You Big Fat Slob

Lenore Peters and Hazel Davis perform "Cricket Dance," 1915.

Last month I discussed Lenore Peters, chorus girl with The Tik-Tok Man of Oz in 1913-14. Lenore Peters was good friends with Hazel Davis, also a chorus girl in The Tik-Tok Man of Oz. They auditioned for the show together, joined the chorus together, and traveled North America with the show until Davis left The Tik-Tok Man of Oz, as Peters explains in her autobiography, Looking Back While Surging Forward:

“One of the girls in the show, Hazel Davis, left us in Chicago to spend some time in New York with her Aunt Lutie. While there, she took lessons from a highly recommended ballet teacher named Madame Zain. Everybody ‘took’ from Mme. Zain. When Hazel came home to San Francisco she regaled us with imitations of her teacher.

“The first day, she said, while trying hard to please at the barre, the teacher remarked aloud to the pianist, ‘She ain’t no backbender, Miss Steiner.’ When coaching Hazel in a dance accompanied by a beat and a song, she would say—you won’t believe this—‘One, two, bend your knees, you big fat slob.’ . . . And after performing in a series of difficult steps ending with an elaborate gesture, she’d say, ‘You ask for applause.’ Then with a different gesture, ‘You don’t get it.’ . . . Quite a character, no?”

Copyright © 2024 Eric Shanower. All rights reserved.

Lenore Peters, More Than a Chorus Girl

The autobiography of Lenore Peters.

Once in a while, during my writing of All Wound Up, I ran across lovely surprises. One such instance was the case of Lenore Peters (1890–1984), chorus girl with The Tik-Tok Man of Oz.

Research led me to interviews with Lenore Peters and her daughter and others involved in the 20th century modern dance scene. I learned that following Peters’s stint with The Tik-Tok Man of Oz, she developed an influential modern dance career as director of the Peters-Wright School of Dancing in San Francisco. I discovered that Peters had published several books, including an autobiography, Looking Back While Surging Forward.

I wondered whether Peters’s autobiography included information about The Tik-Tok Man of Oz. I doubted the book would contain much, if anything, about the show. Peters didn’t discuss her chorus girl days in interviews. Her few years as a chorus girl seemed to be a minor blip in the landscape of her subsequent celebrated dance career. If she mentioned The Tik-Tok Man of Oz at all in her book, such mention might easily consist of no more than a footnote or one title in a list.

I could only find one copy of her autobiography for sale—at $200. I wasn’t about to spend so much money on a book that might yield nothing useful.

The power of interlibrary loan came to the rescue just in time. For nearly two years, Covid restrictions had halted interlibrary loan at my city system. So frustrating! I’d finished writing the text of All Wound Up and was well into book design when, at last, the restrictions dropped and interlibrary loan returned. I requested a copy of Peters’s biography through my local library branch. When I received notice of the book’s arrival, I hurried to the library and checked it out. I didn’t bother about driving home first—I sat in my car in the library parking lot, flipping through the pages, searching for any mention of The Tik-Tok Man of Oz.

Lenore Peters in 1940.

Jackpot! Lenore Peters didn’t simply mention the show, she devoted several pages to it. She wrote about auditions, touring, lyrics, and gossip. She provided new details. She confirmed conjectures I’d made about the show from piecing together clues gathered elsewhere. She even gave a cogent analysis of why the Broadway-bound show never reached New York. Lenore Peters’s autobiography became a valuable resource for my book All Wound Up, and I’m grateful I found it.

A sidenote of interest: Peters began writing her autobiography, Looking Back While Surging Forward, during a week in 1958 while teaching dance to a convention of Unitarians meeting at Asilomar, California, a well-known retreat center on the Monterey peninsula. Asilomar is also where Oz Con International, the longest-running annual celebration of Oz and L. Frank Baum (then known as the Winkie Convention), met for nearly thirty years. I attended that convention at Asilomar many times, never suspecting that I was walking in the footsteps of a cast member of The Tik-Tok Man of Oz.

Copyright © 2024 Eric Shanower. All rights reserved.

Baum's Opera House

My presentation at Oz Con International, July 2024.

At Oz Con International in July 2024, I gave a presentation on Baum’s Opera House. That’s the theatre in Richburg, New York, that L. Frank Baum co-managed with his uncle John Wesley Baum for ten weeks in 1881-82.

