1907 Mardi Gras Oz

The tradition of formal Mardi Gras parades in New Orleans began in 1856, when a group of businessmen formed the first krewe, or secret society, The Mystick Crewe of Comus. Others followed, and in 1872, Rex was formed, another crewe with its own parades and floats. The Rex parade became a highlight of the Carnival season, due to the beauty of the floats created. 

The theme of the 1907 Rex parade was Classics of Childhood. 20 floats were created, 18 pertaining to this theme as well as a title car and the Rex, King of the Carnival float. Souvenir postcards were made of the individual floats, as well as this folder showing the entire parade. I’ve been unable to find any identifiable photos of these floats, but I keep looking! 

The 20 floats are pictured below, clicking on the image will enlarge it for easier viewing.

While a number of true classics were represented, some of the choices were decidedly more contemporary than others. Among the stories shown was The Wizard of Oz.

The float is firmly based on the original book and W. W. Denslow's illustrations, rather than the popular Broadway show of the period. Featured prominently in front are a pair of Kalidahs, the ferocious creatures with the heads of tigers on the bodies of bears. Behind them are Glinda and The Wicked Witch of the West, with a peek of the back of the Good Witch of the North between them. Next we have one of Glinda's soldiers, and then the Soldier with the Green Whiskers. Above these we see the Scarecrow, Tin Man and Lion. Dorothy seems to be missing, although she could be on the other side of the float! The float is decorated with large emeralds and the towers of the Emerald City, along with poppies from the Deadly Poppy Field.

Another story with an L. Frank Baum connection was also shown. Prince Silverwings, written by Edith Ogden Harrison, was published in 1902 and the author worked with Baum on a scenario for a stage production of the story. Nothing came of that, but several of the characters and themes in later Baum books may well have been inspired by this story. The image of this float has some slight damage and creasing due to the original construction of the inexpensive album.

Kittens

In 1903 and 1904, W. W. Denslow designed a series of 18 picture books, published by the G.W. Dillingham company. Denslow’s Three Little Kittens is one of the 1904 titles.

Denslow’s take on the traditional nursery rhyme is similar to the style of stories written by L. Frank Baum in Mother Goose in Prose. Denslow was determined to remove any horrors from the tales, and made changes accordingly. In this case there really wasn’t any need of changes, but he did extend the story to include the kittens befriending a rat that they chase into the Glad Lands, where all animals live in peace.

The Glad Lands were previously mentioned in a Christmas cartoon Denslow drew in 1903, which was syndicated in several newspapers. You can click here to read a short blog post I wrote about it several years ago.

Here we have a drawing from this book, used as the interior rear cover, the final image in the book. It’s always interesting to see the difference between the original black & white drawing and the printed color version. The black & white piece is bolder and crisper than the turquoise & orange version seen in the book. But Denslow’s use of color in these books was in itself bold and new, with striking color choices and interesting composition. The block of orange ink in the background of the printed image is simply indicated as a rectangle in the drawing, focusing your eye more firmly on the two characters. In the book, the solid orange rectangle becomes the focus and the characters are secondary.

Pirates on the Aegean

Here’s another example of a W. W. Denslow cover for a Rand McNally novel - in fact, it’s two examples! Written by Richard Henry Savage and published in 1897, A Modern Corsair is a fairly typical adventure novel of the period.

The story centers on fraud in the insurance business; more specifically, in the shipping trade, where shipwrecked freighters could collect large payouts for lost goods. Much of the action takes place in and around Smyrna, and the story is filled with stereotypical Turks, Greeks, and other ethnic types, who are thwarted by our hero, a young American journalist posing as a British lord.

This is a case of Denslow designing two covers - one for the paperback and one for the hardcover. I came across the paperback version and blogged about it several years ago, but only recently found the hardcover. The paperback design focuses on Agathe the Serpent, a woman whose intentions are mysterious and possibly deadly. The hardcover is more sedate, focusing on a wrecked freighter in the foreground. In both cases, one of Denslow’s more elaborate seahorse signatures is featured.

The Ever-Changing Wizard

 In 1956, the copyright on The Wizard of Oz expired. This gave Reilly & Lee, the publishers of the rest of the Oz series, their first opportunity to publish their own version of the book. But over the next ten years, their book would change repeatedly!

