Day 1 - Woot the Wanderer arrives at the Tin Castle
Day 2 - The party leaves the Tin Castle - arrives near Loonville toward evening
  - night in open - Dorothy looks in Magic Picture
Day 3 - Woot's party visits the Loons - they cross the Rolling Lands and reach
  Yoop Castle - night in Mrs Yoop's outer chamber
Day 4 - Tin Woodman, Scarecrow, and Woot are enchanted in the AM - they meet the
  enchanted Polychrome - at night the Green Monkey slips into the Yoop bedchamber
  & releases friends - night in forest
Day 5 - Green Monkey encounters Jaguar in AM - they cross to Munchkin Country and
  find Jinjur's house - party disenchanted by Ozma - they are carried by Red
  Wagon to Munchkin forest - night "camped underneath the trees"
Day 6 - The party meets the Tin Soldier - they visit the Witch's cottage, then
  Ku-Klip - they cross the Invisible Country - night near Swyne's home
Day 7 - They visit Nimmie Amee - Polychrome returns home

Date: Tue, 06 Oct 1998 12:10:24 -0400
From: "J. L. Bell" <JnoLBell at compuserve.com>
Subject: Oz and other fairylands
 
Two passages from TIN WOODMAN have some bearing on our discussion of the
birds and the beasts, so I'll bring them up now.
  First, to turn Polychrome back from canary to fairy, Ozma goes through
the steps of dove, speckled hen, rabbit, and fawn. If RINKITINK implies
that mammals are further from hominids than birds, this sequence says
mammals are closer to fairies than either birds or we are. I don't think
that holds up to how Baum portrayed animals, fairies, and humans elsewhere.
These transformation sequences don't seem to be reliable indicators.

  Second, Baum gives us this clue about animal language on page 102:
    The Owl and the Canary found they could converse 
    together in the bird language, which neither the 
    Giantess nor the Bear nor the Monkey could 
    understand; so at times they twittered away to 
    each other.

Several interesting implications here. First, a tin man and a rainbow fairy
put in avian bodies instinctually know bird-speak; they don't have to learn
it. Second, even cross-species speech can sound like twittering to other
animals outside the same order. And if birds don't all speak a single
language, they at least share a common jargon--no doubt some form of
pigeon.
 
J. L. Bell                  JnoLBell at compuserve.com

Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1998 12:51:59 -0400
From: "J. L. Bell" <JnoLBell at compuserve.com>
Subject: TIN WOODMAN OF OZ themes
 
As I've written, TIN WOODMAN was the second Oz book I read, after WIZARD. I
was mighty confused since Ozma--whom I'd never heard of--plays a crucial
role in this story. But I was enthralled with the terrible Mrs. Yoop and
the dangerous, desolate landscapes the books' heroes traverse. 

  Rereading TIN WOODMAN for the first time in several years, I think it
holds up well. The ending is as frustrating as PATCHWORK GIRL's, but it's
also realistic and well prepared for. The action is episodic, but
thematically it hangs together well. Indeed, TIN WOODMAN displays two of
the stronger themes in Baum's novels.
 
The more clearly spelled-out moral is, "Don't assume you can barge in
anywhere and be welcome." All through their journey the Tin Woodman and the
Scarecrow go where they're not invited and suffer bad consequences. The
Loons tie them up; the Scarecrow acknowledges, "We really had no right to
disturb their peace and comfort" [64], but he keeps right on doing that at
others' homes. Breaking into Mrs. Yoop's castle [69] causes our heroes to
be imprisoned and enchanted. Lolling around Jinjur's farmhouse makes her
try to sweep them out [148]. 

  By Ku-Klip's cottage Woot has learned his lesson: "I think I will go
outside until Ku-Klip comes. It does not seem quite proper for us to take
possession of his house while he is absent" [208]. But Nick Chopper not
only stays inside, he goes through the man's cabinets--and finds himself
most disturbingly face to face with his face. Of all the houses outside the
Winkie Country that the Tin Woodman and his companions visit, the Swynes'
is the only one they don't enter uninvited [252]; it's also the place where
they have the most uniformly positive experience. 

  Given that pattern, the party's cool reception at Nimmie Ammee's house
should be no surprise. Indeed, in contrast to some of his more slipshod
plots, Baum has forecast the end of this quest early and often. As far back
as page 38, the Tin Woodman was convinced "that poor Munchkin girl is
anxiously awaiting my coming." Yet we already know her ideal husband is one
who doesn't need cooking, mending, or laundering; who won't tire of dancing
or work, letting his wife "amuse myself in my own way" [29]--hardly a girl
to sit pining for her man. Even as Nick anticipates "her joy at our
reunion," he has to acknowledge her sharp tongue [40]. 

  The Tin Woodman's confidence in his own attractiveness isn't slowed by
Ozma's lukewarm response to his plan [187]. Nor by learning that Nimmie
Ammee took up with Captain Fyter after him [197]. Nor by hearing from the
blue rabbit that the woman doesn't "weep and wail from morning till night,"
and retains her temper [265-8]. He's still flabbergasted when Nimmie Ammee
isn't pleased to see him! 

