L. Frank Baum, Creator of the Wizard of Oz

From a very young age, Lyman Frank Baum was determined to write a different type of fairy tale. According to the biography, To Please a Child: A Biography of L. Frank Baum Royal Historian of Oz, he wrote, "I demanded fairy stories when I was a youngster... and I was a critical reader, too. One thing I never liked then, and that was the introduction of witches and goblins into the story. I didn't like the little dwarfs in the woods bobbing up with their horrors." Eventually he wrote and published his fairy tale, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, but getting there was a circuitous journey full of obstacles, much like the characters' quest along the yellow brick road to reach the Emerald City.

Lyman Frank Baum was born May 15, 1856 in Chittenango, New York to Cynthia and Benjamin Baum. His father was a barrel maker who later became wealthy from an oil business. Young Baum was a sickly child with a weak heart, and because he could not engage in physical activity, he occupied himself by reading and inventing stories. His literary influences were fairy tales and British authors including Charles Dickens and William Shakespeare. His parents did not like their son's fanciful nature, so they sent him to Peekskill Military School with the hopes of squelching it. Prior to that, Frank had been home schooled and was not used to the strict regiment and physical discipline. He suffered a heart attack. Some sources say it was a nervous breakdown. His parents withdrew him and allowed Frank to explore his creative talents.

After Baum showed an interest in commercial printing, his father bought him a printing press. At fifteen Baum became the editor, writer, and publisher of his first newspaper, The Rose Lawn Home Journal. It was so successful that local stores bought advertising space. In 1873 he started another paper and a stamp collector magazine. In addition to writing, Baum had a passion for the theatre. With his father's financial backing, young Baum started a Shakespearean troupe. Benjamin Baum also owned several theatres in New York and Pennsylvania and gave them to Frank to manage. Eventually, he owned them. In 1881 his first major literary work was a play he wrote, published, and acted in called "The Maid of Arran." It was an immediate critical success.

However, the road to literary success took a detour. Baum met Maud Gage and courted her between bookings. Her mother, Matilda Joslyn Gage, then a nationally known feminist, thought Baum was too unstable to be a proper match for her daughter. November 1882 the couple married, anyway. Maud went on the road with her husband and touring company. Soon thereafter, Maud became pregnant with the first of their three sons, and the couple left their nomadic lifestyle, settling in Syracuse. Baum worked in the family business as a salesman.

A string of setbacks interrupted Baum's literary aspirations and also contributed to his failing health. His father died and not long afterward the family finances were in trouble. The uncle who had taken over the family business suffered ill health. The bookkeeper he had hired for the theatre establishment mismanaged funds. Baum had entrusted the finances to a clerk, but he gambled away all the money, almost driving them to bankruptcy. Baum and his wife decided the only option was to sell the business and move their family to South Dakota where there was bound to be more economic possibilities. Maud's family had already moved to Aberdeen years prior. In 1888 Baum opened his general store, "Baum's Bazaar." It was always crowded with children who wanted to hear his stories. But Baum was not much of a businessman. He gave away penny candy and extended credit to customers who could not pay him back. In 1890 the bank foreclosed on the store. He went on to manage a weekly paper, The Aberdeen Sunday Pioneer. It, too, went bankrupt. Again, the family moved. This time it was to Chicago where Baum became a reporter for The Evening Post. To make ends meet, he also worked as a traveling salesman for a china company. Despite the setbacks, Baum never lost his passion for storytelling. Everywhere he went, children stopped him on the street and clamored to hear one of his stories. He was often seen sitting on a dusty sidewalk telling a captive audience about the magical country Oz.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was not his first published children's book. In 1899 he published the best seller, Father Goose, His Book which became a series. Its success allowed him to leave his traveling salesman job and focus on his literary aspirations. It was not until the early 1900's when he started to write then-titled "The Emerald City" longhand. His mother-in-law still did not think he was a suitable husband for her daughter, but she thought he had a gift for storytelling and encouraged him to get his story published. At first, Baum met resistance. Who would want to read another fairy story? In addition to that, the publisher had superstition against publishing a book with a jewel in its title, so Baum reworked the title until he settled on The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. He borrowed from his British literary influences, using witches, wizards, and magic as story elements. A recurring nightmare about a scarecrow chasing him also became part of his story. Baum transformed him into Dorothy's friendly companion who needed a brain. Fan mail from adults and children clamored for more Oz stories, and though he did not want to write so many sequels, he wrote seventeen. He wanted to branch out and write other types of children's literature. Under the pseudonym, Edith Van Dyne, he wrote Aunt Jane's Nieces, a series for teenage girls. It was successful, but nowhere nearly as successful as his Oz books.

In 1902 Baum collaborated with Julian Mitchell to write the original stage version of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. They called it a "musical extravaganza." It became a hit and enjoyed a 293-night run on Broadway from 1902 to 1911.

In 1910 Baum's worsening health prompted the Baum family to move to California where they lived in a home they named Ozcot and owned a dog named Toto. Before his health had incapacitated him, he was able to form the Oz Film Manufacturing Company. The company produced several films based on his Oz series, but the reception was lukewarm. At the time film audiences were not interested in juvenile films. Eventually the film company was sold to Universal. Recurring chest pain and nasal hemorrhages forced him to become bedridden. In constant pain, he continued to write in bed propped up on pillows. According to the biography of L. Frank Baum (To Please a Child: A Biography of L. Frank Baum Royal Historian of Oz) his wife noted, "Although few traces of agony are detectable in his work, there were many times when the tears would stream from his eyes and wet the paper as he wrote." On May 5, 1919, Lyman Frank Baum lapsed into a coma, and then died. His final installment to the Oz series was published posthumously in 1920. In an introduction of The Lost Princess of Oz, Frank wrote, "Imagination has given us the steam engine, the telephone, the talking-machine, and the automobile, for these things had to be dreamed of before they became realities. So I believe that dreams-day dreams...with your eyes wide open...are likely to lead to the betterment of the world. The imaginative child will become the imaginative man or woman most apt to create, to invent, and therefore to foster civilization. A prominent educator tells me that fairy tales are of untold value in developing imagination in the young. I believe it." More than a hundred years after the first Oz story was published, Oz continues to live. It has inspired movies, musical plays, a Russian series, an international fan club, several Oz-related newspapers, and twenty-three more Oz sequels.

Sources

Baum, Frank J. and Russell P. McFall. To Please a Child: A Biography of L. Frank Baum Royal Historian of Oz. Chicago: Reilly and Lee, 1961.

Hearn, Michael Patrick. The Annotated Wizard of Oz. New York: Clarkson Potter, 1973.