Editing L. Frank Baum (section)

===Political===

====Racial views====
During the period of the 1890 [[Ghost Dance]] movement and [[Wounded Knee Massacre]], Baum wrote two editorials asserting that the safety of [[American pioneer|American settlers]] depended on the wholesale [[Genocide of indigenous peoples|genocide of Native Americans]]. These editorials were re-published in 1990 by sociologist Robert Venables of Cornell University, who argues that Baum was not using sarcasm.<ref>{{cite web|last=Venables|first=Robert|title=Twisted Footnote to Wounded Knee|url=http://www.dickshovel.com/TwistedFootnote.html|publisher=Northeast Indian Quarterly}}</ref> Historian [[Camilla Townsend]], the editor of ''American Indian History: A Documentary Reader'', argued that the editorial was "Against character", as he had earlier published a piece that criticized the idea of White Americans fearing Native Americans; Townsend stated that she failed to find evidence that Baum was using sarcasm.<ref>{{cite book|chapter=Introduction|editor=Camilla Townsend|publisher=[[John Wiley & Sons]]|title=American Indian History: A Documentary Reader|date=2009|isbn=9781405159074|page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=GMJl7VcmupMC&pg=PA6 6]}}</ref>

The first piece was published on December 20, 1890, five days after the killing of the [[Lakota people|Lakota]] [[Sioux]] [[Medicine man|holy man]] [[Sitting Bull]].<ref name="editorials">{{cite web|title=L. Frank Baum's Editorials on the Sioux Nation|url=http://www.northern.edu/hastingw/baumedts.htm|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071209193251/http://www.northern.edu/hastingw/baumedts.htm|archive-date=December 9, 2007|access-date=December 9, 2007}} Full text of both, with commentary by professor A. Waller Hastings</ref><ref>Rogers, p. 259.</ref> The piece opined that with Sitting Bull's death, "[[Noble savage|the nobility of the Redskin]]" had been extinguished, and the safety of the frontier would not be established until there was "total annihilation" of the remaining Native Americans, who, he claimed, lived as "miserable wretches." Baum said that their extermination should not be regretted, and their elimination would "do justice to the manly characteristics" of their ancestors.<ref name="editorials" />

The Wounded Knee Massacre occurred nine days later; the second editorial was published on January 3, 1891. Baum alleged that General [[Nelson A. Miles]]' weak rule on the Native Americans had caused American soldiers to suffer a "terrible loss of blood", in a "battle" which had been a disgrace to the [[United States Department of War|Department of War]]. He found that the "disaster" could have easily been prevented with proper preparations. Baum reiterated that he believed, due to the history of mistreatment of Native Americans, that the extermination of the "untamed and untamable" tribes was necessary to protect American settlers. Baum ended the editorial with the following anecdote: "An eastern contemporary, with a grain of wisdom in its wit, says that 'when the whites win a fight, it is a victory, and when the Indians win it, it is a massacre.'"<ref name="editorials2">Professor Robert Venables, Senior Lecturer Rural Sociology Department, Cornell University, "Looking Back at Wounded Knee 1890", ''Northeast Indian Quarterly'', Spring 1990</ref>

In 2006, two descendants of Baum apologized to the [[Sioux|Sioux nation]] for any hurt that their ancestor had caused.<ref name=apology>{{cite news |first=Charles |last=Ray |title='Oz' Family Apologizes for Racist Editorials |url=https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5662524 |work=[[Morning Edition]] |publisher=[[National Public Radio]] |date=August 17, 2006 |access-date=September 4, 2007 }}</ref>

The short story "The Enchanted Buffalo" claims to be a legend about a tribe of bison, and it states that a key element of it made it into the legends of Native American tribes.<!---preceding sentence makes no sense.---> Baum mentions his characters' distaste for a [[Hopi]] [[snake dance]] in ''[[Aunt Jane's Nieces and Uncle John]]'', but he also deplores the horrible situation which exists on [[Native American reservation]]s. ''[[Aunt Jane's Nieces on the Ranch]]'' features a hard-working Mexican in order to disprove [[Anglo-Americans|Anglo-American]] stereotypes [[Anti-Mexican sentiment|which portray Mexicans as lazy]].{{citation needed|date=October 2012}} Baum's mother-in-law and [[Women's suffrage in the United States|woman's suffrage]] leader [[Matilda Joslyn Gage]] strongly influenced his views. Gage was initiated into the Wolf Clan and admitted into the [[Iroquois]] Council of Matrons in recognition of her outspoken respect and sympathy for the Native American people.<ref>Reneau, Reneau H. "A Newer Testament: Misanthropology Unleashed," donlazaro translations, 2008, pp. 129–147</ref>