  Despite living on a secluded mountain and behind a thick wall, Nimmie
Ammee has to spell out that she prefers her solitude. The Scarecrow wisely
murmurs, "That sounds to me like a hint" [279]. Even Nick and Captain Fyter
finally learn their lesson: "the two tin men...felt they were not welcome
there" [280-1]. They all journey to the Emerald City, where our beloved Tin
Woodman and Scarecrow are always welcome. 
 
But that breaking-and-entering theme isn't relevant to every episode in TIN
WOODMAN--how does it apply to Tommy Kwikstep, or the Hip-po-gy-raf, or life
as a green monkey? I see a deeper theme running through almost every part
of this book, with the possible exception of the Swynes' visit. And that is
the sad reality of our bodies' fragility. 

  Near the end of the LOST PRINCESS, we found the Tin Woodman and the
Scarecrow discussing the superiority of their non-meat bodies. They take up
that favorite topic as soon as Woot arrives [16]. Indeed, each of the
travelers is concerned with another's body. "The straw man was awkward in
his movements and decidedly wobbly on his feet, so the boy wondered if the
Scarecrow would be able to travel with them all the way to the forests of
the Munchkin Country" [36]. "Straw and tin never tire at all. Which
proves," retorts the Scarecrow, "that we are somewhat superior to people
made in the common way" [43]. And Baum, son of an axle-grease manufacturer,
makes sure to show us Nick Chopper oiling his joints [25].

  The ensuing adventures highlight the fragility of all physical forms.
Twice we hear the story of a man being chopped to pieces [once while Woot
is trying to eat!]. The Loons pop. Tommy Kwikstep gets nineteen extra legs,
and corns on top of that. Dragons have to sleep for a century. The
Invisible Country hides travelers' bodies from sight, leading them into
accidents. Even at the very end of their journey, our heroes must shrink
their forms to the size of "a toy soldier" if they wish to approach Nimmie
Ammee's door [269]. 

  The book's most frightening moment is, appropriately, when the Tin
Woodman, the Scarecrow, Woot, and Polychrome have their rightful bodies
taken away from them. Their new forms have all the weaknesses of
before--clinking tin, floppy straw--and more. Nick Chopper "found the
sunshine very trying to his big [owl] eyes" [111]. The Scarecrow complains,
"I'm getting tired of walking on all fours" [132]. And Woot is natural food
for jaguars and dragons. When in turn Mrs. Yoop loses her body, she loses a
vital aspect of herself; "in that form she will be unable to perform any
magical arts whatsoever" [183].  

  By the latter half of the book, our heroes' bodies suffer indignity after
indignity. The same straw "fragrance" the Scarecrow is so proud of [44]
makes him vulnerable to the Hip-po-gy-raf [236]. Stuffed with hay, the
Scarecrow is figuratively turned into a feeble old man, with swollen limbs
and a hunch back, feeling heavy and "very clumsy" [249-50]. The two tin
men, confident in their hardy exoskeletons, bump into each other and find
themselves limping along like wounded veterans [239]. 

  In using the term "old man," I refer to literary stereotypes; I don't
claim that all older men end up crippled. But it's sadly undeniable that
with time our adult bodies grow less resilient and demand more effort to
stay in shape. [You college kids, enjoy the next five to six years. As a
classmate of mine said at age 30, "I wish someone had told me about nose
hair!"] Many folks have written about aging as looking down and thinking
that the body you're in really isn't yours anymore; either somewhere back
you lost the one you still think of yourself as having, or the one you have
just won't do everything you tell it to. 

  That out-of-body experience appears over and over in TIN WOODMAN. As
muscular young men, Nick Chopper and Captain Fyter traded their meat bodies
for tin ones and thought themselves the better for the change. (Even though
wet weather freezes their joints worse than any arthritis.) Then they meet
their younger bodies nose to nose, and realize they don't own those bodies
anymore; the parts could be Ku-Klip's, they could be Chopfyt's, they could
be Nimmie Ammee's to order around, but they're definitely not under the
control of Nick Chopper and Captain Fyter. Furthermore, the tin men
discover to their embarrassment that the girl they left behind has gone and
married their youthful selves! 

  Baum wrote TIN WOODMAN when he was sick, entering his final illness and
largely confined to a twin bed in the room he shared with Maud. Only 62
years old, he may well have wondered what happened to the young body that
strutted the stages of the Northeast. How lovely it must have been to
imagine a land where bodies survive even after being chopped with axes and
swords! Where a fresh load of straw is enough to make one feel like a new
man! Where a fairy from the rainbow can repair sore feet and dented limbs,
a fairy from the Emerald City can give you back the body you once enjoyed,
and a fairy from Burzee can make sure "those who were young and strong did
not change as the years passed them by" [156]!
 
"The man who looks for security, even in the mind, is like a man who would
chop off his limbs in order to have artificial ones which will give him no
pain or trouble."
    --Henry Miller
 
J. L. Bell                  JnoLBell at compuserve.com

Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1998 09:23:26 -0600 (CST)
From: Ruth Berman <berma005 at maroon.tc.umn.edu>
Subject: ozzy digest/Tin Woodman
 
Some thoughts about "Tin Woodman."  David Hulan has commented
that he doesn't much care for it (although finding it of interest for the
information about Lurline's enchantment of Oz, the Tin Woodman's
past, and such).  I can see the objection -- the quest to get rid of the
Yookoohoo-imposed shapes is more urgent to the characters, and so
when that aim is achieved, it feels as if the story should be over, and it
feels anticlimactic to get back to the dutiful starting aim of locating
Nimmee Aimee.  But the two aims are linked thematically, as both turn
out to be explorations of what it means to be oneself.  The
conversations about whether they're still themselves when transformed
into different shapes, and whether the Tin Woodman is or isn't the
same person as the pieces of his former self or his twin tin are some
of Baum's funniest.

