APRIL 2001

Engineering and Popular Culture

The Wizard of Menlo Park 
Meets the Wizard of Oz

by Michael N. Geselowitz

The year 2000 marked the centennial of one of the enduring classics of American — and perhaps global — children’s literature: The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum (1856-1919). Baum, universally recognized as one of the giants among the writers of juvenile fiction, went on to write 13 sequels to this original (the last published posthumously). The Oz series spawned numerous official and unofficial continuations, various stage versions, and several film adaptations, including the 1939 Judy Garland classic that caused The Wizard of Oz to be forever part of popular culture.

Although not as widely celebrated, last year also marked another centennial — that of Thomas Edison’s patent for mass production of the phonograph cylinder, the invention that had earlier launched his reputation as the great inventor of his day.

What these two men had in common might not be clear, because lost in the hoopla surrounding the anniversary celebrations for The Wizard of Oz is the fact that this year — 2001 — is the centennial anniversary of another book by Baum, The Master Key: An Electrical Fairy Tale Founded Upon the Mysteries of Electricity and the Optimism of Its Devotees. It Was Written for Boys But Others May Read It. Although one of his more obscure works, The Master Key, as its subtitle suggests, relates to Edison and may interest Today’s Engineer readers.

Baum’s title suggests a work of science fiction. As it turns out, many current engineers were fans of science fiction in their youth. In the 20^th century, juvenile science fiction introduced youngsters to the concepts of science and technology, and to notions of technological process, both good and bad. For example, in 1910, Victor Appleton (originally the pen name for Howard Roger Garis, 1873-1962) began his famous Tom Swift series by publishing the first five volumes about the boy inventor and his motorcycle, motorboat, airship, submarine, and electric runabout, respectively. Such works enabled children — mainly young boys in the first half of the century — to dream of becoming electrical inventors and scientists. Although often overlooked because of Baum’s reputation as a practitioner of fantasy and "the literary fairy tale," The Master Key was an important early link in the development of this genre.

Published in 1901, just a year after The Wizard of Oz but before the scope of Wizard’s success had fully sunk in, The Master Key is a fable about a young lad who experiments with electrical science and accidentally summons up the "Demon of Electricity," who reveals to him the potential benefits — and risks — of society turning to electricity for its energy source. In A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889), Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835-1910) had already speculated on what would happen if modern man brought knowledge of electricity and other engineering skills to the Dark Ages. Baum, however, was perhaps the first to speculate specifically not just on what electricity was doing, but what it might do in a more technically detailed way than even his contemporaries Jules Verne (1828-1905) or H. G. Wells (1866-1946).

Perhaps the most telling scene in The Master Key is right near the beginning, when the Demon appears to the protagonist and claims to bring knowledge of electricity to humankind. The lad protests that Edison and Tesla already possess such knowledge, but in an exchange quite amusing to the modern engineer, the Demon dismisses our still iconic hero-inventors as ignoramuses. This characterization seems an intentional tweaking of popular perception.

Edison’s reputation as "The Wizard of Menlo Park" did not escape Baum’s notice, and the fact that "the Wizard of Oz" is an "old Kansas man" who uses chicanery and technology to acquire his new position "over the rainbow" shows that Baum’s interest in engineering and engineers was not limited to The Master Key.

The Demon introduces the boy to what he says are the true marvels of electricity, including a magnetic levitation device and an electric stun ray. This column will not say more, because you may want to discover the joys of this book for yourself. It should be fascinating and amusing to anyone interested in electrical science and engineering today, as well as in their history. Readers will enjoy learning of the Demon’s gifts and thinking about their relationship to current electrical engineering practice. Fortunately, The Master Key is still available, thanks to a 1976 reprint edition by Dover Publications. Check with your local bookstore or online book dealer.

Michael N. Geselowitz is Director of the IEEE History Center at Rutgers University. He can be reached at m.geselowitz@ieee.org. Visit the IEEE History Center's Web page at: www.ieee.org/organizations/history_center/.