A Journey Through Oz on L. Frank Baum's Birthday
Lyman Frank Baum was born on May 15, 1856, in Chittenango, New York. He would become the author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the first distinctly American fairy tale.
Before Oz, Baum tried many careers:
Each experience found its way into Oz. The frontier's hardship and hope. The theater's spectacle. The salesman's understanding of what people want versus what they need.
The story goes that Baum was telling stories to children when asked what land his characters lived in. Glancing at a filing cabinet, he saw drawers labeled "A-N" and "O-Z" - and Oz was born.
Whether true or not, the name became a world. The book was published in 1900 with illustrations by W.W. Denslow, and became the best-selling children's book of the year.
"The old-time fairy tale, having served for generations, may now be classed as 'historical' in the children's library; for the time has come for a series of newer 'wonder tales' in which the stereotyped genie, dwarf and fairy are eliminated, together with all the horrible and blood-curdling incident devised by their authors to point a fearsome moral."
- L. Frank Baum, Introduction to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
Baum wanted to create fairy tales without nightmares. His witches melt and are crushed, but the deaths are not dwelt upon. His heroes face danger but are never truly harmed. Good triumphs not through violence but through friendship, cleverness, and discovering what was within all along.
Oz is divided into four countries surrounding the Emerald City:
The Deadly Desert surrounds all, turning any who touch it to sand.
Baum wrote 14 Oz books. After his death, Ruth Plumly Thompson continued the series with 19 more. Others followed. The 1939 MGM film, starring Judy Garland, became one of the most beloved movies ever made - though it changed the silver shoes to ruby to show off Technicolor.
Today, Oz lives on in books, films, musicals (Wicked), and the imaginations of anyone who has ever dreamed of going somewhere over the rainbow.