====Women's suffrage advocate====
When Baum lived in [[Aberdeen, South Dakota]], where he was secretary of its Equal Suffrage Club, much of the politics in the [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican]] ''Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer'' dealt with trying to convince the populace to vote for [[women's suffrage]].<ref name="Baum Suffrage">{{cite news |last1=Torrey |first1=Edwin |title=Six Suffrage Campaigns In South Dakota |url=https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn2001063549/1918-11-14/ed-1/seq-6/ |access-date=October 18, 2021 |work=The Saturday News |agency=The United Press |date=November 14, 1918 |location=Watertown, South Dakota |page=6 |language=English}}</ref> [[Susan B. Anthony]] visited Aberdeen and stayed with the Baums. Nancy Tystad Koupal notes an apparent loss of interest in editorializing after Aberdeen failed to pass the bill for women's enfranchisement.

Sally Roesch Wagner of The [[Matilda Joslyn Gage]] Foundation published ''The Wonderful Mother of Oz'', describing how Matilda Gage's feminist politics were sympathetically channeled by Baum into his Oz books. Some of Baum's contacts with suffragists of his day seem to have inspired much of ''The Marvelous Land of Oz''. In this story, General [[Jinjur]] leads the girls and women of Oz in a revolt, armed with knitting needles; they succeed and make the men do the household chores. Jinjur proves to be an incompetent ruler, but [[Princess Ozma]], who advocates [[gender equality]], is ultimately placed on the throne. [[Charlotte Perkins Gilman]]'s 1915 classic of [[feminist science fiction]], ''[[Herland (novel)|Herland]]'', bears strong similarities to ''The Emerald City of Oz'' (1910); the link between Baum and Gilman is considered to be Gage.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Massachi |first1=Dina Schiff |title=Connecting Baum and Gilman: Matilda Gage and Her Influence on Oz and Herland |journal=The Journal of American Culture |date=2018 |volume=41 |issue=2 |pages=203–214 |doi=10.1111/jacc.12872 |s2cid=149563492 |access-date=}}</ref> Baum's stories outside of Oz also contain feminist or egalitarian themes. His Edith Van Dyne stories depict girls and young women engaging in traditionally masculine activities, including ''[[Aunt Jane's Nieces]]'' and ''[[The Flying Girl]]'' and its sequel. [[The Bluebird Books]] feature a girl sleuth.

====Political imagery in ''The Wizard of Oz''====
{{Main|Political interpretations of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz}}

Numerous political references to the "Wizard" appeared early in the 20th century. [[Henry Littlefield]], an upstate New York high school history teacher, wrote a scholarly article in 1964, the first full-fledged interpretation of the novel as an extended metaphor of the politics and characters of the 1890s.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.amphigory.com/oz.htm |title=The Wizard of Oz: Parable on Populism.first=Henry |last=LittlefieldHenry |work=American Quarterly. v. 16, 3, Spring 1964, 47–58 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100819173851/http://www.amphigory.com/oz.htm |archive-date=August 19, 2010 }}</ref> He paid special attention to the [[Populist Party (United States)|Populist]] metaphors and debates over silver and gold.<ref>Attebery, pp. 86–87.</ref> He published a poem in support of [[William McKinley]].<ref>[http://www.halcyon.com/piglet/Populism.htm Oz Populism Theory<!-- bot-generated title -->] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130925125738/http://www.halcyon.com/piglet/Populism.htm |date=September 25, 2013 }} at www.halcyon.com</ref>

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. Littlefield wrote to ''The New York Times'' letters to the editor section spelling out that his theory had no basis in fact, but that his original point was "not to label Baum, or to lessen any of his magic, but rather, as a history teacher at Mount Vernon High School, to invest turn-of-the-century America with the imagery and wonder I have always found in his stories."<ref>{{cite web|access-date=December 20, 2008|url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE4D9143CF934A35751C0A964958260&n=Top/Reference/Times%20Topics/Subjects/M/Motion%20Pictures|title='Oz' Author Kept Intentions to Himself|date=February 7, 1992|publisher=The New York Times Company}}</ref>

Baum's newspaper had addressed politics in the 1890s, and Denslow was an editorial cartoonist as well as an illustrator of children's books. 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. Rockefeller for providing the oil needed by the Tin Woodman. Scholars have found few political references in Baum's Oz books after 1902. Baum was asked whether his stories had hidden meanings, but he always replied that they were written to "please children".<ref>{{cite book|last=Tuerk|first=Richard|title=Oz in Perspective: Magic and Myth in the L. Frank Baum Books|date=2015|publisher=McFarland|isbn=978-0-786-48291-7|page=6}}</ref>