The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

Between 1888 and 1891, Baum moved his family to Aberdeen, South Dakota. At the time, this part of the country was experiencing severe drought. It was popularly believed, and accordingly instituted in land allotments and farming recommendations, that dry farming (non-irrigated farms in dry areas) could successfully produce crops. This method of agriculture proved to be unsustainable, especially during times of particularly low precipitation—as was the case in the late 1800s. This disastrous period, when many people starved to death, contributed to the Federal Reclamation Act of 1902; loans were given to farmers to install irrigation in arid areas.

Baum was clearly affected by the devastation he witnessed. His depiction of Uncle Henry and Aunt Em’s Kansas farm is of an adversarial and brutally barren land that drives those upon it to misery and exhaustion. His Scarecrow represents farmers who are unable to make the land yield crops. Baum was extremely sympathetic to the farmers’ revolts that took place while he lived in Aberdeen, many of which were reported on in the newspaper that he edited, the Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer. In the Land of Oz, Baum creates a land that is the opposite of the Kansas prairies: It is verdant and lush.

In 1891, Baum and his family relocated to Chicago. Here he witnessed struggle of a different kind. An economic downturn that affected the entire country had an immense impact on manufacturing. Many manufacturing businesses, including a quarter of the country’s railways, became bankrupt; this caused massive job losses in Chicago, a city that was very involved in and reliant on the manufacturing sector. The workers who managed to retain their jobs—many of whom already worked for very low wages in unpleasant and unsafe conditions in industrialized factories—experienced significant wage cuts. Baum symbolizes these struggles in the Tin Woodman.

Baum’s exposure to the struggles of industrial workers and farmers positioned him to be extremely sympathetic to the plight of the working class; he was an enthusiastic supporter of populist democracy, which was gaining traction in the Midwest. Baum supported the ultimately unsuccessful bid of Democrat William Jennings Bryan for the US presidency. Bryan’s positions aligned with Baum’s belief about populist democracy; Bryan was determined to represent the concerns of the everyday American, rather than the elite. Baum alludes to Bryan in his character of the Cowardly Lion; the Lion, lacking courage and conviction, ultimately ends up ruling beasts in a distant forest, symbolizing Bryan’s unsuccessful bid for presidency.

Baum uses his cast of travelers to paint a portrait of midwestern America by symbolizing different groups of Americans. In doing so, he offers a satirical critique of the state of the nation. Baum blames systemic problems caused by legislation, the economy, and the environment. He uses his characters to suggest that factory workers are not heartless—although their industries might be—and that farmers are not stupid but merely unaware of their own intelligence and their potential to influence the political system.