The Secret Of Oz Page #10

Now with the history of money explained, let's take a look at L. Frank Baum, the author of "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz".

So who was L. Frank Baum?

Layman Frank Baum was born to wealthy parents right here in this house, in Chittenango, New York in 1856.

This is the house where L. Frank was born. His family lived in this area, they had a barrel factory here across the road from the house - it's over here - yes.

His father made his fortune in the oil fields of Pennsylvania. In 1880 at age 24 his father built him a theatre in Richburg New York and Baum set about writing and acting in plays.

Baum's political awakening came in 1882 when he married Maud Gage, a daughter of Matilda Gage, a famous women's suffrage activist.

This was her house in Fayetteville New York, about 6 miles from where Baum himself was born.

Matilda Gage was widely considered to be the most radical women's rights advocate of her generation.

Matilda Gage deeply influenced Frank Baum who claimed that she was the most gifted and educated woman of her age. Matilda even spent six months of every year with Maud and Frank and died in their home in 1898.

Critics of the Baum monetary reform theory say that Baum was way too conservative, too republican, to support such populists idea. Not the case, Matilda Gage was clearly one of the most populist women of her age.

Baum's theatrical career met with little success so in 1888 he and his wife Maud moved to Aberdeen Dakota Territory where he opened a store known as Baum's bazaar.

These were tough times in the midwest: Baum was in the habit of giving credit to his former clients and this eventually bankrupted his store.

Baum turned to editing local newspaper, the Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer. Baum however was not the owner of this republican newspaper, jobs were scarce, and Baum was forced to write for his republican audience despite his family's liberal to populist political leanings.

By 1891 times had grown so tough in Dakota Territory that even Baum's newspaper failed.

So he moved Maud and their 4 sons to Chicago where he took a job reporting for the Evening Post.

Like most writers he had to work multiple jobs to feed his growing family.

In 1897 Baum wrote and published "Mother Goose in prose" illustrated Maxfield Parrish. Two years later Baum partnered with WW Denslow to publish Father Goose his book of nonsense poetry.

In 1900 Baum and Denslow published "The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz".

The book was the bestselling children's book for two years after its initial publication.

Baum and Denslow teamed up to produce a musical staged version of the book that was also a huge financial success.

Early film versions were produced in 1910 and 1925 but the MGM classic movie starring Judy Garland as Dorothy was produced in 1939.

This version included many changes that largely obscured the monetary reform symbology: dorothy's silver slippers were changed to ruby slippers to take advantage of the new Technicolor process.

Now with the history of money in America laid out, let's take a look at "The Wizard of Oz", to see if these symbols make sense.

Well the principal and most powerful symbolic reference is of course the yellow brick road and the silver slippers.

In the book version of "The Wizard of Oz", Dorothy's slippers are made of Silver as opposed to in the film version where Dorothy's slippers are made of ruby.

You take away the silver slippers on the gold or yellow brick road and all of the other symbolism tends to be lost.

The original populist solution was government-issued money called greenbacks. But the greenbacker movement had failed, so the populists had switched to expanding the money supply with government-issued silver coins.

The underlying dispute however was not how money was made of, but who should issue it: private bankers or people themselves through their representative government.

The first person Dorothy meets along the way is the Scarecrow representing the supposedly ignorant western farmer.

Although he thinks he doesn't have a brain, the Scarecrow proves to be very clever at figuring things out on the track to Washington.

And this was Baum's way perhaps of saying that the farmer in fact did understand the basics of economics and that an expansion of currency was in fact a legitimate way of improving the condition not only of the farmer but of the economy as a whole.

Next Dorothy and the scarecrow meet with the Tin Woodman, Baum's symbol for the factory worker. As professor Hugh Rockoff of Rutgers university put it in his 1990 article in the Journal of Political Economy:

"The Tin woodman was unhappy for he had lost his heart. A powerful representation of the populist idea that industrialization had [turned] the independent artisan into a mere cog in a giant machine."

And what he needed was some oil or liquidity, he needed the liquidity of more money in the system.

"The Tin Woodman had] joined the ranks of those unemployed in the depression of the 1890s, a victim of the unwillingness of the eastern goldbugs to countenance an increase in the stock of money through the addition of silver. After his joints are oiled, the Tin Woodman wants to join the group to seeif the Wizard can give him a heart. He, too, will learn that the answer is not to be found at the end of the yellow brick road [but within himself]."

And then there was the Lion who represented William Jennings Bryan - Bryan was actually called the lion of the silver movement he was the leader.

Bryan was considered a coward because after his loss in 1896 he backed away from the free silver movement. According to professor Rockoff:

"The last character to join the group is the Cowardly Lion. This is Bryan himself. The sequence is not accidental. Baum is following history in suggesting that the movement was started first by the western farmers, was joined by the workingman, and then, once it was well under way, was joined by Bryan. The roaring lion is a good choice for one of the greatest American orators."

So off go the foreign likely companions headed for Oz along the dangerous yellow brick road in hopes that a powerful wizard will grant their requests. Some experts view this as symbolic of the very first march on Washington, that of Coxey's Army in 1894, to try to break the depression.

Jacob Coxey was a successful businessman who led a march from the midwest to washington DC to seek redress from the economic plight of millions at the time who were suffering during the crisis, the depression of 1893.

He marched with his so called "industrial army" - these were just unemployed men - so this track is often seen as inspiration behind Dorothy and her group's track to demo city to seek redress from the Oz, or the president of the United States.

Coxey was hoping to meet with president Cleveland, however he was arrested for trespassing, jailed, and his movement was dispersed:

"Coxey was a greenbacker, and his idea was simple: the federal government should build public works and pay for them by printing money. At the time the idea seemed to be the wildest kind of extremism. But given unemployment of 18.4% few modern economists would be prepared to dismiss such a proposal out of hand."

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