For decades, a lot of false information has accumulated about Baum’s early theatrical career. Falsities include the idea that L. Frank Baum’s father gave Baum “a string of opera houses,” that L. Frank Baum produced his own plays at Baum’s Opera House, and that L. Frank Baum ever belonged to a “Shakespearean troupe” of actors. I intended my groundbreaking presentation to blast away many of the false accretions—those pesky Hanging Munchkins—and present the truth about Baum’s Opera House.

But I wanted to present more than that. I wanted to identify the spot where Baum’s Opera House once stood.

Early in the morning of March 8, 1882, Baum’s Opera House burned beyond repair, thus ending Baum’s theatre management career. The building was never rebuilt and its location was lost. 

Newspaper ads for the theatre’s productions never included an address. Baum’s 1881-82 correspondence provides no street address for his theatre. Even the letterhead on Baum’s Opera House stationery lacks a street address. I doubt the theatre ever had an official address. One wouldn’t have been necessary for the single legitimate theatre in the small village of Richburg in the early 1880s.

Baum's letterhead as manager of Baum's Opera House.

Past historians have assumed that Richburg’s second theatre—named Brown’s Opera House—was built on the same spot where Baum’s Opera House stood. My research proved that assumption incorrect.

Newspaper reports from 1881-82 indicate the theatre’s proximity to other vanished landmarks, but that info provides only a general location, not a specific one.

The red rectangle shows my original best guess for the theatre's location.

I contacted Melanie Johnston of the Richburg-Wirt Historical Society, who provided further theatre location clues. Combining all my gathered information, I came up with a guess for the location—an educated guess, but a guess, nonetheless. That’s what I offered in my Oz Con International presentation last July.

Several months later, I visited Richburg, New York, in person for the first time. On the evening of October 6, at the Richburg-Wirt Historical Society, I gave my Baum’s Opera House presentation, slightly revised. I included new information pertinent to residents of the Richburg area and removed references aimed primarily at Oz fans. I again presented my best guess for the theatre’s location. Still, it remained a guess.

About to give my presentation in Richburg.

Melanie Johnston of the Richburg-Wirt Historical Society arranged my appearance and attended. I thanked her again for the information she’d provided. As the audience listened, she and I briefly discussed problems with determining the location of Baum’s Opera House.

After my presentation, Melanie and her husband showed my partner, theatre historian David Maxine, and me around the cozy Richburg-Wirt Historical Society museum. David spotted on one wall a large old photograph of Richburg in its oil boom days, tall derricks sprouting across the landscape. Across the bottom of the photo appeared words clearly written on the original negative: March 1882. That’s the month Baum’s Opera House burned. Was the photo taken before or after the fire? We studied the photo to find Baum’s Opera House or its remains. We couldn’t, and the hour was growing late, so David took phone photos of the Richburg photo on the wall.

Next morning, during daylight, David and I visited the general area where Baum’s Opera House once stood. After more than one hundred and forty years, we didn’t expect to find any remains of Baum’s theatre, but we wanted to examine the spot of my best guess. We walked up and down the sidewalks and street, staring around, debating. We compared what we saw to David’s phone shots of the old Richburg photo from March 1882. In the photo, some distance to the right of my location guess, I recognized a house that still stands today. To the left of that house in the photo, David noticed a puzzling area, unlike anything else in the photo. Neither of us could figure out what it pictured, until David suggested it showed the burned remains of a building.

A portion of a photograph of Richburg, New York, clearly marked March 1882. The area within the white rectangle is enlarged in the image immediately below.

 

Enlargement of portion of the Richburg photograph above. The large building on the left is the Academy, sitting at the far edge of Academy Park. The fully visible building in the upper right still stands today. What appear to be the fire-ravaged remains of a large building stand just left of center, including a substantial portion of the damaged front facade and a dark doorway at the facade's bottom center. Park Row runs from center of the photo toward the bottom right corner.

Eureka! (And I don’t mean the kitten.) We’d found the location of Baum’s Opera House!

We compared the location of the burned remains to our current reality. There stood a residential house, 115 Griffin, and its detached garage, across the street from Bolivar-Richburg Elementary School.

I no longer had to guess. Baum’s Opera House stood in Richburg, New York, on the northwest side of Griffin Street where Park Row "T"s into Griffin, one block northwest of Main Street (New York State Route 275).

