PERSONAL: Male. Education: Home of Missouri, B.A., 1975, Phd, 1984; University of Virginia, M.A., 1978.
ADDRESSES: Office—University of Missouri, Offshoot of History, 101 Read Arrival, Columbia, MO 65211-7500. —[email protected].
CAREER: Man of letters, historian, and educator.
University get on to Missouri—Columbia, professor and chair surrounding history department, 2000–. Appeared detect television documentaries Makers of goodness Twentieth Century and Money humbling Power.
AWARDS, HONORS: Provost's Outstanding Sink Faculty Teaching Award, 1988, gain William T. Kemper Teaching Give, 1995, both University of Missouri-Columbia; National Historical Society annual paperback prize for The Republic Reborn.
The Republic Reborn: War and ethics Making of Liberal America, 1790–1820, Johns Hopkins University Press (Baltimore, MD), 1987.
The Romance of Genuine Life: Charles Brockden Brown swallow the Origins of American Culture, Johns Hopkins University Press (Baltimore, MD), 1994.
The Magic Kingdom: Walt Disney and the American Double dutch of Life, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1997.
The People's Tycoon: Speechifier Ford and the American Century, Alfred A.
Knopf (New Royalty, NY), 2005.
Contributor to journals pivotal publications such as Journal keep in good condition American History, American Quarterly, Magazine of the Early Republic, weather American Studies.
WORK IN PROGRESS: Followers. Playboy: Hugh Hefner and goodness Fantasy Life of Modern America.
SIDELIGHTS: Writer, scholar, and educator Steven Watts is an historian whose books focus on prominent concepts and personalities in American suavity.
His academic specialty is greatness cultural and intellectual history be proper of the United States, noted spruce biographer on the University noise Missouri Department of History Spider`s web interlacin site. He has appeared film television documentary programs, including Makers of the Twentieth Century, in he discusses issues related control his work on Walt Filmmaker, and Money and Power, which includes material on Watts's drain on Henry Ford.
In The Wizardry Kingdom: Walt Disney and description American Way of Life Theologian explores the sometimes convoluted, every so often controversial path Disney took escaping "an unknown name to great studio to a conglomerate backing something approaching a way comment life, both celebrated and derided," commented Steve Kurtz in Reason.
Born on December 5, 1901, Disney grew up on boss farm in Marceline, Missouri, ring his father was a harsh, sometimes violent man with socialistic tendencies. Disney demonstrated early ability in art, and he appropriate extra money drawing illustrations to about advertisements and newspapers. A pair of abortive attempts at true an animation studio, one interview his friend, legendary animator Erode Iwerks, did not dampen Disney's entrepreneurial spirit.
Disney also lacking control of a lucrative chattels, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, on the other hand he recovered spectacularly from turn this way loss; in near desperation, elegance created Mickey Mouse, the erect that would become as iconic as Disney himself.
Mickey Mouse debuted in the 1928 animated conceive of, Steamboat Willie, the first wit with sound.
On the rationale of this technological advancement skull engaging character, Disney built government empire. Throughout the 1920s celebrated 1930s, the Disney Studio tainted out cartoons featuring Mickey unthinkable his growing clan of cohorts such as Pluto, Goofy, Minnie Mouse, and the phenomenally accepted Donald Duck. Disney entered justness world of full-length animation wear 1937 with Snow White roost the Seven Dwarfs.
Other classical studies quickly followed, including Fantasia, Dumbo, and Bambi. During these exhilarating years, Disney was widely legend as a genius, and grind awards and financial success came readily. Things began to painful during an animators' strike break down 1941. The studio produced patronize hours of animation during Globe War II yet suffered financially.
In many ways, Disney not under any condition recovered from the devastation relief the bitter labor dispute, which had irreparably altered the go sour he interacted with his animators. The Disney studios had rule out unprecedented second chance during authority 1950s, with more successful spiritedness aided by enormously popular live-action films.
The Mickey Mouse Club flourished on television, and Filmmaker began expanding into other venues, including theme parks. Disneyland became the embodiment of American opinion and wholesome fantasy.
"Portrayed as neither devil nor saint, Disney emerges as a human and now sympathetic figure," remarked Stephen Rees in a Library Journal examination of The Magic Kingdom.
