This is so full of factual inaccuracies and rampant speculation that it doesn’t merit any serious attention. Read Michael Patrick Hearn’s The Annotated Wizard of Oz if you’re interested in a well-researched, valid biographical treatment of L. Frank Baum.

By Baum Fan on Sep 25, 2009 at 12:52 pm

I am disappointed to see such a poorly researched article that is so full of mis-information. To discuss or conjecture about Baum’s “early drafts” of THE WIZARD OF OZ is questionable since no manuscripts survive.

Also, there is no reason to believe GLINDA OF OZ was Baum’s final Oz manuscript and we know, factually, that it was written years earlier than Schwartz’ odd dating system. Baum had written and submitted all four of his final Oz books in 1917 and left it to the publisher’s discretion how and when to publish them. There is no evidence Baum wrote anything after 1917 at all.

Did Schwartz decide to say GLINDA OF OZ was written on Baum’s deathbed because it was a nice capper to an article on Matilda Joslyn Gage whom Schwartz believes was an inspiration for Glinda herself?

One needs to give documentation, primary research, and use sound analytical methods if one wishes to be taken seriously.
Weaving lovely tapestries from thin air is great when one is writing fairytales – but is a serious problem when critiquing them.

By David Maxine on Sep 25, 2009 at 1:47 pm

If one is going to argue that Baum was a loser, that and his mother-in-law was a witch, some conclusive evidence should be brought to bear. Schwartz’s work is highly speculated and seems to be based on unsubstantiated assertions. For example:

How can one claim that Baum wrote articles for which there are no bylines based on the inclusion of the phrase “there’s no place like home” and an illustration of people on a road done by a staff illustrator?

Is it true that “Several women in the Baum clan fretted that the delicate 25-year-old, who seemed forever lost in the world of his imagination, had yet to settle down and begin raising a family”?

On page 26 of Finding Oz, Schwartz cites a letter written by Baum to his sister that said, ” Show business doesn’t leave me much time to run around with girls… I haven’t found one yet I could stay interested in.” Why not believe Baum himself instead of imagining that Baum, who was physically hardy enough to run printing presses and travel for months at a time as an actor, was too physically weak and professionally shiftless to attract a wife?

Moreover, why portray Baum as doomed to failure but for his domineering mother-in-law who whipped him into shape? By all accounts, Baum was a competent actor, a good journalist, skilled salesman, and even a fine poultry breeder, before he began publishing children’s stories. Droughts, economic downturns, and other external forces over which Baum had little control, have at least as much explanatory value than a belief that he failed because he didn’t follow his “true path.”

Yes, Matilda Gage had a profound influence on Baum’s life and encouraged him to write. But to characterize her as both domineering shrew and the inspiration for Glinda, a “contraction of Good Witch and Matilda,” (?) misrepresents this important and under-appreciated early champion of women’s rights in this country.

I would like to see the evidence upon which Schwartz bases his assertions.

By Judy Bieber, U. of New Mexico on Sep 25, 2009 at 6:20 pm

Correction to second line, should read “speculative” not “speculated.” Sorry!

By JB on Sep 26, 2009 at 9:06 am

I agree whole-heartedly with the other comments. Evan Schwartz’s book Finding Oz is an entertaining and very readable story but not good history. It is a work of historical fiction that contains some elements of truth and many, many assumptions and speculations that have no basis in the historical record. It is difficult to criticize this particular article because I agree with Evan that yes, Matilda Joslyn Gage was Baum’s primary intellectual and spiritual mentor. This is not a new theory—Sally Roesch Wagner and Michael Patrick Hearn have been saying this for years. But it’s the way that Evan goes about making his argument that I disagree with.

History is complicated, messy stuff that often doesn’t make sense, especially when we can’t call up and ask Frank and Matilda what was going through their head at the time. And if we could ask Matilda why she “blew up” at Maud for getting engaged to Frank, either she might not have an answer or the answer might surprise us. In order to write a good story in which all of the elements fall into their proper place and the climax is satisfying, Evan has had to simplify the plot and characters and ignore many inconsistencies.

For instance, his timeline of Gage’s “new political campaign” is way off. He is wrong to imply that Gage’s cause was new or somehow connected to Henry’s death or the presidential election of 1884, as he implies in Finding Oz. He is right that Gage was increasingly worried about Frances Willard and the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, as well as other fundamentalist groups who sought to put God into the Constitution, and this is one major reason why she formed the Woman’s National Liberal Union in 1890.

But the roots of the WNLU had started long before. In fact, the pivotal date in Gage’s development as a philosopher and feminist theorist is 1876, when she turned away from her Baptist upbringing and became a critic of Christianity. In 1878, at a Freethought convention in Watkins Glen, New York, Gage made the startling statement that the foundation of the Christian church was not upon Christ, but that the church was based upon the subordination of women as punishment for bringing sin into the world, which necessitated the need for a savior. She was an established Freethinker long before she met Baum in 1882.

Evan is also wrong to place the timing of L. Frank Baum’s interest in Theosophy during his Dakota years. As Sally Roesch Wagner points out in The Wonderful Mother of Oz, Frank and Maud were reading theosophical works before they moved to Dakota in 1888. Gage joined the Theosophical Society in 1885, and we know from family letters that she was recommending Isis Unveiled to her children as early as January of 1884. After Henry’s death in September of 1884, Gage spent winters with Frank and Maud in Syracuse, and they spent long summer vacations at her home in Fayetteville.

Gage would not have described Theosophy as a “faith” or something “to help get them through the tough times.” It was and is an inquiry, a search for truth wherever truth might be found. The Theosophical Society in America states that members “are encouraged to accept nothing on faith or on the word of another, but to adopt only those ideas that satisfy their own sense of what is real and important” (www.theosophical.org).

These are just a few of the many problems that I have with Finding Oz. However, I appreciate what Evan has done to make Matilda Joslyn Gage more well known and hope that I can still call him my friend.

Sue Boland
Senior Docent
Matilda Joslyn Gage Home
Fayetteville, New York

By Sue Boland on Sep 30, 2009 at 4:18 pm

As a child I was fascinated by the Oz books, but as I matured I began to realize that Baum must have had “issues”. Take, for example, his treatment of the character “Tip” in the book (I believe his second after the Wizard of Oz) The Land of Oz.

Tip is raised by a witch, Mombi, and at the end of the book he is changed from a boy into a girl (in my view, emasculated). The series of books is filled with instances illustrating the inherent superiority of the female.

Considering the character of Baum’s mother-in-law, his subservient attitude toward women begins to make sense.

Thank you for a interesting and illustrative article.

By Frank J. Parkerson on Oct 5, 2009 at 2:58 pm