Baum's Wizard of Oz asGilded Age Public Relations

By Tim Ziaukas

"You shall not press down uponthe brow of labor this crown of thorns,

you shall not crucify mankindupon a cross of gold."

— from William Jennings Bryan'sCross of Gold Speech, 1896

"The Wicked Witch...looked downat Dorothy's feet, and seeing the Silver Shoes,

began to tremble with fear, for she knewwhat a powerful charm belonged to them."

— The Wizard ofOz, 1900

L. Frank Baum's The Wizard of Oz, publishednearly a century ago, has become the most popularAmerican children's story, immortalized through anumber of editions, stage and film productions, andespecially the 1939 movie starring Judy Garland.Images, characters and lines of dialogue fromBaum's novel continue as ubiquitous parts ofAmerican popular culture.

Yet Baum's text had a timely agenda for its late-19th-century adult audience, one that belies its seem-ingly timeless appeal to subsequent generations.Written mostly in 1899 (Rockoff, 745) and publishedin 1900, The Wizard ofOz was produced while theUnited States was making the transition from a pas-toral past to an industrial future, from the post-CivilWar era to the country's emergence as a world powerat the beginning of the 20th century. Oz reflects con-temporary concerns generated by that transition.

Baum himself said his stories would "bear thestamp of our times and depict the progressivefairies of today" (Gardner and Nye, 1). Oz does.Given the enduring popularity of the text in all itsincarnations, only a modest — but provocative —body of critical work, however, bears out Baum's

claim. Littlefield, for example, proves in his ground-breaking essay that "the original Oz book concealsan unsuspected depth" (50) and then explicates thetext as a parable on populism. In another majorexegesis on the novel's contemporary allusions,Rockoff calls Oz "not only a child's tale but also asophisticated commentary on the political and eco-nomic debates of the Populist Era" (739). Culver

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positions the text in the context of Baum's interest"in the vagaries of consumer desire" (97).

Finally, in perhaps the most extensive investiga-tion of the issues that anchor the monetary allu-sions in Baum's novel, Goldbugs and Greenbacks: TheAntimonopoly Tradition and the Politics of Finance inAmerica, 1865-1896, Ritter claims that The Wizardof Oz is "filled with metaphors generated in themoney debate of the late nineteenth century" (19).

These critics are correct. Baum's parable is a potentpiece of Gilded Age propaganda, a masterpiece ofearly public relations writing, and part of the pro-gressive surge that would result in the formal emer-gence of public relations in the generation after Oz.

The Battle of the StandardsThe decade that produced Oz was galvanized by

the debate over what was known as "the financialquestion." Goodwyn emphasizes that

Itjhe importance of Ithe financial question] couldscarcely be exaggerated. How money was created,and on what basis it circulated, defined in criticalways the relationship of farmers, urban workers, andcommercial participants in the emerging industrialstate (10).

These questions lurk at the heart of Oz. Here isthe problem.

After independence from England, the UnitedStates had officially adopted bimetalism, that is, amonetary standard in which both gold and silverare used as legal tender. The Coinage Act of 1853,however, "replaced bimetalism in the U. S. witha...de facto gold standard. After 1853 bimetalismremained only as a legal fiction which was finallyterminated twenty years later" (Martin, 825). Thisis the so-called "Crime of '73," a major legislativewin for the gold people in their increasingly bitterfigbt witb the silvers (and an incident that would

Tim Ziaukas

come to have special import in The Wizard ofOz).Tbe "crime" was tbe repeal of the silver dollar,"demoneying" silver, further tying the supply ofmoney to the amount of gold (see Friedman andSchwartz, 113-14). This demoneying of silver —tying the amount of available dollars more closelyto the amount of available gold, limited the quan-tity of dollars in circulation, in turn, making themmore valuable. As Uchitelle explains, "[w]hen dol-lars are scarce, their value rises. Reflecting this highervalue, interest rates rise for borrowers, and pricesdrop for goods and services. The money, in effect,is worth more than it buys" (1). This deflation wasbad news for the farmers in particular: their moneybought less and their crops brought less too.