The location of Baum's Opera House on Griffin Street in Richburg, New York. The building that stands just past the bend in Griffin Street is also visible in the March 1882 photo of Richburg.

Imagine yourself in Richburg, New York, on a frosty evening in late December 1881, turning the corner from Main Street into Park Row. As you stroll along, Academy Park lies on your left, lined at the street with an evenly spaced row of trees, their leafless branches spreading high against the evening sky. From ahead, at the end of the street, float the growing strains of a band playing the pre-show concert in front of Baum’s Opera House, a large wooden clapboard building, newly erected. A tall young man, well-dressed, with neatly combed brown hair and a handle-bar mustache, steps out of the theatre’s front door. It’s Louis F. Baum, the theatre’s manager. He beckons to the gathering crowd. Tonight’s show starts soon. Don’t miss it!

[For more about L. Frank Baum's theatrical career, see David Maxine's blog VintageBroadway.com]

Copyright © 2024 Eric Shanower. All rights reserved.

I thank Sam Milazzo and David Maxine for permission to use their photos. Thanks also to Oz Con International and the Richburg-Wirt Historical Society.

Photograph of Eric Shanower at Oz Con International copyright © 2024 Sam Milazzo. All rights reserved.

Photograph of Eric Shanower at Richburg-Wirt Historical Society copyright © 2024 David Maxine. All rights reserved.

Coincidental Oz

Joseph Kline Emmet, Sr.

The Tik-Tok Man of Oz composer Louis F. Gottschalk, early in his career, acted as musical director for the tour of the play Fritz in Ireland. The show starred Joseph K. Emmet, Jr., carrying on his father’s legacy as the well-known character Fritz. In 1870, Emmet, Jr.’s father, Joseph Kline Emmet (1841–1891), made Fritz famous in the show Fritz, Our Cousin German and played the character for the rest of his life. His son took up the role after his father’s death.

In May 1884, the senior Emmet, through his manager, Phil H. Lehnen, bought “two beautiful Jersey cattle” from the Syracuse, New York, area farm of Benjamin W. Baum, the father of The Tik-Tok Man of Oz writer L. Frank Baum. Lehnen paid $1000 for the cattle and sent them to Albany, New York, where they joined the “many attractions on and about” Joe Emmet’s property.

How’s that for an unexpected connection to The Tik-Tok Man of Oz?

Notes

“Joe Emmet Buys Two Cows,” Syracuse (NY) Standard, 19 May 1884, 4; “Amusements,” Daily Picayune (New Orleans, LA), 9 January 1893, 3; “This and That,” Buffalo (NY) Enquirer, 25 March 1893, 5. Image credit: Harry T. Peters "America on Stone" Lithography Collection.

Copyright © 2024 Eric Shanower. All rights reserved.

Blue Mule

The Democratic National Convention looked different back in 1932 than it looks this week. Both conventions were held in Chicago, Illinois. But back then the convention welcomed a delegate from the Land of Oz—Hank the Mule.

Former Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels met Hank the Mule at the 1932 Democratic National Convention, as you can see in the photo. Daniels was a delegate at large from North Carolina. Hank was played by Tex Morrissey, third wife of the originator of the role, Fred Woodward. Morrissey played Hank throughout the USA from the late 1920s until the early 1950s.

Hank the Mule impressed then-Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt so greatly that Roosevelt asked Hank to accompany his presidential campaign. No surprise that a mule—even a foreign mule from the Land of Oz—would be a Democrat.

Copyright © 2024 Eric Shanower. All rights reserved.

A Melody Played in a Penny Arcade

I recently re-watched the motion picture Paper Moon. Such an excellent movie. Director Peter Bogdanovich tells the story with admirable confidence and restraint. The acting of both Tatum O'Neal and Ryan O'Neal in the leading roles is superb.

What's Paper Moon got to do with The Tik-Tok Man of Oz?

Toward the end of the movie, when Tatum O'Neal's character, Addie, has at long last reached her aunt's house, clearly visible on the piano in the aunt's parlor is a copy of the sheet music of "Forgotten," a song which basso Eugene Cowles as Ruggedo the Metal Monarch interpolated into The Tik-Tok Man of Oz on opening night.

