LYMAN FRANK BAUM grew up in a wealthy New York family, but had decided while still a teenager against following his father into the oil business. Instead he had been drawn to the theater, and in his early twenties wrote and produced his own plays, The Maid of Arran and The Queen of Killarney, starring in them with his wife as they toured through the East and Midwest. This was a wonderful creative experience, but less successful as a money-maker. While not completely giving up the theater, he worked as a traveling salesman, and then started an enterprise related to his father's: Baum's Castorine Company, producing an axle grease made from crude oil.
In 1888, at the age of thirty-two, he opened a retail store, Baum's Bazaar. in Aberdeen, South Dakota, where his wife's brother and sisters had homesteaded a farm. A sudden downturn in the local economy put the Bazaar into bankruptcy, but Baum, displaying the optimistic adaptability of the American entrepreneur, then shifted to journalism, not only publishing the Aberdeen Saturdai Pioneer, but also writing and setting in type almost even word that went onto its pages, both news stories and advertising. To gain all the meat from the nut of life is the essence of wisdom,' he informed the readers of Aberdeen. 'therefore, eat, drink, and be merry--for tomorrow you die.' This emphasis on sensual pleasures must have been somewhat shocking to the conservative farmers of the region, but Baum saw himself as a revolutionary force for changing Americans from pinch-penny savers to consumers of the good things in life. Yes, you might "be forced to borrow a few dollars" in order to afford worldly comforts, but "who will be the gainer when Death calls him to the last account--the man who can say 'I have lived!' or the man who can say 'I have saved'?"
Baum's view of the world had been formed in the wealthy surroundings of his childhood, but he was also influenced by his mother-in-law, Matilda Joslyn Cage, who was a leading feminist and the coauthor, along with Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, of History of Woman Suffrage. Gage had found the Protestantism of her own youth too resistant to women's rights, and had instead turned to theosophy, a quirky blend of Eastern mysticism, the paranormal, and a respect for the "objectivity" of science put together by Madame Helena Blavatsky.
One of the New Thought or Mind Cure philosophies that had arisen to fill needs brought about by Darwin's undermining of established religion, theosophy taught that happiness was something to be sought in this world, not postponed until Heaven. There was no Heaven, although theosophists did believe that the "spirits" of dead people were present in another dimension, which could only be reached through mediums and s6ances. Nor was there a God as traditionally worshipped, but "There is a latent power," one theosophist wrote, "a force of indestructible life, an immortal principle of health, in every individual, which if developed would heal all our wounds." If one developed this latent power, not only good health but money enough to provide comforts and luxuries would result. There was no need to defer happiness.
This made eminent good sense to Baum, but he had a hard time living up to the model in Aberdeen, South Dakota. Continuing bad times sank the Saturday Pioneer, and booming, bustling Chicago pulled him to its busy streets, just as it did so many ambitious and penniless young men. He briefly worked as a reporter for the Chicago Evening News, then went on the road selling crockery and glassware. Salesmanship was a perfect calling for a man of his optimistic nature, and he was successful enough that soon he, his wife, and four children were able to afford a large house with modern conveniences such as gaslight and a bathroom. But by the late 1890s he grew tired of eating hotel food, traveling endless railroad miles and being away from his family for long periods of time.
In 1897 he published Mother Goose in Prose, illustrated by Maxfield Parrish, and began writing down his own stories. 'wonder tales," as he called them. Another avenue, however, offered more immediate financial reward while also allowing him to creatively preach his philosophy of living, and consuming, in the here and now. America had some of the world's largest department stores, jammed full of goods produced by the new industrial order, an abundance that often seemed too much of a good thing. There were challenges in profitably selling such an enormous flow of goods, especially since the retail market not only suffered from labor problems but also was savagely competitive. Baum was confident he could teach department store owners how to move their merchandise more effectively. At the end of 1897 he began publishing a trade journal promulgating his ideas, The Show Window, and in February 1898 he organized the National Association of Window Trimmers, whose goal was "the uplifting of mercantile decorating to the level of a profession."
New technological advances helped him develop his concept. Domestic manufacturers had improved the production of plate glass during the decade. Now, instead of importing expensive sheets of glass from France, buildings could be designed with larger, clearer, stronger windows at a much lower price. But owners were slow to understand what this meant until Baum showed them. Customarily goods had been crammed haphazardly in a storefront, but Baum, drawing on his background in drama, merchandising, and writing, designed window displays that enticed pedestrians to stop, study, and be amused and tempted by what was being offered for sale. "It is said," he wrote in his book on the subject, "that people are not as readily deceived by window display, but we all know better than this." Already there was criticism of the intrusive quality of advertising, the way it interfered with the enjoyment of views or street scenes, and to many people this new form of huckstering seemed a step in the wrong direction. But Baum argued that there was "no way to protect people from imposition, even supposing they desired to be protected."
There was some resistance at first. The older generation had been raised to regard gawking at windows as vulgar. To help overcome this reluctance. "window gazers" were hired to stand, stare, and draw a crowd. Baum used his talent and imagination to create the most effective lures: movement, electric light, and color, with revolving stars, mechanical birds and butterflies. vanishing ladies, models of Ferris wheels. ~'People will always stop to examine anything that moves," he explained, "and will enjoy studying out the mechanics or wondering how the effect has been obtained." He was not shy about stating explicitly how this sense of wonder was to be used: to "arouse in the observer the cupidity and longing to possess the goods." It is no surprise that during 1898 Thorstein Veblen was writing his study of the power of conspicuous consumption, The Theory of the Leisure Class.
L. Frank Baum's utopian American fairy tale, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, being written in 1898 but not published until two years later, shared much of the color, excitement, and glorification of abundance visible in his store windows, as well as reflecting the author's fascination with "mind cure' and theosophy "Where are you?" Dorothy asks the unseen Wizard in a seance-like setting.
"I am everywhere," answers the Voice, "but to the eyes of common mortals I am invisible. I will now seat myself upon my throne, that you may converse with me."
In both his show windows and Oz books, Baum taught that positive thinking, and consuming, were the American way to happiness. "The time has come for a series of newer 'wonder tales,' "he wrote in the introduction to the original edition, "in which the stereotyped genie, dwarf and fairy are eliminated, together with all the horrible and blood-curdling incidents devised by their authors to point a fearsome moral to each tale. . . . The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was written solely to please children of today It aspires to being a modernized fairy tale, in which the wonderment and joy are retained and the heartaches and nightmares are left out." Two particularly American elements in the resulting series of books were the natural forces depicted--earthquakes and a Kansas cyclone--and mechanical gadgets that could work magic.
As soon as The Wizard proved a success, Baum left the retail trade, but his mark remained. Quickly "all glass fronts" became common design elements for department stores, and in a little over a decade the United States was using half the world's window-glass production.
Louis Proyect (http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)