9. The Wizard of Oz is a cleverly disguised political treatise railing against American monetary policy in the late-19th century
Whilst the iconic cinematic portrayal of the fictional Land of Oz in 1939’s “The Wizard of Oz” has forever enshrined in popular memory the association of “ruby slippers” with the story, in Baum’s original novel the slippers were actually “silver”. Changed to most likely take advantage of the emerging technicolor capabilities of 1930s cinema, the slippers served as one of the most politically charged metaphors throughout a novel constructed around a sub-textual attack on American monetary policy during the late-19th century. The introduction of the gold standard in the United States remained a highly contested political issue throughout Baum’s lifetime, eliminating the previous use of silver as a fiduciary backing metal, increasing reliance upon paper money, and causing massive deflation. This transition caused particular economic harm and provoked the greatest backlash from farmers, with falling prices and an inability to repay rising mortgage costs leading to repossessed farms fanning the flames of Populist politics during Baum’s formative and younger years.
The fragmented Yellow Brick Road leading to the Emerald City – itself the color of America’s new paper money – symbolizes the dangerous path the gold standard places the United States upon, that its future will invariably be connected to the illusory value of said paper money; as Baum writes in “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” the bricks were “very uneven”, sometimes “broken or missing altogether”. The Scarecrow, who as noted represents the typical Midwestern farmer, repeatedly falls on the road whilst Dorothy’s silver slippers enable her to tread safely around the uneven surface; it should also be noted that the very fictional land of “Oz” itself is an abbreviation for ounce, the measure of gold and silver by weight. Baum, a proponent of the Populist monetary policy of the reintroduction of “free silver” as a mechanism to encourage inflation and assist with mortgage repayment among impoverished communities due to the abundance of silver, cleverly suggests through metaphor of the security and stability of the Silverite ratio used prior to the Coinage Act of 1873, an event referred to discreetly by the seven passages and three flights of stairs taken by Dorothy at the Emerald Palace for her audience with the Wizard, and encourages the abandonment of the recently adopted gold standard. Only Dorothy’s silver slippers have the power to take her home to Kansas, just as Baum argues only the return of silver in U.S. monetary policy can bring about a return of economic prosperity to struggling American households.