I've noticed the appearance of "Forgotten," by Flora Wulschner and Eugene Cowles, in Paper Moon before, and I associate it strongly with the end of the movie. Seeing the movie again prompted me to post about it.

The "Forgotten" sheet music visible in two Paper Moon camera shots is the standard cover seen here. Notice it first in the background when the camera enters Addie's aunt's house. And it's prominent enough during the moment Addie faces her final big decision, that the title and Eugene Cowles's name are perfectly legible.

A lot of period music can be heard in Paper Moon. But not "Forgotten." It's inappropriate, since it dates from about three decades before the time of the story. However, as an old piece of sheet music, it's appropriate for the setting of the aunt's home. And most importantly, as foreshadowing of a possible future for Addie's relationship with Ryan O'Neal's character Moze, it's spot on.

Copyright © 2024 Eric Shanower. All rights reserved.

Eugene Cowles as the Metal Monarch

Throughout All Wound Up: The Making of the Tik-Tok Man of Oz and its two companion volumes (script and score), I included all the photos I could find of the actors costumed as their characters in the original 1913-14 production of The Tik-Tok Man of Oz.

But I didn't find all the available photos before publication. I missed this lovely image of Eugene Cowles as Ruggedo, the Metal Monarch. Here it is for you now. Notice the detail of the costume, particularly the Magic Belt.

I suspect this photograph was shot during the same session as the photos of the Metal Monarch on pages 92 and 103 in All Wound Up. Those photos were originally published in newspapers. It looks to me as if the designer who prepared those newspaper-published photos misinterpreted the Metal Monarch's crown and left in protuberances that weren't actually part of the crown.

Copyright © 2024 Eric Shanower. All rights reserved.

Ice Skating in The Winsome Widow

 

Click to enlarge.

In 1912, the composer of The Tik-Tok Man of Oz, Louis F. Gottschalk, worked on his final Broadway project before his permanent household move to Los Angeles, California. That final show was A Winsome Widow, touted for its third act scene featuring the chorus ice skating on real ice, as seen in the photo above.

A Winsome Widow, directed by Wizard of Oz director Julian Mitchell, was a new musical version of the longest-running Broadway show at that point, Charles Hoyt's 1891 A Trip to Chinatown, which Mitchell had also directed.

I discuss A Winsome Widow in the context of composer Gottschalk's life and career on page 325 of my book All Wound Up: The Making of The Tik-Tok Man of Oz.

Copyright © 2024 Eric Shanower. All rights reserved.

Baum Closes on Broadway

Program for Baum's "Fairylogue" and "Radio-Plays," 1908.

Some months ago, a prominent Oz fan organization posted a curious statement on a social media forum. The posting claimed that L. Frank Baum’s “The Fairylogue and Radio-Plays” [sic] closed in New York City on December 16, 1908, earlier than the run’s scheduled end. This caught my attention.

Baum’s “Fairylogue” and “Radio-Plays” were a combined multi-media stage presentation, including motion pictures, narrated by L. Frank Baum himself. The show toured the US upper Midwest and northeast during the fall of 1908. In December 1908, the show ran for three weeks at the Hudson Theatre in New York, New York, with Baum performing on Broadway for the second time in his life. Though often reviewed positively during its run, the show drained thousands of dollars from Baum’s pocket and was one of the reasons he later declared bankruptcy in 1911.

During my research for All Wound Up, I traced the history of the “Fairylogue” and “Radio-Plays,” since it’s pertinent to Baum’s stage works for children. Newspaper ads for the show indicate that it ran through December 31, 1908, so the claim of a December 16 early closure posted on the social media forum puzzled me. It seemed to be another Hanging Munchkin (my term for Oz-related misinformation, inspired by the urban myth that a little person hanged himself on the set of the 1939 MGM Wizard of Oz movie). In a bid for clarity, I commented on the social media posting, requesting identification of the source for the claim that the “Fairylogue” closed early.

A prominent Oz collector replied with a response from a longtime Oz and Baum historian. The historian said—and I’m quoting the comment on the post—that: “NYC mayor George B. McClellan, Jr. canceled all moving-picture exhibition licenses due to safety concerns, abruptly ending Baum’s tour.”

