Sunshine and Rain: Growth and Inequality in Twentieth-Century Orlando 11 views

Sunshine and Rain: Growth and Inequality in Twentieth-Century Orlando tells the story of how Orlando, Florida, grew from a small citrus town into one of the fastest-growing metropolitan areas in the United States. While many accounts begin with the arrival of Walt Disney World in 1971, this dissertation shows that the city’s transformation was already well underway. Decades before Disney, local business and civic leaders promoted Orlando as a modern “Action Center,” using land development, expanding infrastructure, federal investment, and pro-growth policies to attract residents, businesses, and capital. Yet this growth came at a cost. The same processes that fueled Orlando’s expansion also produced deep racial and economic inequalities. In its early decades, the region’s economy depended on low-wage agricultural labor, a pattern that persisted even as new industries emerged. African American communities faced segregation, limited housing opportunities, labor exploitation, and displacement, especially as highways and new development projects reshaped the region. Federal investment during World War II and the Cold War accelerated economic change but distributed its benefits unevenly, often favoring highly-skilled workers. The rise of tourism and the opening of Walt Disney World intensified these patterns by shifting the regional economy toward a tourism-based service economy reliant on low-wage labor. By tracing Orlando’s development across the twentieth century, this dissertation shows that growth and inequality developed together. In doing so, it reveals how the forces that built modern Orlando also entrenched inequality, offering a clear lens into the uneven costs of rapid urban growth in the modern American South.

PHD (Doctor of Philosophy)

Urban History; African American History; Southern History; Sunbelt; Walt Disney World

English

2026-04-29