilled and unskilled workers.[6]
  • The welfare loss associated with unions is small, and no more than 0.2 to 0.5 of GDP, which is similar to monopolies in product markets.[6] 1

Styles

Continuous

Continuous bargaining is a method of collective bargaining which retains a permanent, rolling negotiation between management and a permanent committee of union representatives.

As applied to public or government employees

The controversy over submitting public governments to collective bargaining agreements dates back to the 1930s.[7] In the United States, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, a supporter of collective bargaining rights for employees in the private sector, indicated his opposition to such agreements for government or public employee unions in a 1937 letter to the National Federation of Federal Employees:
"The desire of Government employees for fair and adequate pay, reasonable hours of work, safe and suitable working conditions, development of opportunities for advancement, facilities for fair and impartial consideration and review of grievances, and other objectives of a proper employee relations policy, is basically no different from that of employees in private industry. Organization on their part to present their views on such matters is both natural and logical, but meticulous attention should be paid to the special relationships and obligations of public servants to the public itself and to the Government.
All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management. The very nature and purposes of Government make it impossible for administrative officials to represent fully or to bind the employer in mutual discussions with Government employee organizations. The employer is the whole people, who speak by means of laws enacted by their representatives in Congress. Accordingly, administrative officials and employees alike are governed and guided, and in many instances restricted, by laws which establish policies, procedures, or rules in personnel matters.
Particularly, I want to emphasize my conviction that militant tactics have no place in the functions of any organization of Government employees. Upon employees in the Federal service rests the obligation to serve the whole people, whose interests and welfare require orderliness and continuity in the conduct of Government activities. This obligation is paramount. Since their own services have to do with the functioning of the Government, a strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to prevent or obstruct the operations of Government until their demands are satisfied."[7]
This letter would suggest that the former president believed that "collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service" as a result of the possibility of strikes shutting down the government, not that it should not exist at all.
The laws governing local, regional, and national governments may allow government employees to form unions, yet prohibit them from engaging in collective bargaining over one or more rights or benefits such as pay, personnel rights, health insurance, or pension contributions, as well as preventing them from going on strike against the government. Both the federal government and some state and local governments in the United States have such rules.[8][9] Public employee unions are usually prohibited from bargaining collectively with respect to pay or other benefits and/or rights on the grounds that their employer, the general public, is not represented in such collective bargaining agreements but rather by administrative officials who cannot fully represent nor bind the voters to rules or procedures that may conflict with existing or subsequently executed laws and regulations.[7] Thus, a collective agreement providing for fixed rights such as salary rates and pension contributions could not be revised by subsequent legislatures elected by the public at large, even if such measures were required to prevent fiscal insolvency.[7]
Another reason cited for not granting collective bargaining rights to public employees is the advantage held by public employee in rights granted under existing civil service or personnel rules.[10] In countries such as the United States, the courts have repeatedly held that public employees possess a property interest in their jobs, which interest triggers constitutional protections to the employee including due process of law.[10] In fact, public employees without collective bargaining rights frequently have more protection against arbitrary and unjust employer action than do private employees with such rights.[10] The reality of collective bargaining is that it is essentially a bilateral process, whereas public policymaking is a multilateral process accessible to all taxpayers on equal terms.[11] This conflict raises the possibility that over time, public employee unions could wield an insurmountable advantage in political power when negotiating government wage and personnel policies with public administrators and elected officials, to the detriment of taxpayers and other competing groups and interests in the democratic process.[11] This advantage in bargaining power is magnified with respect to certain monopolistic services provided only by the government and which are critical to the welfare and safety of the public at large, such as police and fire protection.[11]
Collective bargaining agreements with public employee unions also affect taxpayer rights to due process of law, that is, the right to contest deprivations of property or rights without the right of individual appeal.[12] In the private sector, constitutional collective bargaining and binding arbitration agreements may deprive shareholders of stock or dividend value.[12] Shareholders, however, always have the option to liquidate their interests in a particular private company if bargaining or arbitration with unions affects the value of their property (stock).[12] In contrast, negotiated increases in the cost of pay, pensions, health insurance and other benefits for public employees deprive both existing and subsequent taxpayers of their property through reduction of their income via increased taxation, without due process and right of redress through administrative or judicial appeal.[12]

