The Wizard of Oz

Classic fantasy of The Wizard of Oz,by Frank L. Baum in 1900.

Join me for some interesting facts about this great story

The Wizard of Oz is now almost universally acknowledged to be the earliest truly feminist American children's book, because of tenacious Dorothy. She has the indomitable spirit of the early suffragists. Susan B. Anthony refused to seek shelter in a storm cellar from an impending twister. "A little thing like a twister doesnt frighten me," she said.

Baum took over the Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer in 1890. Baum wrote most of the editorials, and his topics varied from spiritualism to womans suffrage.

The Wizard of Oz is saluted in Library of Congress Bicentennial Exhibition. The "yellow brick road" leads to the Library of Congress on April 21 with the opening of an exhibition marking the 100th anniversary of one of America's most beloved stories, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The Library's Copyright Office registered this work by L. Frank Baum in 1900, and it has gone on to become one of the most profitable and well-known copyrights ever issued. (March 7, 2000 Helen Dalrymple)

The book has been in public domain in the United States since 1956, and since 1989 in many other countries.

Many scholars have interpreted the book as an allegory or metaphor for the political, economic and social events of America of the 1890s.

The book opens not in an imaginary place but in real life Kansas, which in the 1890s was well-known for the hardships of rural life, and for destructive tornadoes. The Panic of 1893 caused widespread distress in rural America.