Holland honors 'Wizard of Oz' author despite controversy

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The cooling waters and wind-swept beaches of Lake Michigan have attracted writers of all stripes to Michigan for more than 100 years. However, none have had a more lasting influence on American popular culture than L. Frank Baum, author of “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.”

Baum summered for more than 10 seasons with his family at the southern end of Lake Macatawa in Holland.

Baum was 43 years old when his collection of poetry for children, “Goose Man,” became a national best-seller in 1899. He used the profits from the book to rent a Victorian cottage on Lake Macatawa naming it “Sign of the Goose.”

In 1900, he finished writing “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” and teamed up with Denslow to illustrate what would become America’s most famous fairy tale. Denslow previously illustrated Baum’s “Goose Man” and the two continued to collaborate on several other “Oz” books before the arrangement was dissolved due to a squabble over royalties.

It is widely thought by literary scholars that some scenes and people in the book are directly related to Lake Macatawa — especially his use of the Castle and the iconic “yellow brick road,” both of which can be seen from the private resort.

This summer, you will be able to “follow the yellow brick road” in the city of Holland, which is installing life-size bronze sculptures of Dorothy and Toto, Tin Man, Scarecrow, Cowardly Lion and a Fighting Tree with a Flying Monkey perched in its branches.

Last week, Holland’s Centennial Park unveiled a 10 x 12-foot flower mosaic depicting the original book cover. In August, the bronze sculptures will be installed across the street on the north side of the Herrick Public Library.

Sally Laukitas, executive director of the Holland Area Convention and Visitors Bureau, is among community leaders who helped spearhead the art project — which is estimated to cost $300,000. Private fundraising will be generated by selling bricks and benches along the yellow brick road. She said donors can buy a brick on the road for $100 or one in front of a sculpture for $200. Bricks will be for sale through July 31.

Laukitas said, “The idea to recognize Baum’s book was a no-brainer but has taken five years to come to fruition.” She added that the sculptures will be based on the original artwork of W.W. Denslow, so visitors will see different versions of Dorothy and the Flying Monkeys than those represented in the 1939 movie based on the book.

The executive director expected in coming years there will be numerous spin-off programs associated with Baum and his works. One might be an encore presentation of one of the numerous plays he wrote. Baum, who failed as a play producer, wrote an estimated 42 plays and movie scripts in his lifetime. In addition to the 14 “Oz” books, Baum penned 41 other novels and 83 short stories.

His first book was on a breed of fancy poultry. He later founded and edited “Show Window” magazine for retailers.

Like many prolific authors, his body of work is not without controversy. As the former owner of The Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer newspaper in South Dakota, he penned an editorial calling for “the total annihilation of the few remaining Indians…better to die than live the miserable wretches they are.”

Additionally, several of his children’s books use the “N-word.”

His seemingly innocuous book “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” was also banned by the Detroit Public Library until 1972, partly because in 1957, a chief librarian thought the book was “encouraging negativism and misleading young minds to accept a cowardly approach to life.” Michigan State University Press published a book on the subject, “The Wizard of Oz and Who He Was,” by Martin Gardner and Russell B. Nye, a Pulitzer Prize-winning MSU professor who created the concept of American Popular Culture in the ‘60s.

Gardner and Nye’s book explores some of the lesser-known aspects of “Wizard” such as the influences it draws from the era’s Populist Movement, the silver versus gold debate and the alleged pro-Communism debate it stirred during the era of McCarthyism.

But the children who visit the sculptures will be oblivious to the more controversial aspects of the book. Instead, they can enjoy having their pictures taken with a reposing Cowardly Lion or a kneeling Tin Man while shouting “we’re not in Kansas anymore.”

“The Holland Oz Project”

Centennial Park

250 Central Ave., Holland

(616) 394-0000, www.hollandozproject.com

 

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