United States

In the United States, the National Labor Relations Act (1935) covers most collective agreements in the private sector. This act makes it illegal for employers to discriminate, spy on, harass, or terminate the employment of workers because of their union membership or to retaliate against them for engaging in organizing campaigns or other "concerted activities," to form company unions, or to refuse to engage in collective bargaining with the union that represents their employees. It is also illegal to require any employee to join a union as a condition of employment.[13] Unions are also exempt from antitrust law in the hope that members may collectively fix a higher price for their labor.
At a workplace where a majority of workers have voted for union representation, a committee of employees and union representatives negotiate a contract with the management regarding wages, hours, benefits, and other terms and conditions of employment, such as protection from termination of employment without just cause. Individual negotiation is prohibited. Once the workers' committee and management have agreed on a contract, it is then put to a vote of all workers at the workplace. If approved, the contract is usually in force for a fixed term of years, and when that term is up, it is then renegotiated between employees and management. Sometimes there are disputes over the union contract; this particularly occurs in cases of workers fired without just cause in a union workplace. These then go to arbitration, which is similar to an informal court hearing; a neutral arbitrator then rules whether the termination or other contract breach is extant, and if it is, orders that it be corrected.
In 28 U.S. states,[14] employees who are working in a unionized shop may be required to contribute towards the cost of representation (such as at disciplinary hearings) if their fellow employees have negotiated a union security clause in their contract with management. Dues usually vary, but are generally 1-2% of pay. Some states, especially in the south-central and south-eastern region of the U.S., have outlawed union security clauses; this can cause controversy, as it allows some net beneficiaries of the union contract to avoid paying their portion of the costs of contract negotiation. Regardless of state, the Supreme Court has held that the Act prevents a person's union dues from being used without consent to fund political causes that may be opposed to the individual's personal politics. Instead, in states where union security clauses are permitted, such dissenters may elect to pay only the proportion of dues which go directly toward representation of workers.[15]
The industrial revolution brought a swell of labor organizing in the US.[citation needed] The American Federation of Labor was formed in 1886, providing unprecedented bargaining powers for a variety of workers.[16] The Railway Labor Act (1926) required employers to bargain collectively with unions.
In 1930, the Supreme Court, in the case of Texas & N.O.R. Co. v. Brotherhood of Railway Clerks, upheld the act's prohibition of employer interference in the selection of bargaining representatives.[16] In 1962, President Kennedy signed an executive order giving public-employee unions the right to collectively bargain with federal government agencies.[16]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ "BLS Information". Glossary. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Division of Information Services. February 28, 2008. Retrieved 2009-05-05.
  2. ^ "A Timeline of Events in Modern American Labor Relations". Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (United States). Retrieved 2010-08-18. "1891: The term “collective bargaining” is first used by Mrs. Sidney Webb, a British labor historian."
  3. ^ United Nations General Assembly (1948). "Article 23". Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Paris. Retrieved August 29, 2007.
  4. ^ International Labour Organization (1998). Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work. 86th Session: Geneva. Retrieved August 29, 2007.
  5. ^ Health Services and Support – Facilities Subsector Bargaining Assn. v. British Columbia [2007] SCC 27.
  6. ^ a b c Toke Aidt and Zafiris Tzannatos (2002). "Unions and Collective Bargaining".
  7. ^ a b c d Roosevelt, Franklin D., Letter on the Resolution of Federation of Federal Employees Against Strikes in Federal Service, 16 August 1937, The American Presidency Project, retrieved 10 August 2011
  8. ^ Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Statute, Pub.L. No. 95-454, § 701, 92 Stat. 1191-1216 (1978) (codified as amended at 5 U.S.C. §§ 7101-7135 (1994 & Supp. II 1996))
  9. ^ Ohio Senate Bill 5, Ohio 129th General Assembly, retrieved 10 August 2011
  10. ^ a b c Rabin, Jack, and Dodd, Don, State and Local Government Administration, New York: Marcel Dekker Inc., ISBN 0-8247-7355-1 (1985), p. 390
  11. ^ a b c Rabin, Jack, and Dodd, Don, State and Local Government Administration, New York: Marcel Dekker Inc., ISBN 0-8247-7355-1 (1985) p. 399
  12. ^ a b c d Schmitt, Harrison, Public Employee Unions and the Constitution, 1 March 2011
  13. ^ "Can I be required to be a union member or pay dues to a union?". National Right To Work. Retrieved 2011-08-27.
  14. ^ Barro, Robert (28 February 2011). "Unions vs. the Right to Work". The Wall Street Journal.
  15. ^ "Communications Workers of America v. Beck". Retrieved 2011-08-27., 487 U.S. 735.
  16. ^ a b c Illinois Labor History Society. A Curriculum of United States Labor History for Teachers. Online at the Illinois Labor History Society. Retrieved on August 29, 2007.

