Description

Contributions by Walter Benjamin, Lillian Disney, Walt Disney, E. M. Forster, Stephen Jay Gould, M. Thomas Inge, Jim Korkis, Anna Quindlen, Diego Rivera, Gilbert Seldes, Maurice Sendak, John Updike, Irving Wallace, Cholly Wood, and many others

Ranging from the playful, to the fact-filled, and to the thoughtful, this collection tracks the fortunes of Walt Disney’s flagship character. From the first full-fledged review of his screen debut in November 1928 to the present day, Mickey Mouse has won millions of fans and charmed even the harshest of critics. Almost half of the eighty-one texts in A Mickey Mouse Reader document the Mouse’s rise to glory from that first cartoon, Steamboat Willie, through his seventh year when his first color animation, The Band Concert, was released. They include two important early critiques, one by the American culture critic Gilbert Seldes and one by the famed English novelist E. M. Forster.

Articles and essays chronicle the continued rise of Mickey Mouse to the rank of true icon. He remains arguably the most vivid graphic expression to date of key traits of the American character—pluck, cheerfulness, innocence, energy, and fidelity to family and friends. Among press reports in the book is one from June 1944 that puts to rest the urban legend that “Mickey Mouse” was a password or code word on D-Day. It was, however, the password for a major pre-invasion briefing.

Other items illuminate the origins of “Mickey Mouse” as a term for things deemed petty or unsophisticated. One piece explains how Walt and brother Roy Disney, almost single-handedly, invented the strategy of corporate synergy by tagging sales of Mickey Mouse toys and goods to the release of Mickey’s latest cartoons shorts. In two especially interesting essays, Maurice Sendak and John Updike look back over the years and give their personal reflections on the character they loved as boys growing up in the 1930s.

Description

Women Pioneers of the Louisiana Environmental Movement provides a window into the passion and significance of thirty-eight committed individuals who led a grassroots movement in a socially conservative state. The book is comprised of oral history narratives in which women activists share their motivation, struggles, accomplishments, and hard-won wisdom. Additionally interviews with eight men, all leaders who worked with or against the women, provide more insight into this rich—and also gendered—history.The book sheds light on Louisiana and America’s social and political history, as well as the national environmental movement in which women often emerged to speak for human rights, decent health care, and environmental protection. By illuminating a crucial period in Louisiana history, the women tell how “environmentalism” emerged within a state already struggling with the dual challenges of adjusting to the civil rights movement and the growing oil boom.Peggy Frankland, an environmental activist herself since 1982, worked with a team of interviewers, especially those trained at Louisiana State University’s T. Harry Williams Center for Oral History. Together they interviewed forty women pioneers of the state environmental movement. Frankland’s work also was aided by a grant from the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities. In this compilation, she allows the women’s voices to provide a clear picture of how their smallest actions impacted their communities, their families, and their way of life. Some experiences were frightening, some were demeaning, and many women were deeply affected by the individual persecution, ridicule, and scorn their activities brought. But their shared victories reveal the positive influence their activism had on the lives of loved ones and fellow citizens.

Description

Contributions by Walter Benjamin, Lillian Disney, Walt Disney, E. M. Forster, Stephen Jay Gould, M. Thomas Inge, Jim Korkis, Anna Quindlen, Diego Rivera, Gilbert Seldes, Maurice Sendak, John Updike, Irving Wallace, Cholly Wood, and many others

Ranging from the playful, to the fact-filled, and to the thoughtful, this collection tracks the fortunes of Walt Disney’s flagship character. From the first full-fledged review of his screen debut in November 1928 to the present day, Mickey Mouse has won millions of fans and charmed even the harshest of critics. Almost half of the eighty-one texts in A Mickey Mouse Reader document the Mouse’s rise to glory from that first cartoon, Steamboat Willie, through his seventh year when his first color animation, The Band Concert, was released. They include two important early critiques, one by the American culture critic Gilbert Seldes and one by the famed English novelist E. M. Forster.

Articles and essays chronicle the continued rise of Mickey Mouse to the rank of true icon. He remains arguably the most vivid graphic expression to date of key traits of the American character—pluck, cheerfulness, innocence, energy, and fidelity to family and friends. Among press reports in the book is one from June 1944 that puts to rest the urban legend that “Mickey Mouse” was a password or code word on D-Day. It was, however, the password for a major pre-invasion briefing.

Other items illuminate the origins of “Mickey Mouse” as a term for things deemed petty or unsophisticated. One piece explains how Walt and brother Roy Disney, almost single-handedly, invented the strategy of corporate synergy by tagging sales of Mickey Mouse toys and goods to the release of Mickey’s latest cartoons shorts. In two especially interesting essays, Maurice Sendak and John Updike look back over the years and give their personal reflections on the character they loved as boys growing up in the 1930s.