By James Finck, Ph.D.As I sat in the theater with the rest of the nation this past week watching “Wicked,” I was happy to see the movie pay homage to its past. Whether it was the stars of the original Broadway cast of “Wicked” getting cameos, seeing the movie title in the same font as “The Wizard of Oz” movie, or making sure the characters dressed according to the original “Wicked” novel, the tribute to the original production shown through. Yet the one nugget that I found most interesting and probably went unnoticed by most were the silver shoes gifted to Nessarose Thropp, the Eminence of Munchkinland, by her father the mayor of the munchkins. While this was such a small inconsequential moment, there are some scholars who believe these silver shoes were the reason “The Wizard of Oz” was written.The silver shoes probably went unnoticed by most “Wicked” viewers because in the 1939 movie the shoes were changed to ruby slippers so the color would pop on the screen. While the color change was great way to show off then-modern technology, it possibly changed the point of the book.L. Frank Baum, author of “The Wizard of Oz,” was a newspaper reporter in South Dakota during the 1890s, and arguably the biggest political issue of the time was the color of money. America at the time utilized the gold standard but there were many calling for bimetallism or adding silver to the standard. Adding silver would allow for more money in circulation which farmers believed would help them pay down their debts easier. This idea became so big that it was the leading plank in the Populist Party platform in the 1892 and 1896 elections. This concept that became known as “free silver” was the calling card for Populist candidate turned three-time Democratic presidential nominee William Jennings Bryan.While some scholars have claimed that Baum was a Populist himself, evidence seems to disagree and instead suggests he actually supported Republican candidate William McKinley in 1896, not Bryan. Yet, it is also hard to ignore that his children’s story perfectly fits as an allegory of the Populist movement. Many of Baum’s writings were political satire, and there is no reason not to believe he was writing about the movement which loomed so large even if he did not support it.The most obvious example of populism are again the silver slippers. In the ...
