American Experience: Season 33, Episode 4

33 - 4: American Oz

Explore the life and times of author L. Frank Baum, the creator of one of the most beloved, enduring, and classic American narratives. By 1900, when The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was published, Baum was 44 years old and had spent much of his life in restless pursuit of success. With mixed results, he dove into a string of jobs — chicken breeder, actor, marketer of petroleum products, shopkeeper, newspaperman, and traveling salesman — Baum continued to reinvent himself, reflecting a uniquely American brand of confidence, imagination, and innovation. During his travels to the Great Plains and on to Chicago during the American frontier's final days, he witnessed a nation coming to terms with the economic uncertainty of the Gilded Age. But Baum never lost his childlike sense of wonder. Eventually, he crafted his observations into a magical tale of survival, adventure, and self-discovery, reinterpreted through the generations in films, books, and musicals.