The original WYW newsletter (1994), the website (1996) and the blog (2015) evolved from decades worth of scattered paragraphs about early WDW - absolute facts, impolite opinions and speculative junk written at different times by someone who grew up with the resort in the 1970s, worked there in the 1980s and documented some of it in the 1990s. It's probably not well-suited for reading at all and only covers specific aspects of its subject matter. It fixates especially on long-gone attractions, weirder stuff like dark rides or magic shops plus the work of specific designers like Mary Blair, Claude Coats, Rolly Crump and Marc Davis.
The premises:
1) Walt Disney World was once the most amazing manmade
tourist attraction on the planet - the greatest amount of cool stuff in one
physical place with the least amount of mediocrity mixed in.
2) Early WDW still needs more nostalgic love from WDW itself. The
situation improved leading up to resort's 50th anniversary, yet has a long
way to go when compared against how diverse the range of now-missing early
elements actually were. Widen Your World attempts to communicate what
the early WDW "feeling" was for visitors and cast members, and
to provide context for those who wish they could have seen it firsthand.
3) WDW has some racist and sexist elements within its history that many other writers have avoided discussing and many of the people who have discussed it get the details wrong. I'm qualified to address some of it and think it's important to do so if only because it would be way too convenient to avoid it. And because it makes a lot of people angry whenever I do it.
Widen Your World was the first and oldest internet resource for Walt Disney World history and at least seems to have been the most frequently plagiarized site on the topic. Sometimes WYW is credited as a source when used, sometimes not, but if you read the same thing here and some other place, it's from here. If I quote text from a publication, it's attributed as such. All images are either my own, official company images or, again, attributed to their original source whenever possible. I watermarked a few images years ago when I thought it was worth the effort. It's not, but some people use the site just to scour original images that they go on to present elsewhere as their own. It's just going to happen.
On the flip side, some of the WDW-centric sites and blogs that have arisen since WYW began are EXACTLY what I'd hoped to see manifest online. Had they existed prior to 1996, my urgency to create a site would have been tempered. But I'll keep this one around because people still turn to it often and express their appreciation, which is all I could have asked for.
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| Mr, Toad's Wild Ride exterior c.1988 image source: Mike Lee |
