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Marvelously rich in source material and thoughtful in approach, Nicholas Sammond's Babes in Tomorrowland is a history of American child-rearing practices in the mid-twentieth century, in particular how the interplay between the burgeoning popular media, predominant social theories of childhood, and everyday fears and concerns of the American parent worked together to produce what came to be considered a "typical" American child during the years between the Great Depression and the births of the post-war baby boomers. Scholars looking for literary analysis of Disney films or new information on Walt Disney will find little of that in Sammond's text; the only film he analyzes in depth is Pinocchio, although he does make some intriguing observations about the impact the little-discussed nature documentaries and live-action Disney films of the 1950s had on society, and much of his conversation about the rise of Walt Disney Productions has been discussed elsewhere.

The Child as Father of the Man: American Childhood and Walt Disney Babes in Tomorrowland: Walt Disney and the Making of the American Child, 1930-1960, by Nicholas Sammond. Chapel Hill: Duke UP, 2005.

Marvelously rich in source material and thoughtful in approach, Nicholas Sammond's Babes in Tomorrowland is a history of American child-rearing practices in the mid-twentieth century, in particular how the interplay between the burgeoning popular media, predominant social theories of childhood, and everyday fears and concerns of the American parent worked together to produce what came to be considered a "typical" American child during the years between the Great Depression and the births of the post-war baby boomers.

Two overall purposes drive Sammond's dense study. One is to examine a debate that is still ongoing, regarding the influence of the media on children for good and for ill, and how Walt Disney Productions in particular benefited from this debate during its rise to fame. The other is to ponder the origins of the concept of the generic American child in the twentieth century, as constructed by developmental science as well as in the media-a concept to which parents turn in raising their own children, which marketing strategists use to sell educational products, and which social critics use in criticizing the excesses of American culture overall (2). Thus Sammond's book is not simply a consideration of the Disney company's rise to fame and power, as some might think, given the cover image and the title. More than that, it is an informed and informing study of the roots of the culture of contemporary American childhood.

In conjunction with the dual focuses of the book, the chapters alternate between scrutinizing the development of early twentiethcentury social constructs of childhood and the development of the Disney corporation as it responded to those shifting theories. Chapter one, "Disney Makes Disney," covers fairly familiar ground. It reflects on how the persona of the man Walt Disney was created in the 1930s and 1940s by the corporation in collusion with the American public, who, Sammond argues, wanted to believe in the American Dream of self-made manhood and so embraced the embodiment of this dream-as promulgated by the corporation-in the persona of Walt, self-made entrepreneur and small-town boy. Sammond's intent in this deconstruction is not to valorize or demonize either the man or the company, but rather to shed light upon how this public persona affected early twentieth-century practices of child rearing and interacted with the growing power of consumerism. He concludes, not surprisingly, that the Disney myth reinforced "the middle-class American fantasy of personal development" (26) and assuaged parental fears for American children and America's future after the Great Depression. Sammond in particular looks at how Disney's Pinocchio (1940), Dumbo (1941), and Cinderella (1950) reflected the nation's concerns about the future of its children and offered possibilities for negotiating that future. More to the point, Sammond argues, as a result of marketing strategies, the American public began equating Disney the man with the products his company produced: parents in particular and the public in general believed that "children who consumed Disney products were consuming the embodied life of Walt Disney, and in doing so, were increasing the odds that their lives might follow a trajectory similar to his" (79). Sammond notes how the Disney corporation responded to the belief that "consumption was itself productive" (130) by extending its products beyond films into everyday items-watches, toys, school supplies, and clothing-that would insure its presence in everyday life. At the end of this chapter, and even more so in the next, Sammond sets the mythic Walt as proffered to the public and reflected in his products against the concerns of social scientists of the1930s that movies were a negative influence on children; he concludes that the Disney myth was presented by the corporation and accepted by the American public as a reassuring counterbalance to these alarmist notions.

Chapter two, "Making a Manageable Child," moves from a focus on the emergent Disney corporation to the emerging social science of childhood studies. Sammond argues that the early child-study movement, with its reliance on white, non-immigrant, middle-class children as objects of study, conceived a notion of normal child behavior and development that was highly restricted but nearly universally accepted. One of the primary goals of the childhood specialists of the 1930s, in the face of the large immigrant population now in the United States, was to produce a manageable and well-behaved child who would become an efficient and productive citizen, one who would adhere to and promulgate traditional "American" values rather than culturally diverse ones. Chapter three continues this discussion by considering how a popular sociological study of American culture and character that set the heart of America in the small-town Midwest (Muncie, Indiana), the 1929 book Middletown by Helen and Robert Lynd, furthered the link between childhood and ideal Americanism with its reification in the home and in public venues, such as school and mass entertainment.

The last half of Sammond's text is perhaps the most illuminating. Chapters four, five, and six focus on the 1940s and 1950s and the backlash by social theorists against the earlier ideas of strict social control. Concerned about the institutionalization of totalitarianism, child development theorists attempted to resolve the "central dilemma that would define child rearing in the next two decades: how to balance the needs of an orderly and rational society against those of individual freedom in the production of future generations" (193). They did so by locating the "ideal American character in a historical landscape" of the past and a potential future that was dependent on the American child (194). Sammond further argues that Disney capitalized on this notion through developing its nature and science documentaries-particularly the True Life Adventure series that featured animals in family settings-historical live-action films, and, most significantly, the physical layout of Disneyland, with its various sections of Frontierland, Adventureland, Fantasyland, and Tomorrowland, all radiating out from the central point of Main Street, USA. Sammond concludes by considering the shift in social theory of the center of American culture from small-town Midwest to the burgeoning suburbs. Child studies of the post-World War II period were concerned by the perceived threat of "suburban conformity and its spate of mass-produced goods, including the new technology of television" (21). Sammond traces how Disney responded to these concerns in its television programming and theme parks.

Scholars looking for literary analysis of Disney films or new information on Walt Disney will find little of that in Sammond's text; the only film he analyzes in depth is Pinocchio, although he does make some intriguing observations about the impact the little-discussed nature documentaries and live-action Disney films of the 1950s had on society, and much of his conversation about the rise of Walt Disney Productions has been discussed elsewhere. The strength of the work lies not so much in the light he sheds on the Walt Disney corporation but rather on the interconnections between the development of the Disney empire in all its facets and the development of twentieth-century notions of childhood, on the give-and-take between social theorists and the consumer culture of parents and others concerned with raising "good kids." Sammond's intent is not to affirm any one particular social or scientific theory of child development or opinion regarding Disney (man or company), but instead to see what was embraced by the public during the years of his study, and how various social forces affected child rearing practices and notions. For those looking for a social history of the years when American consumerism came to control, to a large extent, how we define childhood and judge parenting skills, Babes in Tomorrowland is a valuable and enlightening tool. A member of the University of Toronto Cinema Studies faculty, Nicholas Sammond received the 2006 Katherine Singer Kovacs award from the Society for Cinema and Media Studies, an award given annually for outstanding scholarship in film and media studies, for this work. Babes in Tomorrowland is certainly deserving of such an award, and will be engaging reading for all interested in American childhood studies.