There's more. During the Civil War, the Unionissued "greenbacks," named for the color of the inkused on one side of the bill, whose value was ren-dered by fiat of the federal government. Miller andVanHoose point out

that national involvement in monetary and bankingaffairs had been limited in scope since the demise ofthe Second National Bank of the United States overhalf a century before; to many of the generation oftbe 1860s and 1870s, greenbacks were a federalintrusion into private and state affairs (361).The Resumption Act of 1875, though, ensured

the elimination of the greenbacks and put thecountry further on the road to the gold standard.By 1879, then, the United States was, in effect, ona gold standard, setting tbe stage for a final debateon "the financial question," an issue that dividedthe country and was at the heart of American poli-tics, and at the heart of The Wizard ofOz.

The issues included in the debate were compli-cated: Who should issue money, the federal gov-ernment or the banks? What metal should "back"it, gold, silver, or gold and silver? How muchmoney should circulate and how should that bedetermined? Opinions divided between the havesand the have-nots, urban and rural, industrialistsand farmers and, of course. Republicans andDemocrats. Generally, East Coast industrialists andbankers, largely Republican, favored the totalresumption of the gold standard. The Democrats,the poor, the workers, and the farmers thought abimetallic system, both gold and silver, would be totheir benefit. Many in this group, especially in theMidwest, were part of the Populist Party, "an agrar-ian party...formally organized in 1892, witb a plat-form that among other items demanded free andunlimited coinage of silver" (Friedman, 116). Thesepopulists were as uncertain about the jittery econ-omy as the East Coast industrialists, who saw for-eign investors, most of whom (like England) wereon a gold standard, beginning to melt away liketroubles over the rainbow. Uchitelle adds that

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[c]ompetition and over-expansion made these Ipost-Civil War| industrialists vulnerable to bankruptcy.That, in turn, made the lenders nervous. And then[the] conflict over the value of the nation's currencyfinally pushed the lenders to call in their loans,which brought on the Panic of 1893 (1).The panic revealed an economy in trouble and a

"general uneasiness about the currency" (Friedman,108). Unemployment rose to 18.4 percent in 1894(Rockoff, 743). Because gold was scarce, the gov-ernment couldn't issue enough gold-backed moneyto make credit available to the farmers who were inbig trouble. Prices plummeted. Farmers wantedmore money in circulation so they could get cheapercredit, and that road, they believed, was paved withthe more plentiful silver. The Eastern industrialistsand the federal government, with more of an eyeon the largely gold-bound foreign investors,thought not. They saw a yellow brick road.

The debate came to a head in one of the mostfamous political conventions in American history:the Democratic gathering in 1896 that nominatedWilliam Jennings Bryan on the power of his Crossof Gold speech. Bryan intoned:

[h|aving behind us the producing masses of thisnation...we will answer their demands for a goldstandard by saying to them: You shall not pressdown upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns,you shall not crucify mankind on a cross of gold(Koenig, 197).Bryan snagged the nomination of his party and

ran on a platform of unlimited coinage of silver.

"The Royal Historian of Oz"Against this background, the future "royal histo-

rian of Oz," as Baum liked to call himself, was "cer-tainly aware of the great events going on aroundhim" (Ritter, 21). He had taken a curious route toChicago and the context of what would turn out tobe bis masterpiece.

