SOURCE: “William Jennings Bryan on the Yellow Brick Road,” in Journal of American Culture, Vol. 16 No. 4, Winter, 1993, pp. 59-64.

In the following essay, Geer and Rochon argue that L. Frank Baum's children's fantasy The Wonderful Wizard of Oz has political undertones that serve as an allegory for the ideals of the Populist movement, including Bryan's stance on free silver.

Literary allegory can be a useful tool for investigating the ways in which contemporaries frame the political conflicts of their day. L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, written in 1899 as the first of a highly popular series of children's books, was, we shall argue, an allegorical account of the travails of William Jennings Bryan in the presidential campaign of 1896. It was also a utopian projection of the fruits of victory, should Bryan win the presidency in 1900. By exploring this allegory, we call attention to such features of...