I fully agree with the first part of that response. Mayor McClellan’s Christmas Eve 1908 order to close theatres was widely reported in the New York press. But I disagree that the mayor’s order ended Baum’s “Fairylogue” tour. Five hundred five-cent “nickelodeon” movie theatres closed, as well as several vaudeville houses, but the Hudson Theatre, where Ethel Barrymore was appearing in the play Lady Frederick during the evenings after Baum’s “Fairylogue” and “Radio-Plays” matinees, doesn’t seem to have been affected.

The very next day, Christmas Day 1908, Judge Abel E. Blackmar of the Supreme Court of New York issued a temporary injunction that blocked Mayor McClellan’s order. The following day, December 26, Justice William J. Gaynor of the Supreme Court of New York issued a blanket injunction restraining police from taking action against all of the affected theatres. Theatres re-opened, more legal actions followed, and eventually, in January 1909, Blackmar struck down McClellan’s order.

New York Supreme Court Justice Abel E. Blackmar, 1922

Baum stayed on top of the early developments as they occurred. That’s clearly demonstrated by the Christmas Day 1908 letter he wrote to Mayor McClellan. Baum’s letter addressed a major issue that prompted the mayor’s order to close theatres: safety. In the letter, Baum suggested “a plan for safe-guarding moving-picture apparatus” and described features he used for the “Fairylogue” and “Radio-Plays.”

A discussion of Baum's letter to Mayor George McClellan, New York Times, Dec. 26, 1908.

After Christmas, newspaper advertisements for the “Fairylogue” and “Radio-Plays” continued, including ads on December 27, 28, and 29. I’m reluctant to believe that advertising money would have been spent if performances had been cancelled. Maybe by some strange chance, Baum and the Hudson Theatre management never bothered to stop the ads for a closed show. But I find the idea that they preferred to kiss that ad money good-bye highly unlikely.

See lowest lines advertising Baum's show, New York Times, Dec. 29, 1908.

In addition to advertisements, at least one newspaper publicity column announced performances Baum would give after December 16, which is the date the social media posting claimed the show closed.

Announcement from New York Sun, Dec. 20, 1908.

In the face of the evidence, I see no reason to conclude that the show closed early. More likely the “Fairylogue” and “Radio-Plays” ran as advertised and continued until the scheduled end of the Broadway run, Thursday, December 31, 1908.

I outlined this information on the social media thread and got no direct response. But the original posting eliminated the “16” from the claimed closing date of the “Fairylogue” and “Radio-Plays,” leaving the show’s closure listed as merely “December 1908.” I guess that’s a small triumph for truth.

For my account of Baum's "Fairylogue" and "Radio-Plays" and its place in the history of The Tik-Tok Man of Oz, see the book All Wound Up.

Notes

“Maud Adams in a New Play,” Sun (New York, NY), 20 December 1908, III 6; “Wage War on Shows,” New-York (NY) Daily Tribune, 24 December 1908, 4; “Moving Picture Men Plan Fight on Mayor’s Order,” Evening World (New York, NY), 25 December 1908, 2; “Moving Picture Shows,” New-York (NY) Tribune, 26 December 1908, 6; “Not Merry for the Film Men,” Sun (New York, NY), 26 December 1908, 4; “Picture-Show Men Organize to Fight,” New York (NY) Times, 26 December 1908, 2; “Courts Come to Aid of Moving Picture Men,” Evening World (New York, NY), 26 December 1908, 1, 2; “Blue Sunday for Theatres if the Police Obey Orders,” Standard Union (Brooklyn, NY), 27 December 1908, 1; “Moving Picture Shows Open by Court Orders,” New York (NY) Herald, 27 December 1908, 5; “Showmen Enjoin Police,” New-York (NY) Daily Tribune, 27 December 1908, 2; “A Blanket Injunction for Moving Pictures,” Brooklyn (NY) Daily Eagle, 27 December 1908, 1, 5; Advertisement, New York (NY) Times, 27 December 1908, VI 9; Advertisement, New York (NY) Times, 28 December 1908, 14; “Would Close 4 Theatres,” Evening Post (New York, NY), 28 December 1908, 1; “Mayor Makes War on Sunday Vaudeville,” New York (NY) Times, 29 December 1908, 3; “Mayor Feared Loss of Life at Picture Shows,” Evening World (New York, NY), 29 December 1908, 18; Advertisement, New York (NY) Times, 29 December 1908, 16; “The Moving Picture Field; Wholesale Revoking of Licenses,” New York (NY) Dramatic Mirror, 2 January 1909, 8; “Picture Shows Still Running,” Variety (New York, NY), 2 January 1909, 10; “Film Men Win Big Victory,” Morning Call (Patterson, NJ), 7 January 1909, 1; “Picture Shows May Go On,” Sun (New York, NY), 7 January 1909, 4; “Court Overrules Mayor,” Variety (New York, NY), 9 January 1909, 12.

