Maud Gage Baum

Maud Gage Baum ( Gage; March 27, 1861 – March 6, 1953) was the wife of American children's publisher L. Frank Baum. Her mother was the suffragist Matilda Joslyn Gage. In her early life, she attended a boys' high school.

Maud lived in Fayetteville, New York, with her aging parents until she married Frank in 1882, sacrificing her college education at Cornell University. At the onset of their marriage, she accompanied her husband's acting troupe throughout the United States. After she became pregnant, Maud and Frank settled down in a rented house, where she gave birth to Frank Joslyn in 1883. Complications arising from giving birth to her second son Robert Stanton in 1886 caused Maud to become afflicted with peritonitis. Ill for two years, she found solace in visiting her mother and siblings. In 1889 and 1891, she gave birth to Harry Neal and Kenneth Gage, respectively.

Described by her children as a no-nonsense mother, Maud took charge of the family finances and the disciplining of her children. She was their primary caretaker because her husband's business obligations frequently led to his being away for weeks at a time. The family moved to Aberdeen, South Dakota, in 1888 because Maud wished to be near her brother and two sisters. After her husband was unable to sustain a living there, they moved to Chicago. Because of their dire financial situation, Maud also worked, teaching embroidery and lace-making.

Beginning in 1900, her husband's best-selling picture book, Father Goose: His Book (first published in 1899), brought the family financial security that it had theretofore lacked. They began spending their summers at a cottage in Macatawa Park, Michigan. In November of that year, Frank transferred to Maud the literary rights of his most recent books, including Father Goose and From Kansas to Fairyland (later published as The Wonderful Wizard of Oz). By dint of Frank's literary successes, Maud and Frank were financially secure enough to tour Egypt and Europe for six months. Since Frank was frequently occupied with penning stories for his publishers, Maud was the one who wrote numerous letters home. These letters were later published in 1907 as In Other Lands Than Ours for friends and family. After Frank died, she authorized Ruth Plumly Thompson to write more Oz sequels and helped promote MGM's film The Wizard of Oz (1939). In 1953, she died at 91 years of age, surviving her husband by 34 years.

Early life

Born on March 27, 1861 to Matilda Joslyn Gage and Henry Hill Gage Maud was the youngest of their four children. She had two sisters, Helen Leslie Gage and Julia Gage Carpenter, and a brother, Thomas Clarkson Gage. Her mother was a feminist who fought for women's rights, and her father was a prosperous dry-goods retailer. Maud lived with her parents in a Greek Revival home in Fayetteville, New York. Baum scholar Evan I. Schwartz wrote that Maud had "dark hair, a shapely figure, and eyes as sharp as her mind". Both she and her future husband, L. Frank Baum, attended Syracuse Classical School, a preparatory school in Syracuse, New York.

In September 1880, Maud headed to Cornell University, leaving on a train and arriving at an Ithaca depot two hours later. Her brother, Clarkson, had graduated as one of the top of the class, though her elder sisters did not attend a university. When Maud arrived at the university, she intended to be the family's first woman to receive a complete degree. Her mother dreamed of her becoming a doctor or a lawyer, which would be a rare accomplishment for a woman.

Though Maud had very little knowledge about being on her own, she was not timid.

Maud's tuition cost $25 each term, roughly equivalent to the money her father made each week at his Fayetteville store. |group="nb" was $7.50 every week, which amounted to $340 every year. If two students roomed together, each could save $40. To save money, Maud chose to room with a sophomore girl, Josie Baum. When they were still strangers to each other, they addressed each other formally, saying "Miss Gage" or "Miss Baum". After Maud passed the exam, she was included in the September 16, 1880, inaugural issue of the school daily, Cornell Sun, as "Miss M. Gage, Fayetteville". In her freshman class of 131 students, there were only 19 women.

The few young women compared to the number of young men led to the women being paid unwanted attention. Maud's classmate, Jessie Mary, wrote that the "oys (or young men as I guess they call themselves) abound". She noted that girls were frequently ogled by the boys, who enjoyed teasing them. When a girl was late, the boys would loudly clap as she sat down.

Nasty rumors about Maud circulated around campus, causing her to angrily lock herself in her dorm, where she cried for several hours. Her roommate, Jessie, wrote in a letter home that: Matilda, who once dreamed of being a doctor and was not accepted by any medical schools, was distressed that her daughter would sacrifice the chance of higher education to marry a traveling actor. After Maud accepted Frank's proposal, she asked him to remain in her front parlor while she broke the news to her mother in the back parlor. In a conversation that Frank "could not help hearing", he listened to Matilda's harsh disapproval.

Matilda told Maud she refused to "have my daughter be a darned fool and marry an actor". Maud retorted, "All right, mother, if you feel that way about it, good bye." The wedding ceremony was held in the parlor of Matilda's home, which was packed with people. Many relatives and friends of Matilda attended the wedding, including Maud's three sisters and women's rights activist Elizabeth Cady Stanton and her husband Henry Stanton. Frank's parents, Benjamin and Cynthia, and his sisters, Hattie and Mattie, also attended the wedding. The parlor was so crowded that the hired string quartet had to play upstairs. The local paper praised the marriage ceremony as "one of equality". Whereas most marriages of the era had the bride's wedding vows include a pledge to obey her husband, the local paper said "the promises required of the bride [were] precisely the same as those required of the groom". The couple honeymooned in Saratoga Springs, New York, whereupon they passed Thanksgiving with their relatives.