To start, a new edition of the book was set up with new illustrations by Dale Ulrey. This was a more elaborate Oz book than the publishers had produced in a while. Two-color illustrations, in rust and black, were printed throughout, and the front endpapers sported a full color map of Oz. This map had previously been featured in the 1954 Who’s Who in Oz, but in a slightly different form - and not in color! The book also had a dust jacket designed by Ulrey, featuring the Wizard himself. But by 1959, this jacket was replaced with a new design drawn by Roland Roycraft, who designed jackets for a handful of other Oz titles as well.

Perhaps the wizard wasn’t grabbing enough attention? The new design was quite bright with a hot pink curtain and cartoon-like images of Dorothy and her three friends. The endpaper map was gone, but the color work was still inside - my copy has the same rust and black color scheme of the earlier version. Then, in 1960 the jacket changed again, this time to a design by Dick Martin.

Martin’s Wizard jacket is a clever concept. Not quite as childlike as the Roycraft jacket, this time we have a wraparound design showing Dorothy and friends on the cover - with the same image, shown from behind, on the rear cover. The interior of the book still features Ulrey’s two-color illustrations, but they have now been given four different secondary colors - blue, green, yellow and red - to tie in with the story (more or less), in the same way that the illustrations did in the original 1900 book.

But this cover wasn’t destined to last either - in 1964 the entire book was given another overhaul, and most of the original illustrations by W. W. Denslow (printed in two colors) were restored. Dick Martin was responsible for the redesign, and this time the cover image was printed directly on the cloth of the book, in full color. The design chosen was based on a rare poster by Denslow, advertising the original edition, and a dust jacket was no longer part of the book. (Edit - according to Michael Hearn, the earliest copies of this book were issued with a glassine dust jacket.)

And then a year later the cover changed again! This time it was based on a Denslow drawing of Dorothy being carried from the deadly poppy field, with a white background and spine. The rest of the Baum titles were given new covers as well, creating what’s now known as the “white spine” edition. This final version was the last design used on the book by Reilly & Lee, and remained in use for the next ten years.

A Marvelous Land

When I was in 3rd grade, I purchased this version of The Marvelous Land of Oz, published by Scholastic Book Services. This was my first introduction to the Oz series beyond The Wizard of Oz, and I was happy to find that there was a sequel to the first story.  I grew very fond of this book, which helps account for it's ratty condition today - oddly enough, it was another several years before I expanded into the rest of the series, as I felt content with just the first two books!

While the covers and frontispiece of this version were drawn by Dom Lupo, the interior contained a handful of John R. Neill's original illustrations. This was my first introduction to Neill’s work, and I was hooked by his imagery of the land and characters. But I was unaware that there was an interesting omission - several of the drawings had originally included the character of Tip, but for this edition they were cropped and edited to remove the boy. Presumably this was because he didn't match the three new illustrations, which showed a more contemporary version of the character.

At some point my copy of this book went missing, and I could not find it anywhere. When I was in 4th grade, I discovered a vintage hardback of the book on the classroom bookshelf. This was the personal property of my teacher, Mrs. Smith, who allowed me to look at and read the book during school hours. I was amazed to discover that there was an entire world of illustrations in the book that I had never seen, along with what struck me then as an unusual version of Tip!

Eventually I found my original copy, in the piles of debris on my closet floor, but knew I needed to find the book with all those other illustrations. This was during the time when white cover Reilly & Lee books were available, as well as the more affordable Rand McNally paperbacks. I happily purchased the paperback - it would be a few more years before I learned the the original book had color plates as well!

John R. Neill Artwork

As a fan of the artwork of John R. Neill, I'm happy to say that a new website has just been started, selling original pieces by the artist. David Maxine of Hungry Tiger Press is selling a variety of work belonging to one of Neill's granddaughters, a rare opportunity to obtain an original piece of Neill art. The majority of Neill's original Oz artwork has been lost over the years, and while he created a great deal of other work, much of it has remained in the Neill family. Be sure to take a look at www.johnrneill.com and see what's available!

