Walt Disney Bankruptcy
This document is an exhibit in bankruptcy case 4457, In the Matter of Laugh-O-Gram Films, Inc. Filed in 1923, this bankruptcy case marked the final demise of a small Kansas City animation studio. This exhibit is a mortgage of property from Laugh-O-Gram Films, Inc., including common office furniture, as well as equipment for making cartoons. The name of the president of the company appears at the bottom of the document: Walter E. Disney.
Walt Disney’s first company in Kansas City, MO, went bankrupt, a fate shared by innumerable others, as documented in the over 125,000 cubic feet of bankruptcy case files in the holdings of the National Archives at Kansas City. These bankruptcy records document economic hardships from the Bankruptcy Act of 1800, through cases filed in 2006. The debts and property of farmers, merchants, bankers, and massive corporations are all equally recorded in these files. As the proceedings in case 4457 wrapped up in Kansas City in 1923, Walt Disney moved west to California for a new start, where he founded a new, more successful company.
Exhibit D from In the Matter of Laugh-O-Gram Films, dated June 2, 1923. National Archives Identifier: 6997521
View and download Exhibit D from In the Matter of Laugh-O-Gram Films, Inc., on the National Archives Catalog. You can explore more records held in the National Archives at Kansas City through the National Archives Catalog or by visiting our research room in person. These records are located in Record Group 21: Records of the District Court of the United States, Series: Bankruptcy Act of 1898 Case Files, 1898–1950.