Please join the Vartan Gregorian Center for Research in the Humanities at the New York Public Library in welcoming Roland Betancourt, author of Disneyland and the Rise of Automation. When Disneyland opened in 1955, its attractions introduced the public to a new world of machines, engineering, and automation disguised as amusement. In Disneyland and the Rise of Automation, Roland Betancourt, Professor in the Department of Art History at the University of California, Irvine, traces how Disney鈥檚 engineers transformed the technologies developed for factories, military systems, and industrial manufacturing to create immersive rides and attractions鈥攆rom the animatronic birds of the Enchanted Tiki Room to the mechanics behind Space Mountain and the Matterhorn Bobsleds.