On a related note, another website has been started recently, called The Lost Art of Oz. This is not a selling site - collector Brady Schwind takes a look at surviving Oz artwork, and is on a quest to try and locate some of the many examples of Oz artwork that have gone missing over the years. Artist John R. Neill illustrated 35 full length Oz stories, with an average of over 100 drawings per book. Yet, only a fraction of the artwork is known to survive. Brady would appreciate any information that might be out there concerning this subject!

Oz on Music Box

Oz-related music box discs are something I first became aware of several years ago, from a blog post by David Maxine at Hungry Tiger Press. Since then, I have kept an eye out for examples and have managed to obtain two songs written for the show, Must You? and I Love Only One Girl in This Wide Wide World.

I've become fascinated by the music boxes themselves. At the time of The Wizard of Oz there were multiple companies producing disc-playing music boxes. The disc players were popular from the 1890’s into the early years of the 20th century, when they were surpassed by the phonograph. The various companies produced boxes in a variety of sizes, and each brand and size required specific discs - they were not interchangeable. Consequently, it can be difficult to find a specific song for a specific make/size of box. I now own two different boxes, one a 15.5” Stella and the other a 9.25” Mira.

The two Oz discs I own are for the small Mira machine. The first video, above, is I Love Only One Girl, and the second video, below, is Must You? In the Must You? video, I also demonstrate the zither attachment on the box - this was an extra feature that was available, and originally added an additional dollar to the cost. It's basically a bar that applies pressure to the comb of the box, causing a much more plunking tone - similar in some ways to a harpsichord. It can be heard during the second chorus of the song.

 

In looking through catalogs for a couple different brands, I’ve found that generally the same songs were available for all the various machines. The arrangements could differ from maker to maker, and larger discs would have extended versions of the music - extra choruses, or additional elements. Unfortunately there are gaps in the lists I’ve seen, so it’s possible a song that's missing from one brand, but is present in another, may actually have been available in both.

I've come across six makers that offered a total of 12 titles of songs that were either written for or used during the run of The Wizard. There could easily be more, as Symphonium was another large producer, and further Criterion titles are probably out there. Several of the discs attribute the song to the show, as shown in apostrophes below. They are as follows:

Polyphon
#50009 - I’d Like to Go Halves in That
#50727 - Sammy

Edelweiss
#0190 - Mr. Dooley
#0196 - Must You “from the Wizard of Oz”
#0201 - I Love Only One Girl in the Wide Wide World
#0202 - Sammy

Stella or Mira (both were made by the same company, the Stella was unique in that it used smooth discs with no projections)
#865 - Mr. Dooley
#899 - Must You “from the Wizard of Oz”
#898 - I Love Only One Girl in the Wide Wide World “from the Wizard of Oz”
#904 - Sammy
#1130 - Can’t You See I’m Lonely
#1257 - The Bullfrog and the Coon

Regina
#1982 - Mr. Dooley
#10008 - Sammy
#10020 - Hurrah for Baffin’s Bay
#10074 - Under a Panama
#10138 - Johnny I’ll Take You “from the Wizard of Oz”
#10279 - The Sweetest Girl in Dixie

#10152 - Can’t You See I’m Lonely
#10652 - The Bullfrog and the Coon

Criterion
#13426 - "Wizard of Oz" When the Circus Comes to Town

Olympia

#3427 - Wizard of Oz “Sammy” Song

Sammy turns up on five lists, it was the hit of the show! Finally, here's Mr. Dooley played on the larger Stella machine. This song was written for The Chinese Honeymoon, but was reused in the Chicago production of The Wizard, before its Broadway run.

Cowgirls in Oz?

In my ongoing quest to view costume designs by Caroline Siedle, I recently contacted the Museum of the City of New York. It turns out that they have 63 examples of Siedle's work in their collection, including one piece from The Wizard of Oz.

This is an unexpected design - but it does appear to be captioned Wizard of Oz at the bottom of the drawing, and it was intended for the show. One of the many interpolated numbers in the production was Sitting Bull, sung by Fred Stone as the Scarecrow during the Ball of All Nations. This song was added to the show in 1905 and, according to Oz Before the Rainbow, was performed with a chorus of "cowgirls, Mexicans and squaws". This must have been for that number. 

This photo is not of the best quality, and I haven't viewed this piece in person to know whether there are further notations on the back of the drawing. 

