Wizard Of Oz's Chicago Roots

Although the novel is well known in the world and in present days is included in many schools curriculum, this is not to say that since its publication in 1900 it faced relentless criticism. In 1928, the novel has been banned in all libraries in Chicago. Chicago’s librarians found the context of the book “evil for children”; moreover, Dorothy was seeing as a symbol of “women in strong leadership roles”. Despite the fact that in 1920 occurred the mass leap forward for women’s rights in the U.S. society (The Nineteenth Amendment is passed, guaranteeing women the right to vote in federal elections), women still were not allowed to be on a ruled positions. However, in 2014 Chicago’s Public Library was celebrating a “Wizard of Oz’s Chicago Roots”, claiming the book as a “successful novel, which has roots in Chicago”. The novel is no longer banned in the library.
During the era of McCarthyism, when almost every literature piece was seeing as a Marxist pamphlet, Baum’s novel was stored in libraries away from open shelves.
The shelves in children’s room in Detroit Public Library were carefully cleaned from the Oz series. The books, as the director of the library, Ray Ulveling, declared, “have no value for children of today, encouraged negativism, disorientate young readers to accept a cowardly approach to life”(1). Therefore, in April 1957, Baum’s series were banned in this library the first time since it was published. A year later, in 1959, a checklist of “Books Not Circulated by Standard Libraries” was issued by the Florida Department of State. The books from this checklist were “not to be purchased, not to be accepted as gifts, not to be processed, and not to be circulated”(1). The logic of this bill was built on the statement, that banned books are “poorly written, untrue to life, sensational, foolishly sentimental, and consequently unwholesome for the children in your country”(1). Obviously, the name on the top of that list was Frank
Baum. Another wide-known case against the Wizard was in 1986. Deeply rooted Christian families from Tennessee organized in the group filed a complaint against presents of the novel in schools syllabus. They wanted a removal of the book from the syllabus, arguing that the novel contains the characters of good witches, which is an oxymoron because the word “witch” is a priory dark and evil. Moreover, they claimed that in the novel fundamental human’s traits are “individually developed rather than God-given”. After considering all the factors regarding the complaint, the judge ruled children of those parents be excused from participating in all lessons, which focused on the novel.