federal government spent nearly $20 billion… federal spending was responsible for nearly half: Cited in White, Your Misfortune, p. 498.
the second-largest manufacturing center: Ibid., p. 498.
the focus of the local economy: Ibid., p. 515.
19 “Worship as you are”: Quoted in Jackson, Crabgrass Frontier, p. 264.
the fastest-growing city: Cited in Wescott, Anaheim, p. 71.
Richard and Maurice McDonald: For the story of the McDonald brothers, I have relied on Kroc, Grinding It Out; McDonald, Complete Hamburger; Love, Behind the Arches; Tennyson, Hamburger Heaven; Boas and Chain, Big Mac.
20 “Imagine — No Car Hops”: The ad is reprinted in Tennyson, Hamburger Heaven, p. 62.
“Working-class families”: Love, Behind the Arches, p. 41.
21 The same year the McDonald brothers opened: For the founding of the Hell’s Angels and the fiftieth anniversary celebration, see Phillip W. Browne, “Ventura Event a ‘Milestone’ for Hell’s Angels,” Ventura County Star, March 15, 1998.
“They get angry when they read”: Hunter S. Thompson, Hell’s Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga (New York: Ballantine Books, 1995), p. 45.
22 impressed by Adolf Hitler’s Reichsautobahn: See Goddard, Getting There, p. 181;
“1956: Interstate,” Business Week: 100 Years of Innovation, Summer 1999.
46,000 miles of road: “1956: Interstate.”
“Our food was exactly the same”: George Clark, one of the founders of Burger Queen, made this admission. Quoted in Luxenberg, Roadside Empires, p. 76.
William Rosenberg: For the story of Dunkin’ Donuts, see Luxenberg, Roadside Empires, pp. 18–20.
Glenn W. Bell, Jr.: For the story of Taco Bell, see Love, Behind the Arches, pp. 267; Jakle and Sculle, Fast Food, pp. 257–58.
Keith G. Cramer: For the story of Burger King, see McLamore, The Burger King.
Dave Thomas: For the story of Wendy’s, see Thomas, Dave’s Way.
23 Thomas S. Monaghan: For the story of Domino’s, see Monaghan, Pizza Tiger.
Harland Sanders: For the story of KFC, see Sanders, Life As I Have Known It; and Whitworth, “Kentucky Fried.”
“not to call a no-good, lazy”: Sanders, Life As I Have Known It, p. 141.
24 The Motormat: See Witzel, American Drive-In, p. 121.
the Biff-Burger chain: See Tennyson, Hamburger Heaven, p. 73.
“Miracle Insta Machines”: See McLamore, The Burger King, photo insert between pp. 126 and 127.
25 one of the largest privately owned fast food chains: Karcher, Never Stop Dreaming, p. 79.
accused of insider trading: See Karcher, Never Stop Dreaming, pp. 123–24; Bruce Horovitz and Keith Bradsher, “Carl’s Jr. Founder Accused of Insider Trading Scheme,” Los Angeles Times, April 15, 1988; and Richard Martin, “Karchers Pay $664,000 Fine in Stock Case,” Nation’s Restaurant News, August 7, 1989.
25 Carl’s real estate investments proved unwise: My account of Carl Karcher’s financial difficulties is based primarily on my interview with him. I confirmed the details through a variety of printed sources, including “Carl Karcher Board Rejects Founder’s Bid to Take Firm Private,” Wall Street Journal, December 21, 1992; Thomas R. King, “Chairman of Carl Karcher Enterprises May Seek to Oust Some Board Members,” Wall Street Journal, September 2, 1993; Peggy Hesketh, “Karcher’s ‘Godfather’: Board Says Pizza Baron’s Offer Is One It Can Refuse,” Orange County Business Journal, September 20, 1993; David J. Jefferson, “Fast Food Firm Ousts Karcher as Chairman,” Wall Street Journal, October 4, 1993; Jim Gardner, “Foley-Karcher: Tentative Team in Control of CKE,” Orange County Business Journal, December 20, 1993; Richard Martin, “Carl N. Karcher: CKE’s Founder Reflects on His Past, Looks Toward His Future,” Nation’s Restaurant News, August 3, 1998.
2. Your Trusted Friends
For the story of Ray Kroc, I relied mainly on his memoir, Grinding It Out; Max Boas and Steven Chain, Big Mac, and John Love, Behind the Arches. My visit to the Ray A. Kroc museum provided many useful insights into the man. Steven Watts’s The Magic Kingdom: Walt Disney and the American Way of Life (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997), is by far the best biography of Disney, drawing extensively upon material from the Disney archive and interviews with Disney’s associates. Although I disagree with some of Watts’s conclusions, his research is extraordinary. Richard Schickel’s The Disney Version: The Life, Times, Art, and Commerce of Walt Disney (New York: Avon Books, 1968) remains provocative and highly relevant more than three decades after its publication. Leonard Mosley’s Disney’s World (New York: Stein and Day, 1985) and Marc Eliot’s Walt Disney: Hollywood’s Dark Prince (London: Andre Deutsch, 1993) offer a counterpoint to the hagiographies sponsored by the Walt Disney Company. My view of American attitudes toward technology was greatly influenced by two books: Leo Marx’s The Machine in the Garden: Technology and the Pastoral Ideal in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970) and David E. Nye’s American Technological Sublime (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1994).
In the growing literature on marketing to children, three books are worth mentioning for what they (often inadvertently) reveaclass="underline" Dan S. Acuff with Robert H. Reiher, What Kids Buy and Why: The Psychology of Marketing to Kids (New York: Free Press, 1997); Gene Del Vecchio, Creating Ever-Cooclass="underline" A Marketer’s Guide to a Kid’s Heart (Gretna, La.: Pelican Publishing, 1998); and James U. McNeal, Kids As Customers: A Handbook of Marketing to Children (New York: Lexington Books, 1992). Some of the articles in children’s marketing journals, such as Selling to Kids and Entertainment Marketing Letter, are remarkable documents for future historians. Two fine reports introduced me to the whole subject of marketing in America’s schools: Consumers Union Education Services, “Captive Kids: A Report on Commercial Pressures on Kids at School,” Consumers Union, 1998; and Alex Molnar, “Sponsored Schools and Commercialized Classrooms: Schoolhouse Commercializing Trends in the 1990s,” Center for the Analysis of Commercialism in Education, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, August 1998. The Center for Science in the Public Interest has been battling for food safety and proper nutrition for more than thirty years. Michael Jacobson’s report “Liquid Candy: How Soft Drinks Are Harming Americans’ Health,” October 1998, is another fine example of the center’s work. The corporate memos from the McDonald’s advertising campaign were given to me by someone who thought I’d find them “enlightening,” and indeed they are.