Lyman Frank Baum was born into a well-to-dofamily near Syracuse, New York, on May 15, 1856(see Gardner and Nye, and Baum and MacFall forbiography). His father earned his fortune from tbePennsylvania oil fields. Young Frank dabbled inprinting and theater. He married, fathered two sons,and in 1887, moved to an area that would becomethe state of Soutb Dakota, where he ran a varietystore and worked in journalism and witnessed thedesperation of the kinds of people wbo would beinstrumental in the populist movement. Two moresons were born. In 1891 Baum moved bis family toChicago, where be worked as a reporter for theChicago Post Tbere he marched in "torchlightparades for William Jennings Bryan... [Baum] con-sistently voted as a democrat (sic...)[H]is sympathiesseem always to bave been on tbe side of the laboring

The WON-DEKfULWIZARD

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classes" (Gardner and Nye, 29). In 1897, he foundedthe monthly trade publication for window dressers.The Show Window, tbe public relations organ forthe National Association of Window Trimmers ofAmerica, a group tbat Baum founded and headed.

Baum's first book, a collection of his version ofMotber Goose tales, was publisbed in 1897; the sec-ond be printed privately in 1898. Between 1897and 1900 he was working on two books. The Art ofDecorating Dry Goods, a manual on early image-making for the retail business and, of course. TheWizard ofOz. (Culver's essay brilliantly suggests tbeconnections between Baum's retailing and his fic-tion.) However focused Baum may bave been onthe details of bis professional life, tbe Zeitgeist ofcurrency-crazed America was absorbed into theparable of a storm coming out of the Middle West,that is, into tbe highly allusive text that is TheWizard of Oz.

"Oh God, give us cyclones..."— a delegate to the National Silver Party

convention, 1896Recalling The Wizard of Oz in the context of its

times and as a piece of promotional writing is a his-torically valuable and often surprising endeavor. Astbe work of Oz critics Littlefield, Rockoff, Culverand Ritter make clear, now-familiar figures and

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characters take on strange but once urgent mean-ings and dimensions.

The plot of The Wizard ofOz is disarmingly sim-ple. An orphan girl, Dorotby Gale, about six yearsold, lives on a bleak and depressed Kansas farmwitb her aunt and uncle. One day a cyclone beginsto rage, and sbe and ber dog take sbelter in tbehouse, wbich is pulled from its foundation by tbecyclone and blown to the Land of Oz. Tbe bouselands on and kills the Wicked Witch of tbe East,wbo had been wearing a magic pair of silver shoes(made ruby slippers in the Technicolor film, one of

The story of an American girlin silver shoes on a roadpaved with golden bricks

in a country named for theabbreviation for ounce would

have rung loudly foran audience in the 1890s.

the many significant differences between Baum'sand Hollywood's vision of Oz). Dorothy takes tbesilver shoes herself (in another change made by tbefilm, which bas the good witch assign the slippersto Dorothy). The good witch tells Dorothy tbat tbeWizard of Oz migbt belp ber get home. "The roadto tbe [Wizard's] City of Emeralds is paved withyeilow brick... so you cannot miss it," tbe witchexplains (Baum, 27). Baum's contemporary audi-ence couldn't miss it, either.

Tbe story of an archetypal American girl in silvershoes on a road paved with golden bricks in acountry named for tbe abbreviation for ouncewould have rung loudly for an audience in tbe1890s caught up in "tbe financial question." (LaterBaum claimed that he called his fantasy land Ozafter glancing at a file drawer wbose contents wentfrom O-Z [Baum and MacFall, 110], yet tbisdadaesque spin, in light of the weight of otbermonetary evidence, seems apocrypbal.) Rockoffidentifies the cyclone as "the free silver movementitself. It came roaring out of the West in 1896, shak-ing the political establishment to its foundation"(745). Tbe Wicked Witch of tbe East Ritter identi-fies as Eastern capitalism (288).

Along tbe yellow brick road, Dorothy encountersthree creatures: tbe Scarecrow, the Tin Woodmanand the Cowardly Lion — eacb, like Dorothy, insearch of a part of himself that, of course, he or shebas all along — a brain, a beart, the nerve and tbe

ability to return bome, respectively. Eacb of tbeseAmerican elements, the farmer, the worker, theloquacious politician, and the archetypal Amer-icanness that is Dorotby, seems to bave a sense thatsomething is missing, tbat she or he lacks the abilityto fulfill his or ber destinies: tbe farmer feels stupidand tbe worker empty; the roar of the politicianrings hollow; the displacement of Dorotby is symp-tom for a rootlessness brougbt about by the gov-ernment and tbe powers of capitalism representedby the witches and, of course, the Wizard of Ozbimself.

