MARY FORD of Searcy, Arkansas received this rejection letter (below) from the Disney Production Company in 1938. She was turned down for training in the Inking and Painting Department because women were categorically not accepted for “creative work in connection with preparing the cartoons for the screen, as that work is performed entirely by young men.”

The letter was posted on Flickr by her grandson, Kevin Burg, who found it among his grandmother’s things after she died and said “it speaks for itself,” and at Huffington Post, which also views the letter as an artifact of a misogynist past. However, neither source noted a fascinating detail. The letter was signed by a woman, another Mary. Perhaps, like other women of the time, this Mary had no objection to rejecting another Mary for the reasons stated.

Women often supported customary, informal discrimination against other women because they knew, for one, that giving preference to men would enable men to support women and children. Perhaps, dare we say it, women did not always view themselves as in competition with men and perhaps, dare we say it, some women even wished the best for men, knowing men needed satisfying careers in ways women did not and wanting them to have job preferences out of a spirit of generosity. Yes, it was a horrible and frightful past, almost too disgusting to contemplate. The creative work in Disney’s production department was a career and Disney presumably did not want trained employees leaving career positions to give birth and care for children. Companies were not in the business of sustaining the cultural revolution to their own detriment and the average woman was not inculcated to view her existence as first and foremost a self-centered commercial enterprise.

Things have changed since this awful, bleak period. Now women are not discriminated against and many trudge off to offices, leaving their children at Tots-R-Us because their husbands, if they should be so fortunate to have them, cannot hope to support them adequately in the era of dual-income families. If only Mary Ford had been so lucky. If Disney were to send out such a letter today, it would be worth almost instant cash to any Mary Ford, as she could take it to the nearest office of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and government workers would happily convert it into big bucks for her. If enough Mary Fords got together, Disney might cease to exist.

— Comments —

Karen I. writes:

Thanks to her grandson’s compulsion to share her personal correspondence with the world after her death, Mary Ford will now be remembered as that poor woman who was rejected by cruel Disney. Whatever else she accomplished in her life will be overshadowed by this. Her grandson was apparently more concerned with making a social statement than protecting his late grandmother’s privacy. If she had wanted the letter shared with the world, she could have shared it herself. She should have thrown it out. I wonder why anyone would have held onto such a letter for so long.

L. Nelson of Chicago writes:

While I don’t share the grandson’s horror at the blood-chilling misogyny evidenced by the letter, I do see why his grandmother would have kept it. It’s a fascinating bit of correspondence, and on a colorful letterhead to boot! In our digital age we forget that written correspondence was once the norm, and letters were often saved and even cherished. When I was a girl I wrote to the Queen of England expressing my hope that she had enjoyed her recent trip to Canada. My hope was that I’d get Her Majesty’s signature and some stamps for my collection. Some weeks later I received a response from one of her ladies-in-waiting: “I am commanded by Her Majesty to thank you . . .” etc. As a kid used to being bossed around by every adult in the county, the thought that the Queen of England had commanded someone to do something on my behalf was far better than any autograph. I’ve still got that letter.

Laura writes:

Ha!

Yes, I can understand why she kept it. It’s a very civilized letter, as rejection letters go.

MarkyMark writes:

Nowadays, not only would Mary Ford get the job; any of the men in her life would now possibly be discriminated against. Now, thanks to feminism, giving women a chance is all the rage, and us white men, who have had it far too good for far too long, will just have to step aside and like it.

David Flory writes:

We have no way of knowing if Mary Ford was in any way qualified for the position she sought. I suspect that any credible applicant to Disney’s creative department would have a stunning portfolio, but Mary C. makes no allusion to a portfolio, nor to having seen any of Mary Ford’s work. Probably this letter was simply a female version of the innumerable rejection letters Disney must have sent out to unqualified young dreamers.

Getting a job in Ink and Paint, by the way, was a very respectable (and highly competitive) way to get one’s start in professional animation.

Ellie writes:

I must respectfully disagree with the interpretations offered on Mary Cleaves’ letter to Mary Ford. I see it as a profound act of kindness from an older lady to a young lady. In reading the letter, Mrs. Cleaves refers to “girls” training for a position at Disney, a difficult position to obtain, and the “women” who have permanent jobs there. She sees Miss Ford as a girl. I believe she is warning this young lady “Please, child, do not leave the safety of Arkansas and your family. Don’t come to California with your sketchbook, cardboard Samsonite, and dreams of glory. There is no work here.” Mrs. Cleaves did not want one more starry-eyed girl lost on the streets of Hollywood to starve or worse.

If my relative’s stories were true, many young people of the Thirties struck out to find work with the hopes of sending money home. Many found no more than the occasional day’s work sweeping a factory floor, and slept in chicken coops and under bridges. Mrs. Cleaves did not want that to happen to Miss Ford, I believe. I think that Miss Ford saved that letter for the same reason people save birthday cards. “Someone cared enough about me to take the time to give me this.” How many of my generation would make that kind of effort to warn a young person that the path they are taking could be dangerous? I don’t think I would even send off an email to a young lady I don’t know, let alone such an elegant and well-worded letter. Have I grown lazy or callous? That is a question for another day.

Laura writes:

I agree that it was kind of her to advise Miss Ford not to show up in Hollywood. I suspect, by the way, that Mary Cleaves was “Miss Cleaves,” not “Mrs.” She may indeed have been an older woman. But at that time, most married women left their jobs. She was also stating company policy, whatever her feelings may have been toward her applicant. As with the lady-in-waiting who wrote to L. Nelson, she was saying, “I am commanded to tell you” that women are not accepted for career positions.

Jewel A. writes:

My mother was rejected by Hallmark. She used to send off pages of her poetry to them and everyone of them was rejected. I don’t think it was because she was a woman, but she was not a very good poet. Sentimental, yes, but she had no meter. And she had no blog, because if she did, she wouldn’t receive any rejection emails. My efforts at poetry aren’t much better, but at least I didn’t raze a forest harvesting letters of rejection, so I can sleep well at night without environmental guilt plaguing me.

Which brings me to another point. Women pretty much do as they please, now, so it puzzles me to hear them bringing out the old straw men arguments about pay equity and the whole nonsense.

I always respond to these malingering whiners, “Oprah makes more than Donahue.”

Laura writes:

A rejection from Hallmark is probably the greatest compliment a poet can receive. At least today.

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