Disneyland opened in summer 1955. A million eager visitors streamed in in the first seven weeks. Working families came on their days off from Bethlehem and Kaiser steel mills, from car manufacturing plants in Maywood, South Gate, and Van Nuys, from downtown Los Angeles garment factories, and from the area’s largest employer, aerospace. The other employees of “Uncle Walt”, who labored in Disney’s Burbank studios, came too, alongside the rest of the Hollywood workforce. From near and far, the children of the AFL and CIO made their pilgrimages to the spectacular new Anaheim amusement park, strolling up Main Street USA to Tomorrowland.

Four in ten members of the state’s workforce belonged to unions. In the industrial sectors, union density hovered around 50 percent. California, the third-ranking manufacturing state, led the nation in agricultural production and in international shipping. Automobile production in Los Angeles County was second only to Detroit.