Baum's intentions seem to be both pro-silver butwith some criticism for the populists as well. Eacbof these now-familiar characters plays a role in tbemetals controversy: the Scarecrow as a symbol forthe farmers, tbe Tin Woodman for the industrialworkers, and the Lion, the great roarer, as an auralpun which conjures silver's greatest orator, WilliamJennings Bryan.

Bryan cowardly? By tbe time Baum was writingOz, Bryan had lost his first attempt at tbe presi-dency in 1896 but by tben the political edge of thesilver issue had been blunted by tbe graduallyreturning prosperity. Bryan, Rockoff points out, wasperceived as

soft-pedal [ling] silver and [concentrating] on newissues... [the Populists] considered this line of actionpure cowardice. They wanted the Great Commonerto fight for silver in 1900 as he had in 1896 (748).

Ritter says that many of tbe images relating totbe Lion in Oz "paralleled Byran's bistory as some-one who rose on the strength of his oratory, andwas burned in bis attempt to confront the powersof Washington" (59).

After a series of adventures, many of which canbe fit into the allegory, they arrive at tbe EmeraldCity, the political epicenter of tbe land obsessedwitb silver, gold and Oz, Washington, D. C. Thereeveryone looks at the world through green-coloredglasses. Culver states that

[gireen is also the color of money, and, for Baum,the spectacles provide a tool for criticizing thePopulist assumption that paper money (greenbacks)alone would restore the critical distinction betweenreal value and the means by which the value isexpressed and exchanged (114).Tbe Wizard of Oz agrees to see tbe motley gang

only after he hears about Dorothy's silver shoes:"Oh, be will see you," the soldier tells Dorotby, "atfirst be was angry, and said I should send you backwhere you came from. Then be asked me wbat youlooked like, and when I mentioned your silvershoes he was very much interested" (Baum, 126).Tbe silver shoes are central not only to the narra-tive tbrust of the tale but also to the underlyingconcerns of Baum's largely pro-silver message. The

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key to all that happens in The Wizard of Oz isencoded into what one knows about silver.

Before Dorothy and her friends get to see theWizard of Oz, though, they are taken to rooms tofreshen up. Dorothy follows a green girl (Dorothyhas by now donned fhe spectacles of Oz) "throughseven passages and up three flights of stairs" to herroom. This has been seen as a veiled reference tothe "Crime of '73" (Ritter, 290; Rockoff, 750), anoutrage that would be very much still on the mindsof Baum's silver-supporting contemporaries. Liter-ally, the way into the heart of power at the end ofthe Yellow Brick Road lies through the passages ofseven and three: for many, the "Crime of '73" ledto the eventual triumph of the gold standard.

The Wizard will grant Dorothy and her friendstheir wishes if they are able to kill the WickedWitch of the West. During an encounter with theevil witch, Dorothy throws water on her and shemelts. Surprised that Dorothy was able to kill thewitch, the Wizard can't make good on his promises,is proven to be a fake and offers symbolic rewardsfor the gang of four. The Wizard himself, Littlefieldsays, is "a little bumbling old man, hiding behinda facade of papier mache and noise, might be anyPresident from Grant to McKinley" (54). Whileattempting to take Dorothy home in his hot-airballoon, the bumbling but well-meaning Wizardtakes off leaving Dorothy stranded. But the charmof the silver shoes kicks in again and saves the day.

Dorothy "did not know of the wonderfulpower the Silver Shoes gave her."

