How to Be a Disney Historian: Tips from the Top Professionals

by Jim Korkis, Jerry Beck, Greg Ehrbar

Who writes the Disney history you love to read? A select group, immersed in the history and culture of Disney, from films to theme parks. Now these authors reveal their inspirations, their methods, and their secrets. Why just read Disney history when you can write it yourself! In this engaging how-to anthology, Jim Korkis documents the history of Disney history, with help from Disney's Chief Archivist Emeritus David R. Smith, and then gives practical advice for conducting interviews with Disney notables; researching, organizing, and using information; and handling the media. From there, fifteen of today's leading Disney historians share at length their best practices for researching and writing essays, articles, and books about every facet of Disney culture. The historians who contributed chapters to this book SHARPEN YOUR PENCILS AND BECOME PART OF DISNEY HISTORY - BY WRITING IT!

Genres: Nonfiction, History

234 pages, Paperback

First published March 7, 2016

Reviews

[Trish Bachman · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you share Disney history, this book is for you. An excellent resource.

[Gijs Grob · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this charming book Jim Korkis and his fellow Disney historians share their experiences, best practices, tips and work ethics with a younger generation. Many historians present us with how they got into Disney history, and these stories aren't really too relevant to aspiring historians. Yet, they make an excellent read and give the reader a welcome background story to these giants in the field. What we certainly can conclude is that Disney historians come in very different guises, that most of them are quite modest, and that very, very, very few of them can make their work out of it. On the contrary, it seems likely it will cost you a lot of time and money, without much gain, apart from personal satisfaction. Nevertheless, it becomes clear everybody can become a Disney historian, granted that he is foolish, curious, determined and conscientious enough to aspire this.

Apart from the engaging life stories, there's absolutely a multitude of practical advises, an excellent overview of sources, and several tips on how to conduct interviews. This book certainly is an encouragement to get started yourself. In fact, I enjoyed this book much more than I thought I would. These people needn't share their experience with you, and yet, they did. And quite in time, too, because most of the contributors certainly are in the second half of their lives. We should be thankful for this book. I know I am.

[Becky Ginther · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is no doubt that this book is for a rather niche audience, and the author is very upfront and honest about that from the beginning.  I picked it up because I write a Disney blog, I'm interested in history, and I'd love to learn more about Disney history and be able to write informed blog posts about it (hopefully that's something that people are looking for!).

In the introduction Korkis states "my house looks like a library and a toy store exploded and I decided to live amid the debris." And I feel like nothing describes the state of my house more, so I had a feeling that at least parts of this book would be relevant to me!

I will say that this book is very serious about history and being a historian - as it should be.  But much of it is directed at people who might be looking to do this full time, or at least dedicate a full time amount of hours to it. I'm looking to investigate some history now and then along with all of my other writings.

The first half of the book is written by Korkis and covers a variety of different topics. For the second half of it he has essays from a number of different Disney historians. He says that he let them choose whatever they wanted to write about and didn't really give any guidelines. On the one hand it's nice to see what they think is most important and what they want to share, but on the other hand it means there was a lot of somewhat repetitive content. I'm not sure it was the ideal approach, but I will say I liked some of the essays better than others. For instance, I was not a fan of the essay by Michael Barrier - the entire thing ended up feeling like him criticizing or picking apart other writers and historians. I think it's okay to point out mistakes, but I'd rather a more positive, instructional approach. On the other hand, I really enjoyed the essay by Jim Fanning.

The chapter and the Disney Archives was probably one of my favorites, as I've always been fascinated with it but don't know a ton about it.  There are some great stories shared in here.

There is also a chapter called "Why you won't get a job at the Disney Archives." As someone who usually picks that when asked what their "dream job" would be, it's a little bit of a bummer, but of course I know it's almost impossible. It's a very small staff, and they are looking for people with a particular background. I figured my choice of being a children's librarian over an archivist probably ruined that dream. However, there is also an essay by Paula Sigman Lowery, who worked in a public library as a children's librarian and then got a job at the Archives.  She said that "Working at the Walt Disney Archive was like being the guardian of Aladdin's Cave of Wonders". Maybe there is hope for me!