   The discrepancies between Baum's various versions of Lurline's
enchantment have been pretty widely discussed.  In the past, there's
also been some discussion of the discrepancies between the versions
here and in "Dorothy and the Wizard" of how the Wizard got the Nine
Piglets.  An early "Bugle" round-up of opinions on how to explain away
discrepancies suggested that perhaps Professor and Mrs. Swyne
originally lived on the Isle of Teenty-weent themselves and assumed
that their sailor had been the Wizard when they heard the kids were
with the Wizard.  (I wonder if the sailor could have been Cap'n Bill or
maybe Trot's father.)  Another discrepancy is in the description of
Nimmee Aimee's employer as the Wicked Witch of the East -- in
"Wizard," Nick had said the employer was an old woman who went to
the WWE for help.  Perhaps Nick had assumed that his girlfriend
couldn't really be working for the ruler of the territory and that the
employer and the axe-enchanter were separate people, but later
learned they were the same?  Or perhaps the Witch had been
maintaining a Secret Identity (for purposes of spying on ordinary
Muchkin opinions?), and the connection between the two had been
learned later?  (In the pictures, it's interesting that Neill gives us the
only drawing of the WWE, and also, in one of the color plates, the only
drawing of the pre-tinned Nick.)

   Robert Pattrick wrote a pleasant short story sequel, "The Tin
Woodman and the Tin Soldier," with the two of them undertaking to
tame a field of wild flowers (available in #3 of the "Best of the Bugle"
collections).

   Theodore Sturgeon wrote a sciencefiction story, "The Green
Monkey," not with reference to Woot, but to an unpleasant experiment
in which the experimenters found that a monkey with its fur dyed
green would be perceived as a threatening alien and killed by the rest
of the band of monkeys.  I don't know when this experiment was
supposed to have been made, or if Baum would have been likely to
know about it.
 
   Bob Spark & Dave Hardenbrook: Dave is obviously correct in
suggesting that "TW" must be one of the main examples Martin
Gardner had in mind in talking about decapitation in the Oz books.
Another example would be Fumbo's lost head in "Grampa," and
another example from the Borderlands books would be the switching
about of the King's head and the Woodcutter's and the substitute
heads made of candy, bread, and wood in "Magical Monarch of Mo."
And, too, Jack Pumpkinhead quite often loses his head, and the
Scarecrow in "TW" loses his stuffing and is left with only the head and
the empty suit of clothes -- another version of the nature-of-identity
question that runs through the book and shows up in a lot of Baum's
writing.
 
Ruth Berman

Date: Tue, 13 Oct 98 15:56:07 (PDT)
From: Dave Hardenbrook <DaveH47 at delphi.com>
Subject: Ozzy Things
 
****** SPOILERS FOR _THE TIN WOODMAN OF OZ_ AHEAD!!! ******
 
Some random thoughts:
 
-- Nick says he has "a kind heart, not a loving heart", but how can
   he be kind without being loving??
 
-- The thing most dissatisfying about this book IMHO is that Nick
   puts himself through such misery to find a girl he no longer
   loves...I mean, what's the hippikaloric point??  I agree with
   Ruth that after the Yookoohoo spell is broken, it's downhill and
   anticlimatic from there...
 
-- The *best* thing about the book for me is Ozma acting assertively
    to resolve the Yookoohoo problem.  For once she's behaving maturely
    and intellegently as a ruler should.  Of course, a certain Oz fan
    who will remain nameless (he's not on the Digest) thinks that this
    "new Ozma" is the direct result of Baum's illness, and that the
    "little girl after all" (both physically and mentally) is the
    *real* Ozma.  I however stand by my theory that *this* is the
    real Ozma and that the immature, ineffectual waif of other books is
    part of the ongoing Campaign to Protect Ozma from the Jealous Wrath
    of Rival Fairy Queens, which Baum briefly forgot about during the
    writing of _Tin W._, so that he accidentally showed Ozma as she
    actually is.
 
-- Oh, will I ever get over that pic of Ozma facing the "To My Readers"
    page...Oo Lah Lah!
 
-- There's a story about a young man who visits an old woman and informs
    her: "Your daughter's cousin was my grandfather on my mother's side,
     therefore, you are my great aunt."  The elderly lady thinks a moment
     and then tells the young fellow, "It's too deep for *me*!"  The old
     lady's sentiment is exactly how I feel whenever I try to contemplate
     the "How can Nick Chopper be both the Tin Man and his severed head at
     the same time?" paradox!
 
****** END SPOILERS ******
 
                             -- Dave

Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1998 09:19:09 -0600 (CST)
From: Ruth Berman <berma005 at maroon.tc.umn.edu>
Subject: ozzy digest
 
Dave Hardenbrook: How a heart can be kind without being loving -- 
"loving" in this context would seem to mean "sexually passionate."  
Kindness is a kind of love, but not necessarily a sexual one.
 