Copyright © 2024 Eric Shanower. All rights reserved.

More About Costumes for The Tik-Tok Man of Oz

In the book All Wound Up, I mentioned that the costumes for The Tik-Tok Man of Oz were supplied by Goldstein & Company of San Francisco. I didn’t discuss the creation of the costumes in detail, because I didn’t have much detail about them. But since the publication of the book, I’ve run across more information.

All the costumes for the initial Los Angeles production of the show were first designed in New York. Names of the designers are unknown, except for Edward Siedle, who designed and constructed the Hank the Mule costume. Possibly Siedle or others in his studio at the Metropolitan Opera designed other Tik-Tok Man of Oz costumes. Maybe his wife, Caroline Siedle, one of the preeminent Broadway costume designers, had a hand in the Tik-Tok Man designs, but if so, I’d expect her name would have been trumpeted in publicity. Since the actual designers of most of The Tik-Tok Man of Oz costumes aren't recorded, I suspect they weren't designers of particular note.

The designs were next sent to Los Angeles for approval by Oliver Morosco and L. Frank Baum. Approved designs went to San Francisco, where Goldstein & Company constructed the costumes based on the designs.

L. Frank Baum traveled from Los Angeles to San Francisco on February 7, 1913, to check the progress of the costumes at Goldstein & Company. Baum likely returned to Los Angeles before The Tik-Tok Man of Oz rehearsals began on February 17. Finished costumes were delivered by March 25, possibly well before that date.

In 1912, Goldstein & Company opened up a branch in Los Angeles to supply costumes to movie studios. I’d previously suspected that the Los Angeles branch also supplied costumes for The Tik-Tok Man of Oz, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. I wish I'd refrained from mentioning my suspicion in All Wound Up.

Notes

Hector Alliot, “Mendelssohn’s Scotch Motif,” Los Angeles (CA) Daily Times, 8 February 1913, II 7; “Not Down on the Program,” Los Angeles (CA) Examiner, 26 March 1913; Anthony Slide, editor, Robert Goldstein and the Spirit of ’76 (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 1993).

Copyright © 2024 Eric Shanower, All rights reserved.

Hanging Munchkins All Around

L. Frank Baum

I complain both privately (pretty often) and publicly (on occasion) about published books and articles that present fallacious information about L. Frank Baum and his Oz projects. The myths presented as fact about Baum and Oz seem never to end.

What is it about Oz and its creator that for more than six decades has prompted people to publish information purported to be truth about Oz and Baum, but which is just plain wrong? Books and articles about Oz and Baum—both in print and online—appear with alarming regularity, spreading their shoddy gospel of half-truths, mistakes, confusions, misleading statements, and outright lies cloaked in the guise of reliability.

Inaccuracies about Baum can sometimes be traced to his first major biography, To Please a Child, by Russell P. MacFall and Frank Joslyn Baum. That book overflows with fanciful stories of the elder Baum’s life, stories that demonstrably did not occur in the manner the book claims—or didn’t occur at all. Oz fandom has known for decades that info spouted by To Please a Child requires independent confirmation. Researchers, scholars, and writers who’ve been part of Oz fandom—or at least in contact with it—should know better than to rely on To Please a Child. Too often, it seems, they don’t.

But it’s not just To Please a Child. Blind spots from plenty of other shoddy research and inept presentations infect Oz fandom. They seem to be ineradicable. They’re regurgitated endlessly. I know. I’ve been in contact with Oz fandom since I was a child, imbibing the fallacies, the half-truths, the false narratives since before I had tools to recognize them for what they were. I’ve needed to work hard to remove blind spots from my own views of Oz and Baum. I may have more work to do.

