L. Frank Baum

Lyman Frank Baum (May 15, 1856 – May 6, 1919) was an American author, and the creator of one of the most popular books ever written in American children's literature, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

Baum's childhood and early life

Frank was born in Chittenango, New York, into a family of German origin, the seventh of nine children born to Cynthia Stanton and Benjamin Ward Baum, only five of whom survived into adulthood. He was named "Lyman" after his father's brother, but always disliked this name, and preferred to go by "Frank".

Related Topics:
Chittenango, New York - German - Benjamin Ward Baum

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Benjamin Baum was a wealthy businessman, who had made his fortune in the oil fields of Pennsylvania. Frank grew up on his parents' expansive estate, Rose Lawn, which he always remembered fondly as a sort of paradise. As a young child Frank was tutored at home with his siblings, but at the age of 12 he was sent to study at Peekskill Military Academy. Frank was a sickly child given to daydreaming, and his parents may have thought he needed toughening up. But after two utterly miserable years at the military academy, following an incident described as a heart attack, he was allowed to return home.

Related Topics:
Pennsylvania - Peekskill Military Academy

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Frank started writing at an early age, perhaps due to an early fascination with printing. His father bought him a cheap printing press, and Frank used it to produce The Rose Lawn Home Journal with the help of his younger brother, Harry Clay Baum, with whom he had always been close. The brothers published several issues of the journal and were even able to sell ads. By the time he was 17, Baum had established a second amateur journal, The Stamp Collector, printed an 11-page pamphlet called Baum's Complete Stamp Dealers' Directory, and started a stamp dealership with his friends.

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At about the same time Frank embarked upon his lifetime infatuation with theater and the performing arts, a devotion which would repeatedly lead him to failure and near-bankruptcy. His first such failure occurred at age 18, when a local theatrical company duped him into replenishing their stock of costumes, with the promise of leading roles that never came his way. Disillusioned, Baum left the theatre?temporarily?and went to work as a clerk in his brother-in-law's dry goods company in Syracuse.

Related Topics:
Theater - Performing arts - Syracuse

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At the age of 20, Baum took on a new vocation: the breeding of fancy poultry, which was a national craze at the time. He specialized in raising a particular breed of fowl, the Hamburg chicken. In 1880 he established a monthly trade journal, The Poultry Record, and in 1886, when Baum was 30 years old, his first book was published: The Book of the Hamburgs: A Brief Treatise upon the Mating, Rearing, and Management of the Different Varieties of Hamburgs.

Related Topics:
Fancy poultry - Hamburg chicken

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Yet Baum could never stay away from the stage long. He continued to take roles in plays, performing under the stage name of Louis F. Baum. In 1880 his father made him manager of a string of theaters that he owned, and Baum set about writing plays and gathering a company to act in them. The Maid of Arran, a melodrama based on a popular novel, proved a great success. Baum not only wrote the play but composed songs for it, and acted in the leading role.

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On November 9, 1882, Baum married Maud Gage, daughter of Matilda Joslyn Gage, a famous women's suffrage activist.

Related Topics:
1882 - Maud Gage - Matilda Joslyn Gage - Women's suffrage

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