A presidential or political go to is without doubt one of the methods by which the US marks locations as uniquely vital. An area meriting the pomp and circumstance that accompanies a president, or a spot considered as so notably American that an aspiring president would possibly wish to have their image taken there, takes on particular standing in American tradition.
Twelve of the final 14 presidents visited Philadelphia’s Independence Corridor throughout their political careers. American politicians usually go to websites of nice significance to the nationwide character, and Independence Corridor is the placement of each the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the drafting of the Structure.
The U.S. has many sacred civil areas, locations that the nation seems to when celebrating or reflecting on American identification. A few of these locations had been established for the specific function of serving these features: the Nationwide Mall and the U.S. Capitol in Washington and the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, constructed to commemorate the nation’s westward enlargement.
A few of these locations earn this designation by means of affiliation with historical past: Lexington and Harmony in Massachusetts, websites of serious occasions within the American Revolution; the Pearl Harbor Nationwide Memorial, commemorating American deaths from the Japanese assault that sparked U.S. entrance into World Battle II; and the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, the place native police in 1965 attacked and bloodied civil rights protesters, who finally crossed the bridge two weeks later underneath the safety of a federal court docket order.
Nonetheless different locations emerge by means of a form of nationwide consensus, taking over particular standing over time as People use them in ways in which mark them with which means.
And whereas twelve of the final 14 presidents could have visited Independence Corridor, the identical 12 additionally visited among the locations usually forgotten when accounting for holy civic websites: the Disney theme parks.
1000’s attended presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s election eve rally at Independence Corridor in Philadelphia on Nov. 7, 2016.
Joe Sohm, Visions of America/Common Pictures Group through Getty Pictures
Report chilly and a second likelihood
In my e-book “Disney Theme Parks and America’s National Narratives: Mirror Mirror for Us All,” I discover how Disneyland in Anaheim, California, and Walt Disney World, close to Orlando, Florida, have grow to be two of an important areas for the celebration and creation of American identification.
One of many causes for that is the legitimization a presidential go to bestows on a website. Forty years in the past this month, Walt Disney World acquired a really particular customer.
In January 1985, as President Ronald Reagan ready to take the oath of workplace for a second time, temperatures within the Washington space dipped to report lows. The inauguration and a few associated festivities had been resulting from happen outdoor, however circumstances had been extreme sufficient to trigger concern for the numerous hundreds scheduled to take part. So the same old celebrations, together with the favored Inaugural Parade, had been canceled in favor of a smaller occasion indoors.
Solely a handful of the 25 highschool marching bands that had traveled from locations like Kentucky, Massachusetts and Michigan to play within the parade had been capable of carry out for the president. That left hundreds of scholars and their households disillusioned.
In a presidential historical past first, nonetheless, the Inaugural Bands Parade would get a second likelihood to march outdoors the ceremonial house of Washington at what could possibly be known as the nation’s different capital – Walt Disney World.
In April 1985, Walt Disney World introduced that it had partnered with Days Inn, Greyhound Bus Traces and Burger King to supply decreased value lodging and meals for about 4,000 college students to get pleasure from a weekend on the theme park earlier than performing in their very own parade on Memorial Day, Might 27.
Not solely would the bands get to play at Disney’s Epcot Heart, however they’d additionally have the ability to carry out for the president, who flew from Washington to be there for this particular parade.
President George H.W. Bush at a Disney World twentieth anniversary celebration marking his volunteerism initiative, on Sept. 30, 1991.
Dirck Halstead/Contributor/The Chronicle Assortment, Getty Pictures
New website for American identification
Memorial Day, the day of the parade itself, was heat and sunny. Disney guests thronged the 1.2-mile parade route and waved American flags as they listened to patriotic songs. The parade was watched over by the president and first girl, Nancy Reagan. The equal of the president and first girl of Disney, Mickey and Minnie Mouse, joined them.
This second was exceptional for a number of causes.
First, Reagan had been one of many hosts of the present “Dateline Disneyland,” the dwell protection of the opening of Disneyland in 1955 solely 30 years earlier than, when nobody knew he could be the nation’s fortieth president.
Second, the go to marked an vital second within the recognition of the Disney theme parks as websites of American identification.
Reagan went immediately from laying wreaths at Arlington Nationwide Cemetery on Memorial Day, a treasured American custom, to an look at Epcot, the place in an financial coverage speech to the group, he launched a “new American revolution.” This second American revolution was introduced not in entrance of Independence Corridor in Philadelphia, however on the American Journey pavilion in Orlando.
The Reagans’ photograph with Mickey – with Mickey dressed as Uncle Sam and Minnie in a colonial-style costume – captures the thought, I imagine, that culturally Disney areas are as authentic as nationwide parks or historic websites as locations for the celebration of the American story.
As longtime Disney solid member Terry Brinkoetter remembers, presidential visits like Reagan’s affirmed Disneyland and Walt Disney World as “places where people could learn and be inspired to continue our shared journey toward a more perfect union.”
Disney parks have grow to be stops on a secular pilgrimage made by presidents and strange residents alike, locations to grasp what it means to be an American.
