When Baum attended Chicago’s World’s Fair in 1893 and marveled at the gleaming, sparkling facades of the White City - which was magical and dreamlike, yet totally fabricated - might he have drawn upon that experience when he imagined the Emerald City?ĭrawing on interviews with authors and historians, myriad photos of Baum, readings from his letters and papers, snippets of newspaper clippings and a bounty of stunning pictures (and later film clips) from the late 19th and early 20th century, “American Oz” is a gorgeous tapestry of a specific time and place in which many Americans were looking to expand their world beyond the small towns where they had grown up, moving out West or to large Midwestern cities in the hopes of not just carving out a living but achieving true success. Kansas was a substitute of sorts for the Dakota plains, where Baum and his family lived for a time and found life to be harsh and unforgiving. Denslow’s illustrations from the original story are sprinkled throughout the documentary, which makes a convincing case that Dorothy’s adventures were inspired by Baum’s own experiences. Frank Baum (top center) is surrounded by characters from “The Fairylogue and Radio-Plays,” a traveling multimedia stage show based on “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.” PBSĬlips from the 1939 classic film “The Wizard of Oz” and the brilliant W.W. Which was sometimes admirable, as when he campaigned for women to have the right to vote decades before that became a reality.Īnd sometimes deplorable, for example when he wrote a newspaper column calling for Native Americans to be exterminated and “wipe from the face of the Earth.” L. We also learn of Baum’s political and social activism. “American Oz” is the latest entrant in PBS’s “American Experience” series, and it is the definitive video biography of Baum, from his privileged upbringing on an estate in New York through his dogged pursuit of the American dream through his many failed endeavors to the wildly successful “Oz” (and its many sequels). It was titled “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.” Then, in 1900, at 44, Baum published a book that would become arguably THE great American fairy tale, a book that would spawn hugely successful adaptations and interpretations through the decades and all the way into the 21st century. And in the 1890s, he found a measure of success with a book reimagining Mother Goose rhymes as prose. Monday on WTTW-Channel 11 and available then at PBS.org and the PBS Video app.Īlways, Baum held onto his dreams of becoming a writer. An “American Experience” documentary premiering at 9 p.m.