Today in Labor History August 11, 1894: Federal troops drove over 1,000 jobless workers from the nation's capital. Led by Charles "Hobo" Kelley, an unemployed activist from California, and Jacob Coxey, they camped in Washington D.C. starting in July. Kelley's Hobo Army included a young journalist named Jack London and a young miner-cowboy named Big Bill Haywood. Frank Baum was an observer of the protest and some say it influenced his Wizard of Oz, with the Scarecrow representing the American farmer, the tin man representing industrial workers and the Cowardly Lion representing William Jennings Bryan, all marching on Washington (Oz) to demand redress from the president (the Wizard). 650 miners, led by a "General" Hogan, captured a Northern Pacific train at Butte, Montana, en route to the protest. The Feds caught up with them at Billings, forcing a surrender, but a few eventually made it to Washington.
@MikeDunnAuthor@bookstadon I have studied Oz and L. Frank Baum for my entire life, and this is the first I've ever heard about him observing these events. So far as I know, he was nowhere near Washington in 1894. Then there's the whole issue of contemporary events influencing #TheWizardOfOz in ways that nobody saw at all until the 1960s, and even the originator of that parable never claimed that that was WHY Baum wrote the book…
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