This book gives a timeline of the Disney Studio beginning in 1901, a historical context of how Walt Disney created his company, and an explanation of how the Disney Company was able to rise. It compares the Disney Company to other studios and explains how Disney became involved in making films for the government. It mentions that “Disney cartoons took on wartime themes” in 1942 and that there were “a number of films, produced for the government which were to meant to entertain and educate,” such as Food Will Win the War and Out of the Frying Pan into the Firing Line. Also, it discusses the impact The New Spirit had on Americans. “Donald Duck was chosen to star in the film, and a vast percentage of Americans testified that it encouraged them to pay their taxes promptly.” This helped the American government because the film was made “to try to persuade Americans to pay their income taxes on time as the money was so necessary for the war effort.”
    This source addresses both parts of my thesis. First, it provides a historical context for the Disney Company from its beginning to the present and discusses how Disney cartoons were made. Yet, it is also valuable to the second part of my thesis because it provides an actual example of a Disney propaganda cartoon affecting the way Americans acted.

This book analyzes Walt Disney’s character and gives a long and detailed history of the Disney Company. It investigates the birth of Mickey Mouse and the majority of Disney’s films. There is a section dedicated to discussing Disney’s influence during the Second World War. It starts saying that “Disney received a call from the Navy, offering him a contract to produced a series of films,” and goes on to talk about several of Disney’s war films like Der Fuhrer’s Face.
    Schickel’s book gives a detailed account of the Disney Company. Looking at the way Walt Disney’s Company functioned is essential because it allows one to see how and why Disney cartoons were created. Though Richard Shale, the author of another source in this bibliography, provides analysis of Disney’s cartoons in his book, this source also examines some of Disney’s films. This is important because it is necessary to gain multiple viewpoints on each aspect of my thesis.

The author analyzes the function of Disney characters, why they were created and what purpose they serve focusing on Donald Duck’s character. In the introduction, David Kunzle says, this “book studies the Disney productions and their effects on the world. It cannot be a coincidence that much of what they observe in the relationships between the Disney characters can also be found, and maybe, even explained, in the organization of work within the Disney industry.” He goes into detail saying that none of the Disney characters seem to have parents. Characters have cousins, nephews, uncles, and aunts, but there do not seem to be any sons or daughters. He also claims that Disney’s cartoons are used to manipulate children. He says that Donald Duck represents unemployment. “The bourgeois concept of entertainment, and the specific manner in which it is expounded in the world of Disney, is the super structural manifestation of the dislocations and tensions of an advance capitalist historical base. It is altogether normal for readers experiencing the conflicts of their age from within the perspective of the imperialist system, to see their own daily life, and projected future, reflected in the Disney system.”
    This source is valuable to my thesis as it goes into depth describing how Disney characters were constructed. To understand how Disney propaganda was used, it is necessary to analyze the characters, which made Disney cartoons possible. The book also examines how Disney cartoons could affect people suggesting that viewers could identify with the characters.

The author claims that World War I was the “first total war” and the use of propaganda was an important aspect. He says that the First World War was “waged not only against the enemy’s armies, but also against the civilian population” because it was also a war of ideologies. He discusses how censorship suppressed information and how propaganda became influential. According to the article, German leaders felt that “only an effective propaganda campaign could re-establish confidence” in Germany. The author goes on to explain that cartoonists were “bound by the restrictions of military censorship and obliged to observe the propaganda guidelines laid down by the press bureaus.” The role of cartoonists changed significantly, as “before the war they were social critics,” but after the war broke out they needed to “behave as good patriots.” The author describes the situation in Germany, but states that many countries experienced “similar developments.” He claims that cartoons “took on a new function: its task was to mobilize the population both morally and intellectually for the war, explain setbacks, confirm belief in the superiority of the fatherland and proclaim the hope of final victory.”   
    This article is important because it shows how propaganda was used during World War I. Obviously, this lead to new developments and influenced the way propaganda was utilized for World War II. It also explains the role that cartoonists had during the Second World War and how cartoons were transformed into propaganda carriers. Though the article focuses on Germany, the author claims that many nations used propaganda similarly, so the article is still applicable to my thesis, which investigates propaganda in the United States.

David Welch’s article describes how the Nazis used propaganda to influence public opinion. He argues “the concept of a ‘national’ or ‘people’s’ community was a key element in the ‘revolutionary’ aims of the Nazi regime, and illustrates the remarkably ambitious nature of its propaganda.” He claims that German propaganda was ambitious because it attempted to unite the classes. The author also analyzes “two sections of the community- the industrial working class and German youth.” He believes that there is “considerable evidence to suggest that Nazi policies and propaganda reflected many of the aspirations of large sections of the population.” This argument continues as Welch says that propaganda is “as much about confirming rather than converting public opinion. Propaganda, if it is to be effective must, in a sense, preach to those who are already partially converted.” He points out that the “regime’s propaganda was pragmatic enough to recognize that its policies could be maintained provided section of the community who were opposed to Nazism remained quiescent.” He mentions that Nazi leaders such as Joseph Goebbels identified the importance of propaganda and attempted to utilize it to their advantage. Propaganda may have been effective in Germany because the country was suffering from national humiliation after World War I and was also was facing economic troubles. The propaganda also based on traditional German ideas, which included: an “appeal to national unity based on the principle: ‘The community before the individual,’ the need for racial purity,” and “charismatic leadership.” The purpose of Nazi propaganda was to radically “restructure German society so that the prevailing class, religious and sectional loyalties would be replaced by a new heightened national awareness.”
    This article gives an interesting viewpoint about the effects of propaganda as the author says that propaganda is more capable of confirming an opinion that already exists than completely altering a person’s perspective. This idea conflicts with Meaney’s article, which describes how propaganda can manipulate any person’s mindset. Yet, Welch’s argument is supported by some of the sources that describe the Disney Company, which claim that Disney based some of its cartoons on public opinion. Though the article uses Germany as an example, it tends to discuss propaganda mostly in general terms, so its arguments are applicable to my thesis.