Ruth Berman

Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1998 17:26:22 -0400
From: "J. L. Bell" <JnoLBell at compuserve.com>
Subject: TIN WOODMAN OF OZ and love
 
Ruth Berman wrote about TIN WOODMAN as:
<<explorations of what it means to be oneself.  The conversations about
whether they're still themselves when transformed into different shapes,
and whether the Tin Woodman is or isn't the same person as the pieces of
his former self or his twin tin are some of Baum's funniest.>>
 
Very interesting. In the "first half" of the book--with Mrs. Yoop and her
transformations--the Tin Woodman struggles to hold onto his rightful self.
In the "second half" with Captain Fyter, Ku-Klip's extra head, and Chopfyt,
he has to deal with more selves than he can comfortably handle.
 
Ruth Berman also wrote:
<<In the pictures, it's interesting that Neill gives us..., in one of the
color plates, the only drawing of the pre-tinned Nick.>>
 
I must see this! Alas, I have only the "white cover" paperback I bought for
$1.50 in about 1973. Peter Glassman, where are you?
 
Dave Hardenbrook wrote:
<<The *best* thing about the book for me is Ozma acting assertively to
resolve the Yookoohoo problem.  For once she's behaving maturely and
intellegently as a ruler should.>>
 
I note that when Ozma disenchants Nick and the Scarecrow, she's working
under nearly the best of conditions: none of her friends is in peril (a
plight we know troubles her mind), she's had a chance to study and gather
useful materials [162], and she has no time limit. Also, I find it
significant that it's not Ozma who comes up with a way to rescue Woot from
the form of a green monkey, but the Scarecrow and Polychrome. 

  All in all, I think this vision of Ozma is compatible with the
responsibility-ridden adolescent fairy we see in TIK-TOK and GLINDA. Dave
Hulan and others have made a good case that Ozma does mature from the
pre-Barrier of Invisibility stories to this point, and never before was as
assertive in using her magical powers. But I don't see a need to split her
in two.
 
Dave Hardenbrook wrote:
<<Oh, will I ever get over that pic of Ozma facing the "To My Readers"
page...Oo Lah Lah!>>
 
I recall recently seeing in a BUGLE (which I can't put my hands on now)
that this picture and the portrait of "Woot in court dress" opposite
Chapter 1 were recycled versions of art Neill had drawn for a periodical.
The originals showed modern American teens, and illustrated an article on
missing children! 
 
Dave Hardenbrook wrote:
<<Nick says he has "a kind heart, not a loving heart", but how can he be
kind without being loving?? . . . The thing most dissatisfying about this
book IMHO is that Nick puts himself through such misery to find a girl he
no longer loves>>
 
I think the distinction between "kind" and "loving" is a premise we have to
accept for TIN WOODMAN. In Chapter 16 of WIZARD, the Wizard assures the Tin
Woodman that the heart he's prepared is "very...kind," but Nick never asked
about love.

  My nearest dictionary defines "kind" as "of gentle or benevolent nature,
friendly...considerate"; while "to love" means to "feel affection for;
delight in, admire, be glad of the existence of." The latter contains more
hint of passion and closeness. Traditional romantic that you are, Dave,
it's no surprise that you'd want Nick to feel both. 

  But is Nick really incapable of loving? At the end of this book, his bid
for a loveless show marriage fortunately thwarted, he returns home with his
"chosen comrade, the Scarecrow" [288], for the two have "found themselves
contented in merely being together" [14].

    "Perhaps our Emperor *is* queer," admitted the 
    servant; "but he is a kind master and as honest and 
    true as good tin can make him; so we, who gladly 
    serve him, are apt to forget that he is not like other 
    people." [15] 
 
J. L. Bell                  JnoLBell at compuserve.com

Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1998 23:48:46 +0000 (GMT)
From: David Hulan <davidhulan at ntsource.com>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 10-13-98
 
J.L.:
You like _Tin Woodman_ better than I do. I regard it as one of the three
weakest Baum Oz books, along with _Road_ and _DotWiz_, even though it was
one of the earlier ones I read and one I've owned ever since.
 
********************SPOILERS AHEAD*******************
 
I simply don't think that the initial motivation for the quest is
believable, nor does it make sense to me for the trio to avoid the Emerald
City; the reason given is so lame that it's obvious that the reason is that
Baum wants to get them into trouble, and traveling the familiar route
through the EC and out the YBR isn't going to do that. This sets the whole
adventure off on the wrong foot; it is, in fact, the only Baum Oz book
that's so weakly motivated.
 
And then the intrepid adventurers act like total dips throughout the whole
tale; the Scarecrow is supposed to be clever (though this isn't the only
book where he puts that into question), but just about every decision he
makes in the course of the story is something the average 10-year-old would
know better than to do.
 
It says something about the rest of the book when Ozma is clearly the
strongest character in it, and Jinjur the second strongest, when the former
is on stage for about two chapters and the latter for three. Woot seems to
be along for the sole purpose of giving the story a juvenile character; he
does little if anything of a positive nature, but just goes along for the
hike.
 
Polychrome does come across well in this book; she's much more interesting
than she was in _Road_, and rather more interesting than in _Tik-Tok_. In
the former she didn't do much of anything but travel along with the others,
and in the latter her main action was waking Quox.
 