Many of Siedle's designs bear the stamp of the Metropolitan Opera. This isn't because they were designed for the opera, I believe it's simply where they came to be kept after her untimely death in 1907. Her husband Edward Siedle was prop master for the Metropolitan Opera, so it seems logical that the drawings would end up stored there.

Restoration

An adage for collecting is to buy the best you are able - in other words, it's better to pass by damaged and lesser items in favor of something better. But, there are times when a damaged book can be a bargain worth picking up and having restored.

This is a first edition, first state copy of The Marvelous Land of Oz. The key identification point for a first state of this title is the absence of the words "Published July 1904" on the copyright page. First states of this book are hard to come by, and are priced accordingly. 

In this case, I ran across an inexpensive damaged copy at auction - the text block was separated from the covers, there was a tear across the spine and the spine was torn from the rear cover. In spite of the condition issues, all the elements were present and it looked like a good candidate for restoration.

A feature of early printings of this book was the endpaper drawing which included a photo of Fred Stone and David Montgomery, in their respective roles as the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman in the stage version of The Wizard of Oz. This image came from a publicity photo of the two characters sitting on a wall; with some minor adjustments, the two were driving a pony cart in Oz!

The end result proved worth the cost. The work was done by Sophia Bogle of Save Your Books, in Portland, Oregon.

Design vs Reality

Last week's post showed costume designs by Caroline Siedle for the 1903 Wizard, from the collection of the Schubert Archive. I thought this week it might be interesting to show how some of the actual costumes measured up to the original concepts. The costume drawings are fascinating in their own right, and many have information on the back with names of actors or chorus members, notes concerning fabric choices, even details of construction. This was, of course, before the days of lightweight synthetic fabrics, and the costumes involved a good deal of silk, velvet, and spangles. As always, clicking on an image will enlarge it for better viewing.

 These two designs for Anna Laughlin as Dorothy are both easily recognized with little to no adaptation. The cape and staff on her elaborate Emerald City costume are missing in the photo, but perhaps they were not in use.

Tryxie's first act waitress dress is also straightforward, although in this particular photo she's wearing a cape and no cap. Her Emerald City outfit takes a little more getting used to, as the various accessories of hat, gloves, muff and parasol are missing. But there's still at least one bird on her skirt!

Dashemoff is also easy to compare, although his boots have gone missing and some detailing of the tunic seems to have changed. On the rear of the sketch for the blue first act costume, there is a bold underlined notation of No Boot! It appears that the second act leggings were also discarded in favor of tights. There are some photos of Bessie Wynn in her first act costume with boots - shorter than those in the sketch. In the end, the chance to view legs and ankles seems to have won out!

The Munchkin maidens and youths are particularly faithful to the costume design.

Some chorus members from the third act - the Cooks, who are well realized from the costume drawing, and the Guards. The Guards maintain all the details of the design, though it looks a bit overwhelming on this 1903 chorus girl!

Finally, Cynthia Cynch in her third act costume. Here again, the outfit is immediately recognizable - but it looks as though the headdress of onions may have been discarded for flowers!

The Shubert Archive

While in New York City this past weekend, I had the pleasure of visiting the Shubert Archive. The Archive is a large collection of theater-related material which is not open to the public, but is available for research purposes. A friend secured an appointment and we spent an enjoyable few hours learning about the Shuberts and the various aspects of the collection. The archivist Mark E. Swartz was our guide during the visit - Mr Swartz is also the author of Before the Rainbow, a study of productions of The Wizard of Oz prior to the 1939 film. This book was extremely useful to me when I worked on my toy theater!

 My reason for visiting was to see what material was available concerning the 1903 Wizard of Oz. I was aware that the collection included some of Caroline Siedle's costume designs for the show, and I was pleasantly surprised to find a dozen examples - more than I expected! I've added two other examples I know of to show all the surviving costume designs that I'm aware of. These costume drawings are one of the few tangible things that survive from the creation of the show.

There are a number of other Siedle designs in the collection, including several which are unidentified. I think I helped to classify one of the unknown examples, which I've included in the above lineup - I believe this drawing is for the second act Emerald City outfit worn by Dashemoff Daily, played by Bessie Wynn.

