Magic Kingdoms, Emerald Cities, and Mormon Temples (oh, my!!!)

A friend of mine (who is pursuing her doctorate in religion at Boston University) recently wrote to me about some Oz-related findings on her research regarding the history of the image of Mormons in popular media. Apparently, after the LDS temple in Washington, D.C. was built, critics made fun of it by comparing it to the Emerald City.

I’m still working on researching this, myself, so I’m not quite sure at this point whether it was a reference to the W.W. Denslow illustrations from the book

or the Art Deco Emerald City from the 1939 MGM film.

Given the preeminence of the film in the public consciousness, though, I’m guessing the critics were referring to the film… but, to my eye, the edifice seems more akin to the book illustrations. Picking up on this critique and using it in an act of anti-Mormon bigotry, someone spray painted "Surrender Dorothy!" on a nearby overpass on the D.C. beltway.

Interestingly, L. Frank Baum's inspiration for the Emerald City came from The White City at the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago (where he was living at the time). Designed to showcase the works of the most prolific American architects of the era, the White City was an amazing architecture achievement, in itself. Sadly, it perished in the Great Chicago Fire. Even so, its influence can be felt in a great number of impressive twentieth-century American architectural structures (but I’ll leave any further discussion of that to those who study architecture).

On a side note, Walt Disney's father worked on the construction of the White City, as well. It was said to have inspired Walt's visions for his theme parks. There is a clear visual link between the White City and the iconic Magic Kingdom castle.

There is also a strong link between Oz and the Magic Kingdom; both of them are quintessentially American utopian visions. The connection, however, goes deeper than this. They share a strange geographical similarity as well. Certainly, there is also a strong resemblance between the map of the Magic Kingdom and the map of Oz. Both of them are kingdoms divided into four separate quarters, in a quincunx formation (sorry, it just isn't everyday one gets to use the word quincunx in a meaningful way), with an elaborate palace in the center of the map.

(Here's another Fun Fact: The Mormons were banned from the World's Parliament of Religions at the 1893 World's Fair by the organizers, who generously offered them a consolation spot... on the Midway.)

For those of you who are teachers, I believe The Wonderful Wizard of Oz can serve as the centerpiece of a language arts course that integrates a great number of subject areas across the curriculum. I’ll delve more deeply into this in future posts, but there are ways to use Oz to integrate history (Chicago World’s Fair, the Great Chicago Fire, westward expansion of the United States in conjunction with rapid urbanization, etc., etc., etc.), science (tornadoes, anyone?), geography (map reading), and now obviously religion and architecture.

Happy to be here!!!

Wow! It has been nearly three years since I've posted anything on this blog... I really dropped the ball on that. Initially, I had intended to use this page as a way to supplement my classroom language arts teaching. However, now I'm thinking it might better serve as a general blog dedicated to children's literature and fantasy worlds.

In that spirit, I have three updates:

• Last fall, I presented a paper to the Georgia Educational Research Association about utopian children's literature and the idea of cognitive mapping. For those of you who don't know, cognitive mapping is the idea that utopian novels are popular forms of social and political philosophy that help readers to orient themselves to current cultural conditions. The paper examined, in particular, Oz, Narnia, and Middle-Earth, discussing differing conceptions of modernism in each. I had a great deal of fun, and I'm hoping to do something bigger with the paper soon. I'll keep you updated.
• Currently, I'm researching and writing a chapter for my book on horror films that take place in educational institutions. I have about four or five films left to watch in my colleges and universities chapter, and I'm looking forward to presenting my findings next week in Charleston at the Southern History of Education Society annual meeting. I hoping to wrap up writing for this entire project in the next couple months, and I'll be looking for a publisher quite soon. Again, I'll keep everyone posted on the successes and failures in this process. (I'm sure excited about it!)
• I recently finished reading this year's Newbery Award winner, Moon over Manifest. I really enjoyed it (especially the last 50 or so pages). I wasn't as enamored with this book as I have been with some of the other recent winners (The Graveyard Book and The Tale of Desperaux come to mind), but it was quite good. Perhaps I'll write more on the subject later.

I know that as a result of letting this blog go for so long, that it'll take a while to start rebuilding some readership. Let me know if you have any suggestions, and thanks for reading!