I think I may have asked this question before, but if I got an answer I
don't recall it. I know someone on the Digest - Atticus, I think - has seen
the MS of the book fairly recently. It seems clear to me that Baum
originally intended to name the female Loon, who appears in the book as
Til, Sal; I'm just curious as to whether he self-censored it before he
submitted the MS or whether it was a change R&L wanted.
 
*************END SPOILERS******************************
 
>"The man who looks for security, even in the mind, is like a man who would
>chop off his limbs in order to have artificial ones which will give him no
>pain or trouble."
>    --Henry Miller
 
That in itself isn't something that happens often, if ever (though these
days hip and knee replacement surgery may be considered to approximate it),
but there are a lot of people in the world - if not so many in the US as
there once were - who elect to have their teeth pulled and replaced with
false ones in order to avoid toothaches in the future (and to have a more
symmetric smile, since orthodontia is mostly a US phenomenon as well).
 
Ruth:
You and John Bell certainly hit upon some interesting themes that run
through _Tin Woodman_. Maybe it's because my major was science/engineering
that the existence of such themes makes very little difference in my
enjoyment of a book. I enjoy reading other people writing about them, but I
don't look for them and knowing they're there doesn't make me consider the
book any better.
 
>   Theodore Sturgeon wrote a sciencefiction story, "The Green
>Monkey," not with reference to Woot, but to an unpleasant experiment
>in which the experimenters found that a monkey with its fur dyed
>green would be perceived as a threatening alien and killed by the rest
>of the band of monkeys.  I don't know when this experiment was
>supposed to have been made, or if Baum would have been likely to
>know about it.
 
The title of the story was "Affair with a Green Monkey," in F&SF in the
late Fifties IIRC. The story about the green monkey was the source of the
title, and the experiment was described as background, but the real story
was about an alien who resembled a male human but was quite effeminate in
his mannerisms, and a human woman who conceived a great affection for him.
It has one of the greatest last lines of any story I can remember.
 
David Hulan

Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1998 01:40:58 -0400
From: Tyler Jones <tnj at compuserve.com>
Subject: Oz
 
********** TIN WOODMAN SPOILERS ABOUT DAVE'S COMMENTS **********
Dave:
I think it's easily possible to be kind without also being loving. A person
may do nice things for people because s/he believes it is the right thing
to do, but may not have deep feelings toward the other person. Also, there
is a difference between being nice and being thoughtful.
 
The whole Nick / Fyter / Chopfyt thing is a puzzler. Who is Chopfyt? He
obviously has the head of Captain Fyter, so are they him or is he they? Oh,
never mind. :-)
 
********** END OF SPOILERS **********
 
Tyler Jones

Date: Mon, 19 Oct 1998 15:37:51 +0000 (GMT)
From: David Hulan <davidhulan at ntsource.com>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 10-18-98
 
J.L.:
>I must see this! Alas, I have only the "white cover" paperback I bought for
>$1.50 in about 1973. Peter Glassman, where are you?
 
_Tin Woodman_ should be out from BoW late this year or early next (more
likely the latter). I've never seen the color plates for it, either; my
copy was bought new in 1943 or 1944, by which time R&L had discontinued the
plates. Since it's not a book I like that much, I haven't bothered to try
to buy an older copy with the plates. I can wait for BoW.
 
I guess tastes differ; I just checked the picture of Ozma that so enchants
Dave and consider it one of the less attractive illustrations of her. Makes
her look like one of the silent film stars of the teens, and that wasn't a
style I admired. (The Twenties, now, are something else.)
 
David Hulan

Date: Mon, 19 Oct 1998 12:27:31 -0400
From: "J. L. Bell" <JnoLBell at compuserve.com>
Subject: TIN WOODMAN OF OZ and Woot
 
Mike Turniansky wrote:
<<Even though the companions in LP and the little pink bear only referred
to it as a "hole in the ground", Button Bright was found in a *pit*. 
Hence, if the company had asked the pink bear after pulling out Button
Bright, "is Ozma still in the pit?"  it would have truthfully answered YES,
and caused even more confusion!  So this caused me to wonder if perhaps LFB
had in fact *had* this little bit of wordplay in his first draft?>>
 
What a clever lad! Earlier I posited (based on its physical description as
deep and narrow) that this hole was a well akin to the wells in TIK-TOK,
RINKITINK, and SCARECROW. A pit I imagine as wider. Also, with the
exception discussed next, I'm not sure Baum ever passed up an applicable
pun once he thought of it.

  Which brings me to Til Loon. Like Dave Hulan, I've suspected Baum
originally named that character Sal, completing the trio of loony puns
started by Panta and Bal. TIN WOODMAN was a kids' book published in the
year before Prohibition was enacted nationally, so "Sal Loon" wouldn't have
been very market-oriented. 
 
Ruth Berman wrote:
<<"loving" in this context would seem to mean "sexually passionate." 
Kindness is a kind of love, but not necessarily a sexual one.>>
 
Sex is an important factor in our world, but I don't think that sort of
passion would distinguish "kind" and "loving" in Baum's Oz. I think love
does require some sort of passion, directed at specific people or things
and not everyone who happens by (as in kindness). But if a sex drive were
required for love, Nick would need something restored besides his heart, if
you know what I mean. Nudge nudge, say no more. 

