A little bit too late for the unit on these events, but I just thought of the book Wizard of Oz by L Frank Baum as being a good way to remember events during the early 1900's when Mr. Stewart made the comment that literature and media in popular culture. Most of the objects and people represent those that were prevalent during that time...(please note that these references are all in the book but not necessarily in the movie).
http://www.independent.org/publications/tir/article.asp?a=504 for the whole article/further reading, or read my breakdown below.
Characters:
Dorothy: represents the American population (naive and simple)
Scarecrow: farmers, honest, able to understand without much knowledge (supporter of Dorothy--Populist)
Tin man: industrial workers (esp. steel industry), unemployed when no oil/factories
Cowardly Lion: William Jenning Bryan, didnt support war with Spain (afraid), wanted to go to capitol (Emerald city--as Populist presidential nominee)
Glinda (the good witch of the South) / good witch of the north: Bryan's populist supporters who wanted the monetary reform (gold and silver)
Wicked witch of the east: Wall street bankers, support Grover Cleveland, pro-gold standard
Wicked witch of the west: represents the drought (melted by water --> real water cures drought/liquidity ends depression), one-eyed witch (opposed two metal/bi-metallic system)
Wizard of OZ: politician, tricks people into thinking that he is all powerful, manipulator of wall street
Objects:
Ruby/silver slippers: represents the bi-metallic system that would "save" the farmers
**note: silver was changed to ruby in order to make full use of Technicolor which had just been introduced
OZ: standard measure of the gold oz
Emerald City: Washington DC (political center), had to take yellow brick road (gold standard) to get there, forced to wear "green spectacles" to see the world through green of money--upheld Wizard's power
Yellow brick road: gold standard
Dorothy's party: the populist party
Oil: allows people to be employed (tin man can only function with oil), pump of the economy
Cyclone: political revolution (late 1800's, early 1900's)
If you can find another representation in either the same book or another book written during this time, please let me know in the comments below!
Wow, this is really interesting! I did some more research and discovered that there are varying opinions about the Wizard of Oz as an allegory for the Populist movement. Some say that the author, Baum, he was a strong supporter of the Populist movement. This explains why he wrote The Wizard of Oz as an allegory for the movement, to spread his ideas more widely through literature. However, there are also those who say that Baum was not a Populist, citing the following poem written by Baum:
ReplyDelete"Our merchants won't be trembling / At the silverites' dissembling / When McKinley gets the chair!"
This would suggest that Baum did not support the Populists or free silver, instead favoring McKinley's economic policies, so it wouldn't make sense for him to write a book championing such ideas. In any case, it's open to many different interpretations—I'd love to hear what everyone else thinks!
http://www.usagold.com/gildedopinion/oz.html
This is such an interesting post! I really had no idea about any of this but the political background makes the story even more intriguing. After reading this post and Sierra's comment, I've formed a bit of my own opinion on Baum.
ReplyDeleteIn class we talked a lot about how and individual could be progressive but still have other opinions to make them "not-progressive" to a certain extent. I'm thinking he stood for many progressive ideals but not for free silver, as supported by the quote Sierra mentioned. This would put him on a scale of progressivism but not as extreme/ radical as, say, Roosevelt.