LB2017.19.17820

LB2017.19.17820

Herb Sorrell speaks with a laugh to an audience outside. A tree spreads its branches behind him. On the tree is a sign that reads, "DEATH... DISUNION."

Herbert Knott Sorrell (1897 – 1973) was a movie scenery painter and Union Organizer. 

Kosti Ruohomaa took some photos of Herb Sorrell during a strike of Disney employees in 1941, which Sorrell helped organize, and which Ruohomaa participated in.

"From the onset of the strike, Ruohomaa moved with his camera, following speech-makers at their meetings, artists sketching and painting for bystanders, and behind-the-scenes events, both day and night."(66). Ruohomaa had worked at Disney since 1939, producing animation for the Effects Department.

The animated feature "Fantasia" (1940) had been an expensive and labor-intensive film to make, but Disney Productions struggled to make back their investment in the film.  By 1941, Walt Disney had started a process that would eventually end in laying off half of the animation artists.  "Employees soon expressed dissatisfaction related to unfair wages, unreasonable hours," (64) and a number of other issues relating to Walt Disney's opaque and aloof management style.

"A striker, Ruohomaa assembled a separate scrapbook with ephemera and pictures drawn from his ongoing reportage. Day and night, he documented the strike events. The strong emotional ups and downs expressed during the unpleasant and acrid turns within the Disney Studios and its relationship to its talented employees were evidenced within the scenes Ruohomaa captured." (64). A large print of one of these photos of Herb Sorrell was preserved by Kosti in this scrapbook focusing on the Disney strike.
Bonner-Ganter, Deanna. 2016. The Photographer Poet. Down East Books. pp 64-66.