Who was L. Frank Baum?
Born in Chittenango in upstate New York on May 15, 1856, Lyman Frank Baum was the son of wealthy parents. He had a happy childhood, but Frank was a dreamer, and for a long time after leaving home he was not much of a success at anything. He tried acting, selling machine oil and crockery, managing a department store, and newspaper editing and reporting, but nothing seemed to work well for him or hold his interest for long. He finally started writing when his mother-in-law encouraged him to write down the fanciful tales he’d been telling his four sons and their friends for years. Although he initially had trouble finding a publisher, his works eventually caught the attention of the public, and he was able to finally make a decent living. Although he also dabbled in theater production and the fledgling motion picture industry, he kept on writing books for the young at heart until his death at Ozcot, his Hollywood home, on May 6, 1919.
