Political interpretations of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz Oz]." Kassinger, in her book "Gold: From Greek Myth to Computer Chips", purports that "The Wizard symbolizes bankers who support the gold standard and oppose adding silver to it... Only Dorothy's "silver" slippers can take her home to Kansas," meaning that by Dorothy not realizing that she had the silver slippers the whole time, Dorothy, or "the westerners", never realized they already had a viable currency of the people. Political interpretations of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz Political interpretations of "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" include treatments of the modern fairy tale (written by L. Frank Baum and first published
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz continued to include these faces on gates. Baum did not offer any conclusive proof that he intended his novel to be a political allegory. Historian Ranjit S. Dighe wrote that for 60 years after the book's publication, "virtually nobody" had such an interpretation until Henry Littlefield, a high-school teacher. In his 1964 "American Quarterly" article, "The Wizard of Oz: Parable on Populism", Littlefield posited that the book contained an allegory of the late 19th-century bimetallism debate regarding monetary policy. Littlefield's thesis achieved some support, but has been strenuously attacked by others. "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" has become an established