Fifteen years ago I began to work on a book about Disney's expansion outside of the US in the 1930s and 1940s. This was really the subtext of Disney's Grand Tour. It was also almost virgin territory at the time.

Having faced some serious setbacks in many other directions at the beginning of the year, I decided to re-focus on this project over the past few months.

While I still have no idea of when the book will be written and published, I am glad to share that the research is progressing by leaps and bounds.

This is especially thanks to two wonderful volunteers in New York.

I finally know exactly when Kay Kamen met Walt Disney for the very first time, who put him in touch again with Walt later on and how the July 1, 1932 agreement between Kamen-Blair and Disney was negotiated. I also now know who the second person from the left on this photo is (it is not the publicist Harry Hammond Beall as we believed), and when Kamen travelled around Europe for the first time with his nephew George (and what they did and what they saw).

It took me 20 years to find those answers, but over the past two weeks of intense research they have started pouring in, and this is just the tip of the iceberg.

When it is ready, that book will be really, really fun and full of delightful surprises!

VOLUNTEER(S) NEEDED IN NEW YORK CITY

I just discovered a massive cache of untapped information about Disney's international expansion in the 1930s in four fascinating trade magazines (One from the UK, one from Australia, on from the US and one from the Netherlands).

All these magazines are preserved at the New York Public Library and I need some volunteers to go on site to shoot pictures of all the relevant pages.

If you are willing to help (this will probably require a few days of research at the NYPL), could you please email me at didier.ghez@gmail.com?

You will help uncover some really, really important new material.

I am very much looking forward to reading this book which I just ordered from the Chenango County Historical Society and Museum when I saw it announced today on the Vintage Disney Collectibles group on Facebook.

This is a peculiar poem by Disney story writer Dorothy Ann Blank that I found yesterday in an old issue of the international United Artists newsletter. I think that some of you will enjoy it.

I am particularly thinking of you Mindy Johnson and JB Kaufman!

 

VOLUNTEER NEEDED IN PRAGUE

I carry on my historical exploration of the early days of Disney in Europe and, in that context, I am looking for a volunteer in Prague, who would be willing to conduct some simple research at the National Library of the Czech Republic. 

If you are willing to help, could you please email me at didier.ghez@gmail.com ?

Back in 2011, when I began to research the book Disney's Grand Tour I realized that I was not just writing a book about Walt and his family's trip but also one about the early expansion of Disney around the world (Europe specifically).

I am now trying to dig much deeper into the matter in order to write an in-depth a story about the international expansion as possible for a future volume of Walt's People.

Which led me (among other places) to Australia and New Zealand. I finally understand the exact dates, the names of the people involved, etc.

And here are two letterheads that I had never seen before and that I have a feeling that you will enjoy :-)

 

 Interesting book to be released in July which I had not spotted yet.