Status Updates From The Real Wizard of Oz: The ...

In Baum's view women didn't just deserve the right to vote; he believed they would improve it.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz sold reasonably well but not as well as Father Goose. Sells picked up in December and the book became a bestseller.

The history of prejudice against left handedness goes back centuries

The line "There is no place like home" only appears in the book once but it would become the central mantra of the 1939 MGM movie.

In May 1898 Baum discovered a brilliant new idea for a story about a child who travels to a marvelous land called Oz.

At the end of 1897 Baum became a published author when his book Mother Goose in Prose was released.

The climate on the plains was extreme and unpredictable.

Baum established a theater company and went on tour performing Shakespearean plays.

P.T. Barnum's "Greatest Show on Earth" was more than a circus, although it had circus animals and acrobats. It was a pageant and a carnival.

When Baum arrived in New York City, the Brooklyn Bridge was under construction, the era of skyscrapers hadn't arrived yet, the Statue of Liberty hadn't arrived, and it was filled with immigrants from Italy, Ireland, Germany and Poland. It was a life of poor sanitation and poverty

Baum's later deep anxiety about the role of fear in children's stories was ignited by his early exposure to the frightening tales of the Grimms and Andersen.

The idea of childhood was changing. Reform movements aimed to end child labor and schooling became compulsory for all 6 to 14 year olds in New York state in 1874.

In the summer of 1866, Benjamin Baum accidentally shot his wife Cynthia in the left leg.

The name Baum means wood in German.

In the nineteenth century many people actually believed in fairies but these creatures weren't the harmless little winged pixies. They were ugly and mean and they snatched babies.

In the mid nineteenth century, diphtheria wasn't fully understood.