This article goes into the history of the cartoon and how it was developed. The author argues that cartoons can be used to show historians the attitudes of the societies that produced them and he explains that there are two types of cartoons: joke cartoons and cartoons of opinion. He chooses to focus on cartoons of opinion, which are defined to be “visual means of communicating opinions and attitudes or of ‘summing up’ situations.” They deal with “domestic politics, social themes, and foreign affairs.” Kemnitz does discuss a few joke cartoons however, “such as William Mauldin’s great World War II cartoon.” Regardless of type, the author claims that cartoons are more effective than other mediums in communicating because they convey messages “quickly and pungently.” He also acknowledges that the “cartoon too frequently has been employed as a propaganda tool.” He believes that cartoons were used in the First World War “to whip up hatred and thereby sustain the civilian enthusiasm which made the sacrifices of total war tolerable.”
    This article is important because it defines cartoons, which my thesis discusses. It also explains how propaganda was first used in cartoons, which is important because it is likely that cartoonists at the Disney Company watched these cartoons and used them as a reference when making cartoons for the Second World War. Additionally, it says that cartoons are the most effective form of propaganda, so the second part of my thesis is addressed. According to Nelson, it is probable that Disney cartoons had a significant impact on public opinion in America during World War II.

This article explains why propaganda is such a powerful force and uses Germany as an example. The author thinks that propaganda is not a means of persuasion, but rather “an extension of the techniques of psychical coercion.” He incorporates ideas from Adolf Hitler, who tried to manipulate facts to control public opinion. Meaney investigates the way Hitler used propaganda and concludes that “terror used with suddenness can stampede the masses into a course of action; used over a prolonged period it can exhaust individuals psychologically and cause them to collapse and to yield.” In his argument, he also discusses modern advertising, which makes it easy to spread propaganda. With an example, he demonstrates “the full effect of concentrated propaganda on an individual, showing that a gradual, unconscious, involuntary, but nevertheless effective breaking down of the will’s latent opposition took place.”
    This article addresses the second part of my thesis as it explains the effects of propaganda. Though it focuses on German propaganda, which differed from American propaganda, the author discusses propaganda in general to show that it can be incredibly powerful. The example that Meaney uses demonstrates how any person can be manipulated by propaganda, so it seems as though the author would argue that Americans would have been greatly affected by cartoon propaganda during World War II if he were writing a paper with my thesis.

The author examines five different cases to discover whether or not propaganda movies were able to reach the audiences they were designed to influence and if the films were actually capable of making an impact. One conclusion he makes is that audiences found their own meanings in the movies, so it was more the audience than the person supplying the propaganda who determined whether the film would have an effect. Data was recorded that actually showed that some American propaganda films “had no effect ‘on men’s motivation to serve as soldiers, which was considered the ultimate objective of the orientation programme.’” He thinks “while propaganda might be good at enforcing existing attitudes, it was largely ineffective in changing values that were determined to a far greater extent by family, peers and other important social influences.” In his book, he looks at British film propaganda in both World Wars, Soviet film propaganda in between 1917 and 1928, Film Propaganda in Germany in between 1933 and 1945, and Italian neorealist films.
    This book is valuable to my project because it discusses the second part of my thesis by investigating how film propaganda in general can affect people. The author, Nicholas Reeves, seems to agree with David Welch, the author of another article that in this bibliography, as he claims that propaganda’s effects are determined by the viewer. Also, the author reinforces ideas presented in other sources, which suggest that Disney used the American public’s ideas and Mickey Mouse’s character was based on American values. Lastly, this source is useful because it includes examples of propaganda in Europe, so this allows for comparison to American propaganda. Though my thesis is strictly about American propaganda, it would be helpful to read about the way propaganda was utilized in other countries.

This book shows how Mickey Mouse’s character affected America. Disney himself is said to have “perceived Mickey as a powerful and important symbol in American culture.” He had previously been used to help “people escape from their Depression anxieties.” This is one reason why Disney films were popular, but this source investigates why Disney cartoons were so well liked and finds that “Disney combined the myth-making medium of film with his perception of American popular taste.” The author claims “Mickey’s creation of a fantasy world is an accurate reflection of the cultural mood in 1944. After three years of war, Americans were tired of propaganda, and beyond ‘those glorious days of 1942, when audiences cheered the American flag on the screen.’” Uelmen goes on to explain that the Disney studio offered an escape to the war by providing audiences with a fantasy world. Disney “played an important role in projecting images of wartime unity.” Unity was defined as the civilian war effort and “how Mickey perceives cultural difference in America is a reflection of both the wartime consolidation of public opinion and Disney’s unique way of seeing the culture.” For example, Minnie says that in San Francisco the sun sets in the perfect place, but in Chinatown she says that she cannot read any of the signs in stores. Disney may “have been making a subtle reference to the power of Western resources to defeat the ‘Asian monster.’
    This source is very useful as it answers both parts of my thesis suggesting that Mickey Mouse’s character allowed Disney propaganda films to be successful. Uelmen discusses the background of Mickey Mouse and shows that his character was a precedent for why Disney cartoons were effective. Mickey’s character was used to help people deal with the Depression, so Americans were able to bond with his character. Therefore, they would be more inclined to trust and agree with the ideas presented in Disney cartoons later on even if the beliefs were pro-war.