It is well known in economics and academia that The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, written by L. Frank Baum in 1900, is loaded with powerful symbols of monetary reform which were the core of the Populist movement of the 1896 and 1900 presidential bid of Democrat William Jennings Bryan. The yellow brick road (gold standard), the emerald city of Oz (greenback money), even Dorothy’s silver slippers (changed to ruby slippers for the movie version) were the symbol of Baum’s and Bryan’s belief that adding silver coinage to gold would provide much needed money to a depression-strapped, 1890s America.
