Talk:L. Frank Baum

Racism
Asa - I have no time yet to edit the change you made, but I will. I promise you that I am trying to be balanced, and not just automatically undo your contributions. When you refer to the stereotypes against African Americans - I assume one of them is the "Hottentot" race in The Patchwork Girl of Oz, but which is the second you refer to? --Woggly 13:54, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * In Rinkitink in Oz. According to http://www.eskimo.com/~tiktok/faq02.html#19. AW


 * Then read a little more carefully. What was removed by Books of Wonder from Rinkitink in Oz was one of the illustrations by John R. Neill. Nothing in Baum's text was altered. Baum and Neill never met in person to work on the books, Baum would turn his texts in and Neill would illustrate them. This is hardly testimony to Baum's racism. As for The Patchwork Girl of Oz: when you write of "perpetuating racial stereotypes", I have to wonder, have you actually read the passages in question, or just jumped to conclusion based on the summary on Eric Gjovaag's webpage? Eric was giving these passages as an example of "censorship" of Baum's text. Several Oz fans were FURIOUS at Books of Wonder for making the very minor changes that they made to their books (sold as "facsimiles of the original") in the name of politically correctness - among other reasons, because some of them did not feel the sentences in question to be that offensive to begin with. Once again, it's a question of degree. I can't honestly say that there's nothing racist in Baum's depiction of the non-human Hottentots - but just to give some perspective, there are more negative racial stereotypes in one page of Huckleberry Finn than in all the Oz books put together. Roald Dahl's Oompah Loompahs are by far more offensive (though toned down in later editions), and Roald Dahl was probably far more aware of the implications of the stereotypes he was using. I understand that you're looking for evidence showing Baum to be a racist. I can almost guarantee it will be a lot easier to find evidence that Abraham Lincoln, Mother Theresa and Ghandi were racists. --Woggly 16:05, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * I have no idea why you keep on bringing up the racism of other authors and famous figures, except to divert attention from the issues. All that has no bearing on the present article, as I've already added the qualification "Like many Americans of his day". Go and change those articles and point out their racism too if you have the time and inclination.


 * As to your substantive point: note my wording "work" and "author". If I had chosen "writer", then that might have warranted a change in wording. Are you suggesting a famous author had no influence on the illustrations in his own work? If he had had the illustrations changed during his lifetime then, although the racist stereotype would still have been perpetutated, it would have shown that he himself did not share such missconceptions. As it was, we have no reason to think he did not (on the contrary, he was a man who advocated genocide against another racial group). If you want to expand that sentence to clarify the difference between the drawing itself and the approval of the drawing, feel free. AW


 * When Baum denounced the Indians as "whining curs who lick the hand that smites them," he was observing something that Sitting Bull had also observed&mdash;the development of the plains Indians from independent people to wards of a hostile government, in Sitting Bull's words, "slaves to a piece of fat bacon." I grant that the government left them no real choice, but I still object to identifying Baum's "whining curs" remark as "de-humanizing" when Sitting Bull made the same observation more eloquently.
 * We need not get into the question of the politics of racist terminology (e.g. the word "nigger" coming from a black man has different implications(OH DOES IT?? You just keep lying to yourself old son, just keep it up!!)). Sitting Bull did not use the term, "whining curs", to my knowledge, so your point is simply moot. It is clear that Baum thought of the Indians as some sort of untermensch from his use of the word "creatures" to describe them. In the light of this comment, as well as the whole context of the two editorials "whining curs" has clear implications - "they" are not as good, pure or human as "us"; therefore the supreme crime of genocide against them is really no crime at all.


 * Also, I never removed the word "annihilated," I just linked it to genocide. Gazpacho 13:34, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * Well, you did remove it in one of your revisions. But -fair enough- you put it back in the final one of the series. Sorry - my comment was based on an initial mixup between versions.


 * The figure of 300 was gleaned from the Massacre article itself and I have no reason to doubt it. In includes those from Wounded knee who died afterwards as a result of their displacement. I have now clarified this. AW

Disingeneous? The section on Redskins (Native Americans) is quite clear: Baum wanted them dead, which seems extreme at the least However, to go on about the term niggers etc is a bit disingeneous as that was the normal term used in that time. Of course, with current values having changed - and niggers or negroes being derogatory in the US, IIUC - a person using "niggers" casually would seem strange and racist. My point is that probably every white person at that time was strange and raciest - perhaps a good thing to point out.

Was Baum ever a traveling salesman?
In the 1990 television movie The Dreamer of Oz, for at least a period of his life L. Frank Baum is depicted as a traveling salesman, yet I find no mention of that in the article. Have I just missed it or perhaps is this viewed as too inconsequential to mention in the article, assuming it is true? Thank you. HistoryBuff14 (talk) 18:28, 7 October 2022 (UTC)


 * I found the answer:
 * "For a time, Baum worked as a traveling salesman for his brother Benjamin William Baum, whose company began in Buffalo but then moved to several locations in Syracuse."
 * https://freethought-trail.org/historical-events/event:l-frank-baum-early-life-in-syracuse/
 * Perhaps it might be mentioned in the article if anyone thinks it's of any significance.
 * Thanks.HistoryBuff14 (talk) 15:37, 9 October 2022 (UTC)