Then there are those who publish about Oz and Baum from outside Oz fandom. One well-meaning and widely-published author of books about Abraham Lincoln, Hillary Clinton, and the Beatles, as well as one about L. Frank Baum, conscientiously gathered at least three supporting citations for each purportedly factual statement in her manuscripts. Should be a solid technique, right? Unfortunately, no. Not for L. Frank Baum. Since at least the mid-1950s, so much error about Baum has been published that finding three sources to support an erroneous statement is easy. When one writes about Baum, pitfalls loom in every direction. This writer fell in, but she was far from alone. She had plenty of company down at the bottom of the pit.

The books and articles keep coming. Error upon error, the misinformation marches on and is added to regularly by people who should know better.  The type of errors I’m thinking of trouble me more than Littlefield’s “Parable on Populism” and (despite this post’s title) the Hanging Munchkin—laughable, easily punctured, and comparatively recent trifles to bamboozle the ignorant. I’m complaining about both large, senseless distortions and flatly incorrect details that present themselves as reliable and authoritative information about an author’s life and the creation and continuation of his works.

It’s maddening. (And before anyone brings it up, yes, I recognize the inevitable, only-just-beginning nightmare of generative AI regurgitating this crap forever.)

I complain. But I’m not without sympathy. I’m a writer, too. I know firsthand the difficulty in writing accurately, truthfully, and clearly. Writing something worthwhile is hard work. But we must strive to make what we publish worthwhile.

While I wrote All Wound Up, the troubling specter haunting far too much Oz and Baum research hovered close. I hoped that All Wound Up would not turn out to nourish that specter.

Any large non-fiction project on a historical subject presents challenges. Making sure every sentence is based on truth is a task of not inconsiderable magnitude. I didn’t want to perpetuate any fallacies—or create new ones—in All Wound Up. I wanted to eliminate inaccuracy—kill the lies at their roots—back up my statements with reliable sources. And if I couldn’t back a statement up, I qualified it.

But who can anticipate every possible problem when piecing together a puzzle of the past from which pieces are missing? I aimed for diligence. I tried to think critically.  I gathered a wide range of sources, primarily material of the times and places and people involved—letters, contracts, newspaper articles, photographs. During both the writing process and afterward, when I considered the manuscript finished and was designing the book, I discovered new sources with new information, and I adjusted what I’d already written. Several people with critical eyes—people both within Oz fandom and outside it—read the manuscript—or portions of it—and gave me feedback before publication. But I’m not infallible. No matter what, despite my striving to make All Wound Up worthwhile, it’s bound to have cracks.

Then there’s another nightmare—who knows what material unavailable to me while I wrote will come to light in the future and contradict All Wound Up?

The only way to avoid all mistakes is not to publish. But that’s no answer. That does no one any good.

So here’s my answer to any mistakes in All Wound Up: this weblog. Here I can correct those mistakes, clear up confusions, and address any downright stupidities (few, I hope) in the published book. The main reason the book includes the web address of this blog is so readers can easily access updates, corrections, and further information about The Tik-Tok Man of Oz.

So here’s a correction to All Wound Up.

In the summer of 1912, the composer Louis F. Gottschalk visited his hometown of Los Angeles, California. There he read L. Frank Baum’s stage script Ozma of Oz (which would be produced the next year as The Tik-Tok Man of Oz). Gottschalk liked the script and sent a letter to Baum. Gottschalk claimed that he sent his letter to Syracuse, New York, where Baum was visiting. And I repeated this information. Twice it appears in All Wound Up—on page 51 and again on page 325.

However, Baum wasn’t visiting Syracuse, the city where he’d grown up from childhood.

Baum had gone to Chicago, the city where he’d lived before moving to Los Angeles.

On July 15, 1912, L. Frank Baum and his wife, Maud, left Ozcot, their Hollywood home in Los Angeles for an extended visit to Chicago. Shortly before September 19, the Baums returned home. Local Hollywood newspaper articles make this clear.

Why did Gottschalk claim Baum visited Syracuse? Gottschalk told his story in June 1913, nearly a year after it happened, so perhaps Gottschalk didn’t remember the city correctly. Or maybe he sent his letter to Syracuse by mistake, though that seems less likely to me. Anyway, I relied on Gottschalk’s testimony and wrote that Baum was in Syracuse. I should have verified Gottschalk’s statement before All Wound Up was published.

