April Anderson-Zorn is a lifelong theme park enthusiast. As a child, she and her family would load into their oversized station wagon and drive seven hours to visit Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida.
Now the university archivist at Illinois State University, Anderson-Zorn, incorporated her passion for theme parks into an Honors Exploration course, Theme Parks and the Power of Place, which explored the themes of identity and place using digital archival collections.
“I’m a bit of a theme park nut, especially the historical aspects of theme parks,” said Anderson-Zorn.
Honors Exploration courses are short-term, noncredit discussion experiences offered by the Honors Program focused on unique topics that change each semester. Previous topics included analyzing Taylor Swift’s lyrics; exploring race, representation, and culture in Blaxploitation films; and learning about the coffee industry.
“It’s a bit of a diversion from what they’re doing normally, and I know that this is my one chance to get to them some exposure to archives that they wouldn’t get anywhere else in their degree,” said Anderson-Zorn.
Nicole Binda, a business major in the course, was especially excited to see Theme Parks and the Power of Place as one of this semester’s Honors Exploration offerings.
“I’ve always been into theme parks, whether it’s the different rides or the entertainment industry,” said Binda. “Once I saw that there was an exploration offered for this topic, I was really excited.”
By combining personal and professional passions, Anderson-Zorn was perfectly positioned to educate students about the history of theme parks and the value of archival work during the five-week course, which ran January 30-February 27.
“It’s important, especially in the age that we live in, to teach people how to get back to the original document,” said Anderson-Zorn. “How do we look at our history to guide our future? We cannot rely on AI to do that work for us.”
When planning content for this course, Anderson-Zorn looked for ways to incorporate archival awareness into disciplines that might not have the opportunity to explore this type of research during their time at Illinois State.
When she first taught this Honors Exploration in 2023, students enrolled from a variety of majors including history, anthropology, psychology, business, and theatre. This semester, she had mostly business, education, and science majors.
“Just because they are not a humanities-based major, doesn’t mean these original records aren’t still incredibly important to them and what they could potentially use it for in their later professions,” said Anderson-Zorn.
Binda foresees the ability to locate and interpret original records as being useful in her anticipated business career. Classmate Ruby Dluzak plans to apply what they’ve learned to their future career in early childhood education.
“I didn’t know about the Library of Congress and that you could look up all kinds of things,” said Dluzak. “I didn’t think about the public records that were accessible. Being able to find new ways to find resources will be very interesting and useful in the future.”
Through the lens of learning about theme parks, Anderson-Zorn encouraged her students to seek archival sources based on class content and engage with the materials during class discussions. She even brought in examples of her own graduate-level work.
“When I was at the University of Central Florida, I got the chance to work on a collection by Harrison Buzz Price, the guy who told Disney where to put his parks,” said Anderson-Zorn.
Harrison Alan “Buzz” Price was tasked by Walt and Roy Disney to find locations for their theme parks. Using data from census materials, weather reports, and tax numbers, he identified the place that would be most profitable for the Disney brothers—Anaheim, California. He continued to work for the brothers throughout his career. In late 2004, Harrison donated his papers to UCF, and Anderson-Zorn interviewed him about his experience.
“Not only was I learning how to process collections as an archivist and be an archivist with his materials, but I also got to know the donor of those materials and get the firsthand story from him,” said Anderson-Zorn, who spent every other weekend at Disney World’s Epcot during graduate school. “Now, I can use these collections and give back to the next generation of archival users.”
For Dluzak, learning about Harrison was her favorite part of class.
“The most interesting thing was when we talked about Buzz and all the things that went into the planning of the parks, and how much they affected everything around them and the larger community,” said Dluzak. “In your day-to-day, you’re not really going to sit down and think, ‘How did opening Disneyland affect the entire community around it?’ Learning about it can help you connect it to your own life, experiences, and future.”
Despite the course name, Anderson-Zorn says class discussions go beyond the topic of theme parks.
“We also talk about automobiles, television, and suburbia—a brief sprint through history to get us where we are today,” said Anderson-Zorn. “One student found a painting from the Library of Congress from 1906 of two women dressed to the nines driving a car, and she was talking about how she saw the automobile as the thing that was so vitally important to get us to the theme parks.”
Through these discussions, Anderson-Zorn hopes students take away the skills and knowledge to find original records, interpret them, and make conclusions about what they discover. Her students are well on their way to achieving this goal.
“Whoever controls the historical record controls the narrative of history,” said Anderson-Zorn. “We want to be sure that we’re making it accessible, equitable, and fully available, the good and the bad, so that these students can make their choices.”
