Ziaukas, Tim. "100 Years of Oz: Baum's 'Wizard of Oz' as Gilded Age Public Relations." Public Relations Quarterly. Vol. 43. No. 3 (Fall 1998). 28 November 2008 <http://www.halcyon.com/piglet/books8-Ziaukas.htm>.

Ziaukas' article is an explanation of L. Frank Baum's The Wizard of Oz, the storybook upon which the film is based. This article, like Hugh Rockoff's famous article entitled "The ‘Wizard of Oz' as a Monetary Allegory," discusses the story in light of the "financial question" which was the center of American politics when Baum wrote the fairytale in 1899.In the 1890s a heated debate consumed the United States; should the amount of money in circulation be tied to silver, gold, or a combination of the two? This dispute divided American into two camps. East Coast, urban, industrialists generally favored the gold standard and poor, Midwestern, workers and farmers supported a silver or bimetallic system. William Jennings Bryan ran for president in 1896 on a platform which promoted tying money to silver, but ultimately lost the candidacy and money became completely backed by gold. Ziaukas suggests that Baum's story is highly politicized and overtly promotes the silver standard. In Baum's version, Dorothy's slippers are silver and are the tool which eventually allows her to return home. On the contrary, the yellow brick road, which represents the gold standard, leads Dorothy to the Land of Oz, which is actually filled with false promises. The Wizard cannot help Dorothy return to Kansas, instead she must rely on the help of her silver slippers. The symbolism in Baum's text provides the necessary evidence to assume that Baum's greatly favored the silver standard over the gold. Furthermore, Ziaukas' article offers something new because it not only discusses the monetary allegory, but also suggests that Baum's story was a piece of political propaganda, or an early form of public relations in the United States.

While this article is specific to Baum's story, it also offers insight into the film version of The Wizard of Oz. Although the slippers are changed from silver to ruby red, they yellow brick road remains a symbol for the gold standard in the United States. This was again relevant in 1939 during the post-Depression era, when the film was produced, because the United States temporarily went off of the gold standard during the tumultuous years of the Depression. As a result, it is possible that the yellow brick road in the film also reflects the false promises of the gold standard. Furthermore, this analogy remains relevant without Dorothy's silver slippers because by 1939 a return to the silver standard, or a bimetallic system, was irrelevant. The Wizard of Oz, the story and the film, are clearly symbolic of political and economic tensions in the United States during the 1890s and the 1930s respectively. Ziaukas' discussion of the story as political tool is also relevant here; as film began to reach an increasing number of viewers throughout the 1900s, it is likely that the medium also began to have a greater impact on audiences' beliefs and attitudes toward American politics, economics and society.