Marriage

Maud's marriage with Frank abounded with passion. The two did not abide by the customary gender roles of a husband and a wife. Whereas at the advent of their marriage Maud was very assertive of her authority, Frank was charming and yielding. In a frequently related family tale, Frank bought a dozen bismarks (jelly doughnuts) and took them home. Affronted, Maud enjoined him to tell her whether he disliked the food she purchased and cooked. Frank told her that her meals were satisfying, but he grinned that he also enjoyed to eat Bismarks for breakfast. For three consecutive mornings, she gave him bismarks to eat. Frank, sick of the now stale doughnuts, placed them in the cupboard after bundling them up in newspaper. #tag:ref|In a time before preservatives,

After he commented that the doughnuts were growing stale, Maud indifferently responded that because he had purchased them, he was obligated to finish them. Before she married Frank, Maud had a well-off life. Though she assented to living a normal life, Maud was a tad dissatisfied about not completing her studies. As a result, she unleashed her resentment on Frank. Evan I. Schwartz wrote that "he home was the one realm that she could control, and she exercised that control with absolute authority." Maud bossed Frank around, and Frank always complied with her orders. Their relationship paralleled that of Maud's parents. Whereas Maud and her mother ordered their husbands around, Frank and her father gave in to them.

Early years (1882–1888) Maud and Frank initially lived in New York, where Frank was employed in the theater business.

Beginning when she was a child, Maud had been amazed by the kempt houses around her neighborhood. She was eager to begin "keeping the household, managing its finances, organizing the kitchen, and practicing her favorite hobby, embroidery".

In the summer of 1887, Maud, Frank, and their children lived in the house of Maud's mother, Matilda, whom they frequently visited. Maud, Frank, and her two sons moved to Aberdeen, South Dakota, on September 20, 1888, because Frank believed there would be better business opportunities in the West. In 1882, when Maud had traveled with Frank while he had been performing in The Maid of Arran, she had not felt at ease in the western cities they visited. But scholar Katharine M. Rogers noted that Maud would have liked being close to her siblings and being afforded a chance at economic security. Frank started a dry goods store, Baum's Bazaar, on October 1, 1888, to make a stable living for his family. However, because he granted too much credit to his destitute customers, his store went out of business. Maud's fourth son and final child, Kenneth Gage, was born on May 24, 1891.

The family moved to Chicago, where Frank found a job as a newspaper reporter. By then, Maud and Frank had four sons, Robert, Harry, Kenneth, and Frank. Because the family's finances were dire, Maud also had to be a breadwinner. Teaching embroidery and lace-making, Maud was so successful that by February 1897, she had over 20 students. The money from her students' tuition allowed her to purchase a new rug and furniture for the house.

Maud's mother Matilda frequently spent the winter at their house, as she did when Maud and Frank were residents of Aberdeen. Maud cherished her mother's visits, especially when Frank traveled for his job. During this time, Maud discontinued attending the Episcopal Church, instead choosing to have her boys go to the West Side Ethical Culture Sunday School. She and Frank agreed with Matilda's spiritualist beliefs. Matilda favorably commented that the new school was where "morality and not religion is taught".

In Frank's first children's book, published in 1897, he wrote in Maud's copy: Frank relied on Maud to give him advice about business decisions. His publisher, F. K. Reilly, began to presume that Frank's letter would start with "After a conference with Mrs. Baum ... I have decided to ..." Reilly considered Maud to be one of Frank's finest pundits. On November 17, 1900, Frank transferred the literary rights of his most recent books—Mother Goose in Prose, Father Goose: His Book, A New Wonderland (later published as The Magical Monarch of Mo), and From Kansas to Fairyland (later published as The Wonderful Wizard of Oz)—to Maud. Maud gave Frank $1,000 to validate the contract, and the signing of the contract was witnessed by W. W. Denslow and Ann Waters.

Frequently, the family had "musical evenings" in their home that lasted about an hour. While Frank sang folk songs and played the square piano, Maud played mandolins and the violin while the children played various instruments. When it was the boys' bedtime, Maud would sew while Frank wrote. Maud's niece, Matilda Jewell Gage, frequently paid visits to them. Enchanted by the Baums' extravagant way of living, she later wrote that "hey represented to me something that I knew nothing about. I was thrilled with the things they did, their food, the household, everything." on the night of March 6, 1953, 21 days before her 92nd birthday. #tag:ref|When Maud died, Frank Joslyn Baum was living in Westwood, Los Angeles; Robert Stanton Baum in Claremont, California; Harry Neal Baum in Hinsdale, Illinois; and Kenneth Gage Baum in La Cañada Flintridge, California. and several grandchildren.