Silver Shoes Become the Ruby Slippers

We're told by Garrison Keillor at NPR's The Writer's Almanac that today is the birthday of Lyman Frank Baum, author of The Wizard of Oz, born in 1856 in Chittenango, New York. Moving to South Dakota as a young man, Baum ran “Baum’s Bazaar” in Aberdeen, and was often found entertaining children on the wooden sidewalk out front. Telling them made-up stories abundant with fanciful characters, he interrupted the telling of Wizard of Oz in the middle so he could start writing it down. An instant classic of 1900, the tale embodied some of Baum’s dreams for a place where everyone works half the time and plays half the time, and where work is as much fun as play.

Dorothy’s “Silver Shoes” of the original book are known today as the "ruby slippers” made famous by MGM’s 1939 motion picture. In reply to Dorothy’s plea to return to Kansas, Glinda pronounced, “Your Silver Shoes will carry you over the desert. If you had known their power you could have gone back to your Aunt Em the very first day you came to this country.” Footnotes by folklore specialist Jack Zipes in a 1998 edition of The Wizard of Oz tell us: “The point of the entire story is that Dorothy does not realize her own powers. It is through the journey of exploration that she comes to recognize how powerful she is and what her qualities are…and finds home in herself.”