Massoth, Robert J., 1918-2008

Historical Background

Robert J. Massoth (1918-2008) and his wife, Bertha E. Massoth (1918-1987), lived in Fullerton, Orange County, California. Bertha worked at the Disneyland theme park from approximately 1958 to 1984, serving as the executive secretary to the head of publicity and marketing.

Disneyland, located 27 miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles in Anaheim, Orange County, California, opened in 1955. Walt Disney, the creator of animated motion pictures featuring the characters Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and Pluto, had first conceived of the park twenty years earlier. But it wasn't until the post-war boom in consumer culture, automobile travel, tourism, and the growth of the television industry that he was able to realize the project.

Disney used his new weekly television program on the ABC television network to generate revenue and to report on the park's development, introducing the new concept of a theme park as distinct from the amusement parks that had been in existence in the U.S. since the late nineteenth century. Designed, like a Disney motion picture, to invite the visitor into an imaginary world, Disneyland was organized into five thematically linked areas: Main Street, U.S.A.; Adventureland; Frontierland; Fantasyland; and Tomorrowland.

In the years since Disneyland's inception, its "imagineers" (engineers, architects, artists, storytellers, and designers) have added more "lands," entertainment, rides and attractions to the park. Disneyland's public service employees are called "cast members" in company literature because they are considered an integral part of creating the park's special atmosphere.

Attendance at Disneyland in 2008 was 14,721,000. Disneyland is now just one part of a large tourist and entertainment complex in Anaheim, where Walt Disney Co. owns 461 acres of land and has the rights under long-term lease for use of an additional 49 acres. In addition to its vast holdings in studio entertainment and media networks, the company also owns Walt Disney World resort in Orlando, Florida, and licenses or owns interests in a number of other parks and resorts in the U.S. as well as in Hong Kong, Tokyo and Paris. Taken together, Walt Disney Attractions has the highest attendance of any theme park chain in the world, with 118,000,000 visitors in 2008.

From the guide to the Robert and Bertha Massoth collection of Disneyland publications, 1965-1997, (University of California, Irvine. Library. Special Collections and Archives.)