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Roland Betancourt and Imagineer Tom Morris explore how visionary engineers adapted postwar industrial automation to create a new kind of entertainment experience for the opening of Disneyland in 1955.

When Disneyland opened to the public in 1955, it demystified the hidden world of factory automation through its extraordinary new attractions. In Disneyland and the Rise of Automation, Roland Betancourt tells the story of how the visionary engineers and designers at Disney transformed the technologies of the postwar assembly line into an entertainment experience unlike anything the world had ever seen.

Essential reading for anyone interested in engineering, corporate histories, or popular culture, Disneyland and the Rise of Automation invites us to consider how technology and the logic of automation become integrated into our lives through entertainment.

Copies of Disneyland and the Rise of Automation will be available at this event.