Why a Booktrail?
1938: The story behind the Wizard of Oz..
Finding Dorothy
Why a Booktrail?
1938: The story behind the Wizard of Oz..
What you need to know before your trail
Hollywood, 1938: As soon as she learns that M-G-M is adapting her late husband’s masterpiece, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, for the screen, Maud Gage Baum sets about trying to visit the set.
Nineteen years after Frank’s passing, Maud is the only person who can help the producers stay true to the spirit of the book – because she’s the only one left who knows its secrets…
But the moment she hears Judy Garland rehearsing the first notes of ‘Over the Rainbow’, Maud recognizes the yearning that defined her own life story, from her rebellious youth as a suffragette’s daughter to her coming of age as one of the first women in the Ivy League, from her blossoming romance with Frank to the hardscrabble prairie years that inspired his famous work. With the young actress under pressure from the studio as well as her ambitious stage mother, Maud resolves to protect her – the way she tried so hard to protect the real Dorothy.
Locations
Reset- America/ USA - CA - Los Angeles
- A: Hollywood - MGM Studios
- B: Sunset and Laurel - tram stop
- C: Forest Lawn Memorial Park
- America/USA - SD
- D: Aberdeen - Baum household
- America/ USA - NY
- E: Ithaca - Cornell University
- F: Fayetteville
Travel Guide
Click your heels and travel to the Los Angeles and South Dakota to help Find Dorothy
Baum was born in Chittenango, New York in 1856 into a devout Methodist family. He was the seventh of nine children.
He soon began his lifetime infatuation with the theatre.
On November 9, 1882, Baum married Maud Gage, a daughter of Matilda Joslyn Gage, a famous women’s suffrage and feminist activist.
In July 1888, Baum and his wife moved to Aberdeen, Dakota Territory where he opened a store called “Baum’s Bazaar”. This later failed and so then Baum decided to form a newspaper. This failed in 1891, and he, Maud, and their four sons moved to the Humboldt Park section of Chicago, where Baum took a job reporting for the Evening Post.
In 1900, Baum and Denslow shared copyright) published The Wonderful Wizard of Oz . It was the best-selling children’s book for two years after its initial publication. Baum then went on to write thirteen more novels based on the places and people of the Land of Oz.
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz has been adapted to stage and screen countless times but the most famous film, and that which is described in the book was The Wizard of Oz, the film which came out in 1939 starring Judy Garland in the title role of Dorothy.
BookTrail Boarding Pass: Finding Dorothy
Destination: Los Angeles, Hollywood, South Dakota, New York state Author/guide: Elizabeth Letts Departure Time: 1938
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