Letterhead from Disney Studios, May 8, 1937

This entry is part of our monthly series to highlight letters

from the Charles Roberts Autograph Letter Collection.

Commencement occurred more than a month ago and recent Haverford grads are scouring the world looking for their new place in the world. A job search today usually calls for the applicant to summon all his initiative to find and secure a position.

But imagine a time when a newly successful and exciting industry petitioned Haverford to encourage their graduates to apply for employment! This happened in the spring of 1937 when Walt Disney wrote to the Dean encouraging applications from Haverford students who were able to meet the studio’s artistic requirements.

At the time of this letter the Disney Studio was on the verge of its incredible rise to success. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was released just six months after this letter came to Haverford. It was the first animated American film, first to be produced in color and first produced by Walt Disney. In 2008 the American Film Institute ranked Snow White as the greatest American animated film of all time.

Incredibly, a Haverford College graduate did join the Disney Studio in 1997! Andrew Millstein ’84 was named General Manager for Walt Disney Animation Studios in 2008 and was interviewed by the Alumni Association about his career path. View this blog posting in the Haverford News Room.

Lucy Saxon (’06) is pleased to return to the Haverford College Special & Quaker Collections this summer for an internship culminating her library school experience.  She will graduate in August from San Jose State University with a Masters in Library and Information Science.  Lucy was a Comparative Literature Major, and is interested in archives and special collections, language, literature, history, and quakerism.
This summer, she is assisting Digital Collections Librarian David Conners in cleaning up and standardizing records from many databases as they are combined into the new Collections Manager system.  She is thrilled to be working on the Fine Arts Collection, doing cataloging, and helping to make part of the collection available online.  She will also help to write cataloging documentation for future catalogers.  She is delighted to be back in the Special Collections where her undergraduate work inspired her decision to pursue a career in librarianship, and is enjoying another beautiful summer on campus.