Autographs from Fred and Dave

The role of the Scarecrow, in the original Broadway version of The Wizard of Oz, was Fred Stone's big break and the role with which he would always be identified. He went on to star in many shows, and worked in Hollywood as well. When the MGM film of Oz was being produced in 1938, some fans were disappointed that Fred would not be playing his signature part in the movie. At that time he would have been 55 years old - I've never seen if he ever expressed any regrets over not reprising his role!

David Montgomery was in the same position with the part of the Tin Woodman, but his early death forestalled some of his opportunity to top that famous portrayal. Although the pair appeared in a number of other hit shows of the period, a certain generation would forever identify the duo with these two characters. After the 1939 film, Ray Bolger and Jack Haley took over as the actors best known for these roles.

The photo on the left from 1910 shows Montgomery and Stone in The Old Town, one of the shows that followed Oz. After Montgomery's death in 1917, Stone declared he would not seek a new partner, and he became a solo performer - although there were rumors of his teaming with Frank Moore (an interesting Oz connection, since Moore had starred as the Shaggy Man in The Tik-Tok Man of Oz). In later years he often paired up with one or another of his three daughters - Carol, Paula, and - Dorothy!

 Throughout his life, Fred Stone kept a connection to his famous Scarecrow - he often signed autographs with his own caricature of the character. Although the example below bears the date of 1902, that simply commemorates the start of his years playing the role - this is from the endpaper of his autobiography, published in 1945. Something to be aware of, should a loose page with an early dated autograph turn up!

A Letter From Maud

L. Frank Baum received numerous letters from young, and not so young, readers in response to his books. He did his best to personally respond to his fans, especially if they supplied postage. His death in 1919 didn't stop the flow of fan letters that were written to the popular author, and his wife Maud continued to answer the incoming mail. This led to the existence of some seemingly ghostly Baum letters!

Here is an example from 1920 - obviously this wasn't written by Frank, though it bears his bold signature, thanks to a rubber stamp. It congratulates the sender on winning a prize in a contest in the Plain Dealer, and goes on to say "I am glad you like my stories - I have written thirteen Oz books - and many others". It finishes with Baum's usual sign-off of "Ozily Yours".

This was written in January of 1920, when there were still only thirteen titles in the series. Glinda of Oz would be published that summer, bringing Baum's total of full length Oz novels up to fourteen.

Denslow Atlases

W. W. Denslow's covers for Rand McNally covered a broad range of subject matter. Novels, reminiscences, travelogues and even atlases were decorated with his work. Here we have a Bible Atlas, written by J. L. Hurlburt, with a cover that was first designed in 1897. This copy is from 1910, showing that this cover design was in use for at least 13 years. The book itself was first published in 1884, and remained in print into the 1950's (possibly later) with varying cover designs.

The cover is a dark teal fabric, stamped in black, burnt sienna, gold and silver. It's an elaborately produced book, with color printing and two large fold out pages.

I've shown another example of a Denslow designed atlas in the past, The World's People and the Countries They Live In.  It also dates from 1897, but the cover style of this book is quite different. Rather than the simplified image used on the Bible Atlas, Denslow has produced a detailed drawing featuring women of various cutures. This book also included color printing.

These two examples provide an interesting contrast of the many styles in which Denslow worked.

Library Bindings

 Library bindings are a specialty niche in the world of Oz collecting. The books were available from the 1940's to the 1960's in sturdy bindings intended to hold up to heavy use. The covers were usually brightly colored, simplified screenprints of the original cover labels. The spines generally featured the title, without the usual pictorial vignette. As expected, these books often show heavy wear from library use. However, the specialty binding was also available to general customers, so copies occasionally turn up that were never used in a library system.

I haven't expanded into this area, but I did recently pick up an example that came my way. This is a library binding of The Land of Oz, featuring the Roland Roycraft dust jacket design, printed in black and orange on turquoise cloth, from 1959. The Roycraft designs were only issued for a short period of time as dust jackets, not as paper labels mounted to the book covers - so it's fun to have a copy with the design imprinted on the actual book! This particular copy bears no evidence of library use, so it presumably was sold to a home user. It's also interesting to note that the cover has been completely redrawn for this use!