  Interestingly, WIZARD makes clear that physical attraction to Nimmie
Ammee is what made Nick Chopper fall in love with her. None of this
I-talked-to-her, found-we-enjoyed-each-other's-company,
realized-we-were-soulmates hooey. "There was one of the Munchkin girls who
was so beautiful that I soon grew to love her with all my heart" [Chap. 5].
Small wonder the relationship didn't last. 
 
About TIN WOODMAN's plot, Dave Hulan wrote:
<<I simply don't think that the initial motivation for the quest is
believable, nor does it make sense to me for the trio to avoid the Emerald
City; the reason given is so lame that it's obvious that the reason is that
Baum wants to get them into trouble, and traveling the familiar route
through the EC and out the YBR isn't going to do that. This sets the whole
adventure off on the wrong foot; it is, in fact, the only Baum Oz book
that's so weakly motivated.>>
 
I don't find the outset of TIN WOODMAN as creaky as you do. The quest for
Nimmie Ammee isn't a pleasure trip, as in ROAD and one of the two plots in
EMERALD CITY. She isn't an unnecessary trifle, like the birthday gifts of
MAGIC. And her character isn't created simply to be searched for, like the
Shaggy Man's brother. She's a real loose end from WIZARD, the fundamental
book in the series. It's quite plausible that Woot and Baum's
correspondents would ask about her and why the Tin Woodman hasn't sought
her out. 

  [Which brings up a question I've wondered about for a while: Did the
Baums save L. Frank's letters from readers? Has anyone studied them to
confirm that all the ideas and statements he credits to readers actually
came from letters?] 

  What would the Tin Woodman plausibly do on being asked about Nimmie
Ammee? I don't look for him to be totally smart and rational, just true to
how Baum has drawn his character. Throughout his stories Baum had dropped
hints of the high regard Nick has for himself; given that vanity, it's
quite in character for him to assume his old sweetheart still carries a
torch. Furthermore, Woot has framed his question in a way that cuts to the
tin man's sense of himself: "It seems to me that the Wizard fooled you. It
can't be a very Kind Heart" [32]. To maintain his self-image, Nick *must*
prove himself to be kind. And once the Winkie Emperor perceives a creature
in sorrow whom he can help--whose suffering, in this case, he'd be
responsible for--of course he would go to her. In PATCHWORK GIRL he was
ready to sacrifice two people for the sake of a yellow butterfly; his
actions in this book fit that pattern. 

  You're right that Nick has to avoid the Emerald City to quickly get into
interesting danger. Even here, I find his reasoning understandable as well
as convenient: "It will be rather hard for me, you must admit, when I
confess to Nimmie Ammee that I have come to marry her because it is my duty
to do so, and therefore the fewer witnesses there are to our meeting the
better for both of us" [39-40]. The tin man's going to propose marriage,
despite his ambivalent feelings about the lady. That's awkward enough. But
to tell Dorothy? Nick probably suspects she'll try to talk him about of
it--which she does [186-7]. He knows she'll want to come along--which she
does [188]. (YELLOW KNIGHT hints she wouldn't be the only one.) 

  Another way to look at Nick's choice: If you were going to renew
relations with an old girlfriend, would you bring along a crowd, especially
a crowd of newer female friends? Would you want to have this sort of
conversation? 

    "I've come to marry you and make you the 
    happiest tin empress in Oz!"

      "Oh, Nick! This is so sudden! But who's 
    that pretty little girl outside--the one trying
    to peek through my curtains?"

      "That's the girl I went away with while 
    you were crying your eyes out over me. But 
    don't worry--she's just a dear friend."

      "And who's that even prettier girl with the 
    flowers in her hair?"

      "That's another friend. I've pledged to serve 
    her forever, and sometimes I stay at her house, 
    but don't let that bother you. I'm still devoted
    to you, in a dutiful, non-loving sort of way."

      "Oh, Nick! Boo hoo hoo hoo!"

      "Please, miss, contain those tears of joy! I 
    might rust, after all."
 
Dave Hulan wrote:
<<Woot seems to be along for the sole purpose of giving the story a
juvenile character; he does little if anything of a positive nature, but
just goes along for the hike.>>
 
Woot instigates the journey, overcomes the Loons, and captures Mrs. Yoop's
magic apron. After the restoration, however, he indeed does an Ozga-like
fade into the background of the plot. Polychrome becomes the character with
ideas. Woot nonetheless remains the character whose eyes show us the
action, as with the invisible country [232] and invisible wall of air
[261].

  A while back I asked why there are so many stories about Tip, a character
Baum indicated no longer existed, and so few about Woot, a character whose
profession would naturally lead him into adventures. I took up my own
challenge, and drafted a Woot story earlier this year. In researching that,
I tried to glean as many hints as I could about his character. His two most
distinctive traits seem to be caution and politeness--hardly the
ingredients of a swashbuckler!

  Woot tells us, "I had home and friends,...but they were so quiet and
happy and comfortable that I found them dismally stupid" [17]. So he left
his home "in one of the top corners of the Gillikin Country, near to
Oogaboo" [40]. Baum makes similar boredom a motivation for the Frogman in
LOST PRINCESS and Kiki Aru in MAGIC. The prince's squire in YEW also
disdains the comfortable. 