References

  • Buidens, Wayne, and others. "Collective Gaining: A Bargaining Alternative." Phi Delta Kappan 63 (1981): 244-245.
  • DeGennaro, William, and Kay Michelfeld. "Joint Committees Take the Rancor out of Bargaining with Our Teachers." The American School Board Journal 173 (1986): 38-39.
  • Herman, Jerry J. "With Collaborative Bargaining, You Work with the Union--Not Against It." The American School Board Journal 172 (1985): 41-42, 47.
  • Huber, Joe; and Jay Hennies. "Fix on These Five Guiding Lights, and Emerge from the Bargaining Fog." The American School Board Journal 174 (1987): 31.
  • Liontos, Demetri. Collaborative Bargaining: Case Studies and Recommendations. Eugene: Oregon School Study Council, University of Oregon, September 1987. OSSC Bulletin Series. 27 pages. ED number not yet assigned.
  • McMahon, Dennis O. "Getting to Yes." Paper presented at the annual conference of the American Association of School Administrators, New Orleans, LA, February 20–23, 1987. ED 280 188.
  • Namit, Chuck; and Larry Swift. "Prescription for Labor Pains: Combine Bargaining with Problem Solving." The American School Board Journal 174 (1987): 24.
  • Nyland, Larry. "Win/Win Bargaining Takes Perseverance." The Executive Educator 9 (1987): 24.
  • O'Sullivan, Arthur; Sheffrin, Steven M. (2003) [January 2002]. Economics: Principles in Action. The Wall Street Journal:Classroom Edition (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458: Pearson Prentice Hall: Addison Wesley Longman. p. 223. ISBN 0-13-063085-3. Retrieved May 3, 2009.
  • Smith, Patricia; and Russell Baker. "An Alternative Form of Collective Bargaining." Phi Delta Kappan 67 (1986): 605-607.

External links

Business term of the day - Term for June 16, 2013: «Big business»

HSBC Brazil - ENLARGE
Big business is large-scale, corporate-controlled, financial or business activities. As a term, it is typically used to describe activities that run from "huge transactions" to the more general "doing big things." The concept first arose in a symbolic sense after 1880 in connection with the combination movement that began in American business at that time. United States corporations that fall into the category of "big business" include ExxonMobil, Wal-Mart, Apple, Google, Microsoft, General Electric, General Motors, Citigroup and Goldman Sachs. The largest German corporations include Daimler AG, Deutsche Telekom, Siemens and Deutsche Bank. Among the largest companies in the United Kingdom are HSBC, Barclays and BP.

Source: Wikipedia