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. A relative noted that Maud's mother was a "woman of force" who "ruled her mild, gentle husband and her four children with a rod of iron". 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". In her youth, Maud went to a boys' high school. 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 an unprecedented accomplishment for a woman.
Though Maud had very little knowledge about being on her own, she was not timid. When she entered the parlor of her dormitory on her first day there, she recognized a tune from the piano. Telling the girls around her that "I dearly love dancing", Maud pretended to dance. A sophomore girl, Jessie Mary Boulton, who observed her wrote in a letter back home: "There is one that I think will make quite a stir. Her name is Gage and she is lively." Baum scholar Evan I. Schwartz remarked that "[l]ively may have seemed like a compliment of sorts but it was a code word for trouble". A girl characterized as "lively" would have a difficult time in college and was likely to produce gossip.