  Nevertheless, Woot hardly ever seeks out adventure. "I was very careful
to avoid [unpleasant people] during my journey south," he says. "The safest
way is the best way, even for one who is brave and determined." The Tin
Woodman and Scarecrow shame him into traveling through uncharted Gillikin
territory: "A Wanderer should have no fear." Woot fakes an "assumed
carelessness" [41-2], but throughout the journey he's the voice of worry
[48-9, 68, 208, 230, 238, 270]. (In contrast, the straw and tin men have
acquired an unwarranted confidence in their bodies' indestructibility.)

  Caution in turn seems to have led the Wanderer into being uninformed.
"Woot had seen very little of magic during his wanderings" [81], even
though he's been hiking through Oz "for nearly a full year" [17]! The boy
has never heard of the Tin Woodman [15], Dorothy [31], or Jinjur [133]. (He
does know about jaguars [115] and dragons [123], though that might be some
monkey instinct kicking in.) Woot's home village must be very boring indeed
for his wanderings to provide more stimulation.

  As for his other trait, Woot is "very well mannered" [185]. He quickly
bows to the tin emperor [20] and Ozma [167]. When Nick Chopper insists that
Nimmie Ammee showed wisdom by loving him, the boy says no more than, "I
think she was a very *nice* girl" [29--my emphasis]. Even at the depth of
his embarrassment, being scrubbed by "as pretty a girl as I've ever seen"
[154], he suffers in silence. No doubt Woot's manners help to preserve him
from trouble in his wanderings.
 
J. L. Bell                  JnoLBell at compuserve.com

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 09:32:49 -0500
From: "R. M. Atticus Gannaway" <atty242 at mail.utexas.edu>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 10-21-98
 
DAVID HULAN:
 
Last year I made a report on the handwritten manuscripts of _Tin Woodman_
and _Magic_.  You asked me about "Sal Loon" then, and I replied that I
hadn't noticed.
 
When I get a chance, I'll go look at it again.
 
A.
* * *
 
"...[T]here is something else: the faith of those despised and endangered
that they are not merely the sum of damages done to them."
 

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 08:42:59 -0700
From: Steve Teller <steller at pittstate.edu>
Subject: Tin Woodman
 
Now that THE TIN WOODMAN has been introduced into the discussion, I can give my
toughts.  TWOO (which is Woot spelled sideways) was the only Baum Oz book I did
not read as a child.  My father had all the other Baum titles (and about half
of the rest) so I was able to read them all over and over again.  My father had
had a copy of TIN WOODMAN, but it was missing, so I had heard of Woot the
Wanderer (who I pictured in my mind's eye as being an old man--like Merlin) and
Nimmie Amee.
 
I found J. L. Bell's comments on the thematic unity of TIN WOODMAN very
interesting.  Personally I fet that this was a book loaded with IE's. The main
action of the book is Nick Chopper's search for Nimmie Amee. Loonville, Mrs.
Yoop. the Dragons, Tommy Quickstep, Jinjur, the Hiop-po-gy-raf and the Swynes
are just delaying activities, they do not really advance the plot.
 
 This is one book that really looses a lot without the color plates.  R uth
 Berman's comments about the illustrations
(In the pictures, it's interesting that Neill gives us the
only drawing of the WWE, and also, in one of the color plates, the only
drawing of the pre-tinned Nick.)
is quite perceptive, as far as it goes, but I would add that only in the color
plates do we see a full face Nimmee Amee and also the complete ChopFyte.  It is
notable that both the Nick Chopper plate and the Chopfyte one Jno. R. Neill
shows his lack of close reading of the book.  The first of these supposedly
showed Nick Chopper after he had lost one leg, but the picture shows him having
two flesh legs.  Chopfyte is described as having one tin arm, but both arms are meat.
 
I feel I should mention the Little Golden Book edition of TIN WOODMAN   that
came out in 1952.  This version omits the main plot altogether.  There is no
Woot, no Polychrome, no Nimmie Amee, no Ku-Klip.  Nick and the Scarecrow make a
trip to a party at Ozma's but they visit Loonville (in one sentence) meet the
Hippogyraf (in the next) and are transformed to a tin own and a stuffed bear by
Mrs Yoop.  Ozma and Dorothy see their predicamentin the Majic Picture (which
looks exactly like a television set with "rabbit ears."}  You can often find
this on eBay.
 
There is also a Russian Book, entitled "Iron Woodman" which includes a Russian
text of  TWOO with remarkable new illustrations.  Woot the Wanderer looks like
a boy scout with a shorts and a back pack.
 
Steve T.

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 98 10:01:15 CST
From: "Ruth Berman" <berma005 at maroon.tc.umn.edu>
Subject: ozzy digest
 
J.L. Bell: Enjoyed your riff on the effects of a supportive group of 
friends if Nick had gone through the Emerald City in "Tin Woodman."  
On the role of parts in addition to the heart required for sexual passion 
-- isn't that why the Wizard told Nick at the start that he was giving him 
a heart that was kind but not loving?
 
Ruth Berman

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 22:37:07 GMT
From: David Hulan <davidhulan at ntsource.com>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 10-21-98
 
J.L:
>TIN WOODMAN was a kids' book published in the
>year before Prohibition was enacted nationally, so "Sal Loon" wouldn't have
>been very market-oriented.
 
