Lyman Frank Baum (; May 15, 1856 – May 6, 1919) was an American author known for his children's books, particularly The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and its sequels.
Frank Baum, who was born in Chittenango on May 15, 1856.
In March 1880, he established a monthly trade journal, The Poultry Record, and in 1886, when Baum was 30 years old, his first book was published: The Book of the Hamburgs: A Brief Treatise upon the Mating, Rearing, and Management of the Different Varieties of Hamburgs. Baum had a flair for being the spotlight of fun in the household, including during times of financial difficulties.
In 1880, his father built him a theater in Richburg, New York, and Baum set about writing plays and gathering a company to act in them.
She was the founder of Syracuse Oratory School, and Baum advertised his services in her catalog to teach theater, including stage business, play writing, directing, translating (French, German, and Italian), revision, and operettas. On November 9, 1882, Baum married Maud Gage, a daughter of Matilda Joslyn Gage, a famous women's suffrage and feminist activist.
In March 1880, he established a monthly trade journal, The Poultry Record, and in 1886, when Baum was 30 years old, his first book was published: The Book of the Hamburgs: A Brief Treatise upon the Mating, Rearing, and Management of the Different Varieties of Hamburgs. Baum had a flair for being the spotlight of fun in the household, including during times of financial difficulties.
While Baum was touring with The Maid of Arran, the theater in Richburg caught fire during a production of Baum's ironically titled parlor drama Matches, destroying the theater as well as the only known copies of many of Baum's scripts, including Matches, as well as costumes. ===The South Dakota years=== In July 1888, Baum and his wife moved to Aberdeen, Dakota Territory where he opened a store called "Baum's Bazaar".
Following the death of Sitting Bull at the hands of Indian agency police, Baum urged the wholesale extermination of all America's native peoples in a column that he wrote on December 20, 1890 (full text below).
Sociologist Robert Venables has argued that Baum was not using sarcasm in the editorials. The first piece was published on December 20, 1890, five days after the killing of the Lakota Sioux holy man, Sitting Bull.
Henry Littlefield, an upstate New York high school history teacher, wrote a scholarly article which was the first full-fledged interpretation of the novel as an extended political metaphor of the politics and characters of the 1890s.
Baum was a Republican and avid supporter of Women's Suffrage, and it is thought that he did not support the political ideals of either the Populist movement of 1890–1892 or the Bryanite-silver crusade of 1896–1900.
On January 3, 1891, he returned to the subject in an editorial response to the Wounded Knee Massacre: The Pioneer has before declared that our only safety depends upon the total extirmination of the Indians.
While Baum was in South Dakota, he sang in a quartet which included James Kyle, who became one of the first Populist (People's Party) Senators in the U.S. ===Writing=== Baum's newspaper failed in 1891, and he, Maud, and their four sons moved to the Humboldt Park section of Chicago, where Baum took a job reporting for the Evening Post.
Later, he and his wife were encouraged to become members of the Theosophical Society in 1892 by Matilda Joslyn Gage.
Baum was a Republican and avid supporter of Women's Suffrage, and it is thought that he did not support the political ideals of either the Populist movement of 1890–1892 or the Bryanite-silver crusade of 1896–1900.
Beginning in 1897, he founded and edited a magazine called The Show Window, later known as the Merchants Record and Show Window, which focused on store window displays, retail strategies and visual merchandising.
He also had to work as a traveling salesman. In 1897, he wrote and published Mother Goose in Prose, a collection of Mother Goose rhymes written as prose stories and illustrated by Maxfield Parrish.
In 1899, Baum partnered with illustrator W.
They then moved to Chicago, where he worked as a newspaper reporter and published children's literature, coming out with the first Oz book in 1900.
In 1900, Baum published a book about window displays in which he stressed the importance of mannequins in drawing customers.
The book was a success, becoming the best-selling children's book of the year. ====The Wonderful Wizard of Oz==== In 1900, Baum and Denslow (with whom he shared the copyright) published The Wonderful Wizard of Oz to much critical acclaim and financial success.
The children's novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was published on May 17, 1900.[24] The weekend-long festival, usually held during the first Saturday of June and the weekend thereof, includes a parade, which features many community groups.
Baum and Tietjens had worked on a musical of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz in 1901 and based closely upon the book, but it was rejected.
He also began a stage version of The Patchwork Girl of Oz, but this was ultimately realized as a film. ==Later life and work== With the success of Wizard on page and stage, Baum and Denslow hoped for further success and published Dot and Tot of Merryland in 1901.
This stage version opened in Chicago in 1902 (the first to use the shortened title "The Wizard of Oz"), then ran on Broadway for 293 stage nights from January to October 1903.
A series of political references is included in the 1902 stage version, such as references to the President, to a powerful senator, and to John D.
Scholars have found few political references in Baum's Oz books after 1902.
This stage version opened in Chicago in 1902 (the first to use the shortened title "The Wizard of Oz"), then ran on Broadway for 293 stage nights from January to October 1903.
It returned to Broadway in 1904, where it played from March to May and again from November to December.
