When you hear the term Imagineer, it is synonymous with the Walt Disney Company. The term was actually originally created by the Aluminum Company of America (Alcoa). Alco used the term in a 1942 defining it as "to promote a concept of letting your imagination run wild and then engineer it down to earth." When sitting down to write this Blog Series in honor of Women’s History Month, I researched countless women who had an impact on the Walt Disney Company. There were so many names to choose from and I could probably write about the topic for ages but Harriet Burns was someone I knew I needed to spotlight in this series. She was an icon, a true pioneer to countless women of the world in the 1950s-1960s. She was working in a man’s world to become the first female Imagineer as well as one of the founding members of overall imaginers in Disney history. Think about it, it takes thousands of imaginers to create attraction and theming at the Walt Disney properties but in the 1950s there were only three Imagineers in total!
It is often said that we celebrate women who broke the glass ceiling of their time and by far Harriet shattered that ceiling in the mid-1950s. As a kid and to be honest even as an adult, I’ve always had a mini obsession with the concept of Imagineering. “First Lady of Imagineering” does not only describe how she was the first female in the field but the way she held herself as a career woman. There are no doubts that Walt Disney himself held a special place in his heart and creative soul. She was featured on many episodes of his 1960s television show and was also in the meeting where the term Audio Animatronics was coined.
The legendary Harriet Tapp (Burns) was born on August 20, 1928 in San Antonio, Texas. At an early age growing up during the depression Harriet had been in preschool where they truly had to be creative and make their play things. This time in her life is accredited to her passion and developing love for creativity. After high school her father had offered to pay for her college education if she majored in Home Economics. She reluctantly agreed but would later change her major to art.
Harriet earned her bachelor’s degree in art from Southern Methodist University in Dallas and then went to Graduate School at the University of New Mexico where she studied advanced design. Harriet married her college sweetheart William Burns in 1951. Harriet and William had a daughter in 1952 and eventually moved to Los Angeles in 1953 when she was 25.
Harriet’s first job was a part-time position at DICE (Display Industries Cooperative Exchange), where she designed props and set for television show Colgate Comedy Hour on NBC. She also worked on interiors and set for floor shows and hotel in Las Vegas. She was also a part of the design team for Santa’s Village, a tourist attraction theme park in Lake Arrowhead, California during the mid-1950s. In 1955, DICE went out of business, which lead to a co-worker of Harriet to suggest applying for open positions at the Disney Studios.
When Harriet was hired in 1955 by the Walt Disney Company to paint sets for the Mickey Mouse Club television show, she was only 27 years old. She would begin coordinating the show’s color styling and went on to design and build the famous Mouse Clubhouse for the show. She was well known for her attire while she worked.
While working at Disney Studio, Harriet shared a workstation with Fred Joerger who was a model builder for WED Enterprises (later Walt Disney Imagineering). While continuing to work on set building, Harriet began working with Fred in Disney’s model shop where they were building miniature prototypes of Disneyland buildings and attractions. WED Enterprises originally only consisted of 3 members: Harriet Burns, Fred Joerger and Wathel Rogers. Harriet contributed significantly to the development of Disneyland, by creating both miniature models as well as actual theme park attractions.
She would often work wearing classic skirts, blouses, dresses and high heels of the 1950s all the while using tools and working with hardware such as drill presses and sanders. Women didn’t usually wear pants during these times so she would wear the usual womanly attire and would always bring a pair of pants in a bag with her to world in the even she needed to climb into high places.
One of Harriet’s first assignments for WED Enterprises was to craft a model of Sleeping Beauty Castle, which would be not only the hub of the theme park, a Disney Icon but also a landmark building that is the oldest Disney castle, which opened on July 17, 1955. Once Disneyland was open to the public, Harriet was permanently transferred to the team. She worked as Disneyland expanded following its grand opening where she designed models of the Matterhorn Bobsleds attraction as a 1/100th scale replica of the famous Matterhorn in Switzerland. One of Harriet’s many tasks while at Walt Disney Imagineering was “figure-finishing” which involves applying pain or other finishes to Disneyland attractions and mannequins to create the finished look.
She personally designed and painted the set pieces and underwater sculptures for the Submarine Voyage ride. She also applied each individual feather to the animatronic birds in Walt Disney’s Enchanted Tiki Room, which was said to be her most challenging project ever. Even after the attraction’s opening in 1963, she would routinely maintain the attraction’s birds. She was also a figure furnisher for Snow White’s Adventure. One of the more harrowing tasks Harriet was thrown her way was painting a small figure of timothy Q. Mouse on the beloved Dumbo the Flying Elephant attraction during the ride’s major renovation. The figure was to be painted by Harriet while sitting on both sides of the very top of the attraction.
Harriet would further her career at Walt Disney Imagineering by helping build models and final designs of New Orleans Square in Disneyland. Along with the set design of the themed land, she also designed the attractions within the land. She built the exact model of the entire Pirate of the Caribbean dark ride. Along with the model, she was also the figure finisher for the pirate mannequins, the attraction opened 1967. Also, in the land she assisted in the design of the Haunted Mansion which opened 2 years later in 1969. Harriet had originally been selected to provide the face for the character that would later become Madame Leota for Haunted Mansion, but sadly her facial features were too small to project onto the bust.
Harriet was also part of a team of Disney employees who created several Disney attractions for the 1964 New York World’s Fair, which would serve as a foundation for Disney’s “Florida Project” later name Disney World. She was a part of the designing of General Electric-Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln and The Carousel of Progress. Both attractions would later open at Walt Disney Theme Parks.
Harriet’s talent would later gain the attention of Walt Disney himself and she was featured on several episodes of the 1960s television series The Wonderful World of Color. The show would often take viewers behind the scenes of the Walt Disney Company. Walt Disney would bring Harriet on the show to help introduce new attractions to the theme parks. In 1986, Harriet retired from the Walt Disney Company.
In 1992, she was honored with a window display of her work on Main Street, U.S.A in Disneyland with a commemorative plaque. The plaque read “The Artisans Loft, Handmade Miniatures by Harriet Burns. She was the first women in Disney History to receive this honor. In 2000, she was designated a Disney Legend by the Walt Disney Company, as an employee “whose imagination, talents and dreams have created the Disney magic.” In 2011, the Magic Kingdom Haunted Mansion queue graveyard expansion honored Harriet with a tribute headstone that applied her name to the female Opera Singer.
Sadly, Harriet Burns passed away on July 25, 2008 in Los Angeles, California. Many may have not known her name but have enjoyed her contributions to the Disney Company for decades. Her determination and creativity allowed her to overcome her male dominated industry and truly paved the way for thousands of female Imagineers who came after her. She was a true pioneer and visionary who broke through the glass and showed the world what women are truly made of. As the saying goes "anything you can do, I can do better." Whether you are a female aspiring to be an artist or construction worker, Harriet is truly someone to research further and be inspired by, she took the bull by the horn and became the "First Lady of Imaginerring".
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