— The Wizard of OzBy the time Dorothy got home — and by the

time Baum published The Wizard of Oz — thepower of the silver shoes, just like the political issuethat was "the financial question" had dissipated.After Dorothy is told of the power of the shoes byGlinda, the Good Witch of the South — "All youhave to do is knock the heels together three timesand command the shoes to carry you whereveryou wish to go" (Baum, 257) — she loses them onthe way back to her bleak Kansas farm: "For theSilver Shoes had fallen off in her flight through theair, and were lost forever in the desert" (Baum,259). Between the time Baum conceived of andexecuted The Wizard of Oz, the economic condi-tions that made the silver issue so urgent grew bet-ter and the Spanish-American War diverted publicattention to more dramatic issues (Littlefield, 49).The Gold Standard Act was passed in March 1900.Friedman and Schwartz conclude that

[tlhe gold standard had finally triumphed in theUnited States, and Bryan's second defeat in the Presi-dential election in the fall of 1900 sealed the doomof silver as a major issue dominating national poli-

tics. The price reversal, which farmers had sought toachieve with silver, was produced after 1897 by theprodigious increase in the international supply ofmonetary gold. The 'money' issue retreated fromthe center of political controversy (119).

Baum's parable of America at the turn of thecentury went on to become the country's mostbeloved fairy tale, while his complicated propagan-distic intentions faded away when those issuesretreated from public discourse. Just like Dorothy'ssilver shoes — lost in transit from Oz — this earlypublic relations aspect of The Wizard of Oz, whichwas a deft combination of children's literature andadult political propaganda, was lost in America'strajectory out of Gilded Age and into the 20thcentury. PRQ

Works CitedBaum, Frank Joslyn and Rusell P. MacFall. To Please a Child: A

Biography of L. Frank Baum, Royal Historian of Oz. Chicago:Reiliy and Lee, 1961.

Baum, L. Frank. The Wonderfiil Wizard of Oz. New York: Dover,1960.

Coletta, Paolo E. William Jennings Bryan, Vol. I: Political Evangelist.Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1964.

Culver, Stuart. "Wiiat Manikins Want: 'The Wonderful Wizardof Oz' and 'The Art of Decorating Dry Goods Windows'."Representations, Winter 1988, n. 21, 97-116.

Friedman, Milton and Jacobson Schwartz, A Monetary History ofthe United States, 1867-1960. Princeton: Princeton UniversityPress, 1963.

Gardner, Martin and Nye, Russel B. The Wizard of Oz and WhoHe Was. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1957.

Goodwyn, Lawrence. Democratic Promise: The Populist Moment inAmerica. New York: Oxford University Press, 1976.

Koenig, Louis W. Bryan: A Political Biography of William JenningsBryan. New York: Putnam, 1971.

Littlefield, Henry, M. "The Wizard of Oz: Parable on Populism."American Quarterly, v. 16, 3, Spring 1964, 47-58.

Martin, David. "1853: The End of Bimetallism in the UnitedStates" Journal of Economic History, v. 33, n. 4, 825-844.

Miller, Roger LeRoy and VanHoose, David D. Modem Money andBanking. 3rd. Ed. New York: McGraw Hill, 1993.

Ritter, Gretchen. Gotdbugs and Greenbacks: The AntimonopotyTradition and the Politics of Finance in America, 1865-1896. NewYork: Cambridge University Press, 1997.

Rockoff, Hugb. "Tbe 'Wizard of Oz' as a Monetary Allegory."Journal of Political Economy, v. 98, n. 4, 1990, 7.39-760.

Ucbitelle, Louis. "Learning from the Big Booms." The New YorkTimes. Sunday, June 28, 1998, section 4, pp. 1, 6.

Tim Ziaukas, M.A., M.F.A. is an assistant professor of pub-lic relations at the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford. He isalso director of Its Public Relations Program, i-ie is widelypublished in both trade and consumer pubiications. Includ-ing a number of award-winning articles for PittsburghMagazine,Dept. of Communications Arts, University of Pittsburghat Bradford, Bradford, PA 16701. 814-362-2101, fax814-362-7684, timz+@pitt.edu.

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