L. Frank Baum was the original &#8220;man behind the curtain.&#8221; Born in Chittenango, NY, he worked diligently in many disciplines (including theater and shopkeeping), slowly moving his way westward over the years. While he&#8217;d never live to see the Zeitgeist-capturing silver screen adaptation of his seminal children&#8217;s novel, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which premiered in 1939, much of his life was centered in Hollywood, California. It was in Los Angeles, Baum&#8217;s own Emerald City, where he lived and wrote (to much acclaim and financial reward) and where he struggled as a filmmaker from roughly the turn of the century till his death in 1919. He penned many successful sequels to the Oz stories; embedding his wondrous children&#8217;s tale in the American psyche.
Lyman Frank Baum was born in 1856, just five years before the outbreak of The Civil War. The daydreamy Baum took an interest in writing and printing from an early age and, a natural entertainer himself, was passionate about the theater. During his twenties, he embarked on a slew of business endeavors, including running a theater company and working as a journalist. In 1881, he met Marge Gage, a young college student whom he declared his love for upon first sight. They married the next year and spent the rest of their lives together, slowly migrating west on the wind of Baum’s dreams.
After years of struggle and failed businesses that left his growing family in poverty, Baum finally dedicated himself to writing at the age of 40 when he began the manuscript of The Wizard of Oz. With this work, Baum set out to create a singularly American story, a play on the familiar fairytales of Europe that discarded the gremlins and ghouls for symbols inherent to the American midwest. Baum also represents a particularly matriarchal society, no doubt influenced by his suffragette mother-in-law and willfully independent wife. Though Oz touches on themes of poverty, dislocation, and familial struggles, Baum was careful to ensure that his stories never became overtly “moral” and instead focused on the emotional and spiritual journey of his characters.
The Wizard of Oz was published in 1900 to immediate acclaim. It became the first internationally successful American children’s book and went on to spawn thirteen sequels and the greatly beloved 1939 film adaptation. Baum continued writing voraciously for the rest of his life, publishing multiple novels, short stories, scripts, and poems — often under various pseudonyms. Baum died in 1919 at the age of 62. He passed on surrounded by the things he loved most: invention, creation, and imagination.
Indeed, Baum&#8217;s work has had a surpassing effect on the American imagination. Themes of dislocation in the great plains, fanciful witches, surrealistic heroes and villains, magic wishes, and the Emerald City &#8212; these images became part of the central iconography of American life for half a century. Phrases inspired by his work continue to echo across the decades: a twister, a twister. We&#8217;re not in Kansas anymore.
There&#8217;s no place like home.