So, I confess, I’ve published inaccuracies about Baum and Oz, just like all those other writers. But I’ve brought my mistake into the light for all to see and I’ve corrected it. This probably won’t be the last time. But while we’re waiting, any of you other writers want to take a turn?

Notes

“City Briefs,” Hollywood (CA) Citizen, 12 July 1912, 4; “City Briefs,” Hollywood Citizen, 19 July 1912, 4; “City Briefs,” Hollywood Citizen, 13 September 1912, 4; “Gottschalk to Write Opera Here,” Chicago (IL) Examiner, 8 June 1913, VII 6.

Copyright © 2024 Eric Shanower. All rights reserved.

Flora Wulschner, inadvertent lyricist for The Tik-Tok Man of Oz

As lyricist for the song "Forgotten," interpolated by Eugene Cowles as the Metal Monarch into The Tik-Tok Man of Oz, Flora Wulschner never knew she'd contributed to a part of Oz history. Here's her story:

Flora Sullivan Stewart Wulschner

Flora Sullivan Stewart Wulschner

(1848-1909) was born Flora Sullivan in Indianapolis, Indiana, daughter of William Sullivan, a justice of the peace, and Clarissa Tomlinson. She married twice, first to Colonel Robert Reed Stewart (1827-1873), who fought in the Mexican War and commanded the Eleventh Indiana cavalry regiment in the US Civil War. They had one son. Her second marriage was to musician Wilhelm Emil Wulschner (1847-1900), whom she'd met while she resided for a time in Germany. Together they established a successful music company in Indianapolis, selling pianos and other musical instruments. Upon Emil’s death, his stepson, Alexander McGregor Stewart, took over the company.

Rich, educated, and influential in Indianapolis society, Wulschner was well known for her activities in many women’s organizations, serving on the boards of the Children of the American Revolution, the Spanish Literary Club, the Woman’s Relief Corps, and the Citizens’ Committee for Women’s Patriotic Societies, among others. Through practice and practical application, she developed her talents for music and literature. She studied languages, including Latin, French, Spanish, Italian, Swedish, Dutch, and German. Though Wulschner lived much of her life in Indianapolis, she had a passion for travel, journeying to such places as Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia, the Netherlands, Puerto Rico, and Germany.

In 1892, Wulschner wrote a poem, which Frank Leslie's magazine published under the title of “Absent.” At Wulschner’s request, the poem was published anonymously. In 1894, Eugene Cowles ran across the poem and set it to music. As the song “Forgotten,” it became one of Cowles's standards. In 1903, Cowles performed in Indianapolis and became friendly with Wulschner. Learning that she had translated some French songs into English, Cowles suggested she write some songs herself. She mentioned that she had already written one—a favorite of Cowles—and revealed for the first time that she had written the lyrics of “Forgotten.”

By 1907, Wulschner’s health declined. She spent some time at a sanatorium in Atlantic City, New Jersey, until the physician there recommended she travel to Italy. She lived in Naples for nearly a year. In March 1909, she traveled to Rome on a charitable mission, planning to return home to Indianapolis later that spring. But at a hospital in Rome she died unexpectedly of pneumonia and bronchitis, attended by the president of the American Methodist College in Rome, Rev. E. B. Spencer. She left an estate estimated to be worth $300,000. Her body was returned to Indianapolis for burial.

Notes

“Personal and Society,” Indianapolis (IN) Journal, 27 January 1899, 3; “The Eleventh Indiana,” Indianapolis Journal, 16 May 1902, 3; “Indianapolis Woman who Wields a Gavel,” Indianapolis (IN) Morning Star, 27 December 1903, 6; “Porto [sic] Rican Paper’s Comments on Indianapolis Woman Visitor,” Indianapolis (IN) News, 25 March 1905, 26; “Mrs. Flora Wulschner Dies Far from Home,” Indianapolis News, 15 April 1909, 3; “Doubts of Death Slowly Give Way,” Indianapolis (IN) Star, 16 April 1909, 16; “Death News Confirmed,” Indianapolis Star, 17 April 1909, 7; “Answers from Readers,” New York (NY) Times, 15 December 1918, VII 10; “Lifelong Resident Dies,” Indianapolis News, 11 November 1932, 12; Max R. Hyman, editor, Hyman’s Handbook of Indianapolis (Indianapolis: M. R. Hyman, 1909), 222.

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