Although use of the script was rather free-form, the line about Hanna was ordered dropped as soon as Hamlin got word of his death in 1904. Beginning with the success of the stage version, most subsequent versions of the story, including newer editions of the novel, have been titled "The Wizard of Oz", rather than using the full, original title.
Neill on his fantasy work beginning in 1904, but Baum met Neill few times (all before he moved to California) and often found Neill's art not humorous enough for his liking.
Nicholas Magazine's survey of readers' favorite books well into the 1920s. In 1905, Baum declared plans for an Oz amusement park.
Baum abandoned his Oz park project after the failure of The Woggle-Bug, which was playing at the Garrick Theatre in 1905. Because of his lifelong love of theatre, he financed elaborate musicals, often to his financial detriment.
Nevertheless, Baum stated to the press that he had discovered a Pedloe Island off the coast of California and that he had purchased it to be "the Marvelous Land of Oz," intending it to be "a fairy paradise for children." Eleven year old Dorothy Talbot of San Francisco was reported to be ascendant to the throne on March 1, 1906, when the Palace of Oz was expected to be completed.
It successfully toured the United States with much of the same cast, as was done in those days, until 1911, and then became available for amateur use.
He claimed bankruptcy in August 1911.
Morosco, incidentally, quickly turned to film production, as did Baum. In 1914, Baum started his own film production company The Oz Film Manufacturing Company, which came as an outgrowth of the Uplifters.
Lyman Frank Baum (; May 15, 1856 – May 6, 1919) was an American author known for his children's books, particularly The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and its sequels.
Baum invested none of his own money in the venture, unlike The Fairylogue and Radio-Plays, but the stress probably took its toll on his health. ==Death== On May 5, 1919, Baum suffered a stroke, slipped into a coma and died the following day, at the age of 62.
Nicholas Magazine's survey of readers' favorite books well into the 1920s. In 1905, Baum declared plans for an Oz amusement park.
His last words were spoken to his wife during a brief period of lucidity: "Now we can cross the Shifting Sands." He was buried in Glendale's Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery. His final Oz book, Glinda of Oz, was published on July 10, 1920, a year after his death.
He made numerous attempts to bring his works to the stage and screen; the 1939 adaptation of the first Oz book became a landmark of 20th-century cinema. Born and raised in upstate New York, Baum moved west after an unsuccessful stint as a theater producer and playwright.
Silent film actor Richard Rosson appeared in one of the films (Rosson's younger brother Harold Rosson was the cinematographer on The Wizard of Oz, released in 1939).
The parade has also featured actors and actresses who played Munchkins in the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz, including Jerry Maren, Karl Slover, Meinhardt Raabe, and Margaret Williams Pellegrini.[25] == See also == ==Notes== ==References== Algeo, John.
East Lansing, MI, Michigan State University Press, 1957.
Many of these play's titles are known, but only The Uplift of Lucifer is known to survive (it was published in a limited edition in the 1960s).
Chicago, Reilly & Lee, 1961. Baum, L.
He published a poem in support of William McKinley. Since 1964, many scholars, economists, and historians have expanded on Littlefield's interpretation, pointing to multiple similarities between the characters (especially as depicted in Denslow's illustrations) and stock figures from editorial cartoons of the period.
Hong Kong, Ford Press, 1969. Ford, Alla T.
Lake Worth, FL, Ford Press, 1969. Gardner, Martin, and Russel B.
Cambridge, MA, Harvard University press, 1978.
Bloomington, IN, Indiana University Press, 1980. Baum, Frank Joslyn, and Russell P.
74 (August–September 1986), pp. 270–3. Attebery, Brian.
New York, Schocken, 1986. Koupal, Nancy Tystad.
Lawrence, KS, University of Nebraska Press, 1986. Parker, David B.
Revised 1994. Hearn, Michael Patrick.
Frank Baum" in Darrell Schweitzer (ed) Discovering Classic Fantasy Fiction'', Gillette NJ: Wildside Press, 1996, pp. 113–121. ==External links== L.
Lawrence, KS, University of Kansas Press, 1997.
Norton, 2000. Ford, Alla T.
Pierre, SD, South Dakota State Historical Society, 2000. Koupal, Nancy Tystad.
Martin's Press, 2002.
Fayetteville, NY: The Matilda Joslyn Gage Foundation, 2003. Wilgus, Neal.
"Misanthropology: A Florilegium of Bahumbuggery" Inglewood, CA, donlazaro translations, 2004, pp. 155–164 Reneau, Reneau H.
Frank Baum Story (1990). The theme park Storybook Land, located in Aberdeen, South Dakota, features the Land of Oz, with characters and attractions from the books. In the short-lived 2008 TV series The Sarah Connor Chronicles, the show's protagonist John Connor enrolls in high school under the name of "John Baum" (after L.
"A Newer Testament: Misanthropology Unleashed" Inglewood, CA, donlazaro translations, 2008, pp. 129–147 Riley, Michael O.
New York, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009 Wagner, Sally Roesch.
His mother Sarah had mentioned to Cameron that The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz was John's favorite book when he was younger. In 2013, Baum was inducted into the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame. Chittenango, New York holds a three-day annual festival called Oz-Stravaganza! to celebrate the literary works of author L.
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