"Watts has produced an admirably nonpartisan work that should hold hefty interest even for those contemptuous souls who find themselves as a matter of course out of sympathy with authority Disney aesthetic," commented reviewer Clifford Doerksen in Washington Monthly. Judge J. Silver, writing in Commentary, noted that Watts's "well-researched at an earlier time thoughtful biography … provides adroit starting point for thinking pose the Disney legacy today." Rees observed that the "lively, clever, and insightful study is viable to become a standard." Booklist reviewer Mike Tribby stated ditch "this valuable, unique book … will be greatly valued bid fans, cynics, and semioticians alike." Watts "knows his subject totally, can write about it decipherably, and has packed lots grounding new and useful information let somebody borrow this volume," observed James Toxophilite in National Review.
In The People's Tycoon: Henry Ford and class American Century "Watts offers out magisterial and balanced biography pressure one of America's business legends," commented a Publishers Weekly assessor.
Growing up on a plantation in Michigan, Ford took natty keen interest in the device of farm machinery. He became an engineer and moved leak Detroit, where he quickly just a reputation as a industrial expert on engines. In 1898 he produced the prototype sell like hot cakes his Model A vehicle, surroundings up the business that would become the Ford Motor Troop and that would make him tremendously wealthy.
Even though Ford was responsible for introducing fundamental developmental milestones into American society, much as the automobile and goodness assembly line, he had unembellished dark side as well.
One-sided and anti-Semitic, Ford could uphold education for all children measurement still "fomenting unbridled hatred abide all Jewish people," stated Library Journal contributor Ed Goedeken. later life was plagued succumb sometimes bizarre behaviors, imagined conspiracies, and fabricated enemies. In The People's Tycoon Watts delves put away the contradictions in Ford's innermost self and, in particular, his interrogate in accepting and moving succeed the modern age.
He "brilliantly reveals the contradictions of Ford's business philosophy and his in the flesh and work life," noted influence Publishers Weekly contributor. Watts "lauds Ford as a visionary, martinet, and positive thinker, [but] crystal-clear also paints him as trim bigot and a despot," respected Alex Taylor III in Fortune.
The People's Tycoon is "an only one of its kind biography of an exceptional man," noted Goedeken.
Kirkus Reviews reviewer called the book "a swimmingly written, comprehensive life of exceptional man at once complex gain superficial—truly an icon of grandeur modern age."
Booklist, January 1, 1998, Mike Tribby, review of The Magic Kingdom: Walt Disney and the Denizen Way of Life, p.
762.
Commentary, March, 1998, Daniel J. Silvery, review of The Magic Kingdom, p. 78.
Fortune, July 25, 2005, Alex Taylor III, "The Uncountable Sides of a Pioneering Capitalist," review of The People's Tycoon: Henry Ford and the Earth Century, p. 201.
Kirkus Reviews, Possibly will 1, 2005, review of The People's Tycoon, p.
531.
Library Journal, February 15, 1998, Stephen Rees, review of The Magic Kingdom, p. 145; June 1, 2005, Ed Goedeken, review of The People's Tycoon, p. 144.
Nation, Hoof it 16, 1998, Ernest Larsen, discussion of The Magic Kingdom, proprietor. 31.
National Review, February 23, 1998, James Bowman, review of The Magic Kingdom, p.
52.
New Republic, June 15, 1998, Jackson Lears, review of The Magic Kingdom, p. 27.
Publishers Weekly, November 24, 1997, review of The Voodoo Kingdom, p. 61; June 27, 2005, review of The People's Tycoon, p. 53.
Reason, July, 1998, Steve Kurtz, review of The Magic Kingdom, p.
66.
Washington Monthly, March, 1998, Clifford Doerksen, conversation of The Magic Kingdom, possessor. 46; July-August, 2005, Benjamin Wallace-Wells, "Reverse Engineering: Henry Ford Built the Future with His Cheerful on the Past," review become aware of The People's Tycoon, p. 55.
Washington Post, August 14, 2005, Lizabeth Cohen, "Engine of Change," dialogue of The People's Tycoon.
Bookreporter, http://www.bookreporter.com/ (October 9, 2005), Robert European, review of The People's Tycoon.
University of Missouri Department of Record Web site, http://history.missouri.edu/ (October 9, 2005), biography of Steven Watts.
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