I agree; I just wonder whether this was a Baum or a R&L decision.
Interestingly, if it had been a British book this might not have been a
problem; "saloon" isn't a common word for a drinking establishment there,
being more widely used (at least in those days) for the type of automobile
we call a "sedan."
 
We'll just have to agree to disagree about the strength of motivation in
_Tin Woodman_. It's true that some of the secondary plots in other books
are weaker - as you mention, the _tour de Oz_ in EC and the search for
birthday presents in _Magic_ - but both those books are strengthened by the
Nome King's attempts to conquer Oz, which I consider the primary plots of
each. _Road_ develops weakly (which is why I like it even less than _Tin
Woodman_), but the primary plot - as in _DotWiz_ - is Dorothy's effort to
get home after being lost, and it seems to me that that's a much stronger
motivation, for a child especially, than the TW belatedly deciding to hunt
up his one-time girlfriend.
 
And the trio of travelers don't need to venture through unexplored Gillikin
territory to avoid attracting a large entourage; they don't have to even
enter the EC to stay within the civilized part of Oz. Besides, as we see
when they're at Jinjur's, Dorothy or Ozma is as likely as not to look for
them in the Magic Picture, see what they're doing, and try to join them,
even if they avoid the EC area altogether. It just doesn't work for me, and
it didn't even when I was a kid.
 
>  [Which brings up a question I've wondered about for a while: Did the
>Baums save L. Frank's letters from readers? Has anyone studied them to
>confirm that all the ideas and statements he credits to readers actually
>came from letters?]
 
I know that Maud Baum burned most of L. Frank's papers after his death, so
probably most if not all of those letters are gone forever. Someone like
Steve or Robin or Peter Hanff probably can say with more authority.
 
Interesting discussion of Woot. As a character I think he has more
potential than was realized in TW.
 
David Hulan

From: "Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <xornom at hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 10-21-98
Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 16:32:34 PDT
 
J. L. Bell:
>"Woot had seen very little of magic during his wanderings" [81], even
>though he's been hiking through Oz "for nearly a full year" [17]! The 
>boy
>has never heard of the Tin Woodman [15], Dorothy [31], or Jinjur 
>[133].
 
He is also unaware that no one in Oz can die, which seems to be common 
knowledge to most Ozites.
 
Nathan

Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 22:26:09 -0400
From: "J. L. Bell" <JnoLBell at compuserve.com>
Subject: TIN WOODMAN OF OZ comments
Content-Disposition: inline
 
Turning back to TIN WOODMAN, here are miscellaneous comments about its
story: 

  Baum briefly enjoys his old jokes about rulers, with Emperor Nick
disclaiming real responsibilities [38] and Panta saying Bal was chosen King
of Loonville because he had the least common sense [54]. But the rest of
TIN WOODMAN is remarkable for the *lack* of communities and kings the
heroes visit. They stop only at isolated cottages. The one ruler they meet
during the last twenty chapters is Ozma, Baum's ideal. 

  Mrs. Yoop turned Polychrome into a canary to sing for her [74]. According
to the film KING OF THE HILL, however, only male canaries sing. 

  Though Woot doesn't trust magic food, he can't resist coffee [86]. The
stuff's addictive, I tell you!

  Mrs. Yoop claims, "*Nothing I transform ever gets back to its former
shape again*" [88]. Ozma disproves this boast, of course, but so does Mrs.
Yoop herself. Back on page 73, she revealed, "I transformed myself back to
my former shape again."

  I like how Baum mentions the jaguar's "great body crashing through the
bushes" on page 120, laying the ground for telling us about the path back
to Woot's friends on page 130. He's not always this careful on details.  

  Dorothy sensibly seems to make a habit of looking for Button-Bright in
the Magic Picture [159].

  Ozma's "silver Wand" appears crucial to her fairy magic [169, 182]. Even
as a canary, Polychrome needs the equivalent to help Tommy Kwikstep: "she
took a small twig in her bill and with it made several mystic figures"
[140]. She can make food appear without a wand, however [120]. 

  On pages 198 and 230-1, we learn that Ku-Klip equipped the Tin Soldier
with a heart and a brain. This distinguishes him from the Tin Woodman, who
originally had neither [30, 132]. However, Captain Fyter's upgrades turn
out to be useless, like software features nobody wants that slow down the
program. 

  The Wicked Witch of the East doesn't seem to be completely wicked if she
quickly glued Ku-Klip's finger back on [222]. Of course, she might see
value in keeping the tinsmith at work, but this is just the sort of
low-level helpful magic that a good village witch like Tattypoo would do. 

  When fixing the tin men, Polychrome "depends on the good will of my
unseen fairy guardians," invoking "Fairy Powers" [246, 248]. So even
fairies have fairy guardians? In ROAD Baum told us Polychrome is visible
only because Dorothy has reached a fairyland; here he implies there's
another level of fairies who remain out of sight. Hints like this make me
conclude that if Baum's universe does have a consistent set of
magical/natural laws governing it, they're beyond our knowledge or
comprehension.
 
Tyler Jones wrote:
<<Since Lurline enchanted Oz to some degree, we want to believe that
Lurline is the most powerful of all.>>
 
Much as I echo your skepticism about our ability to plumb Baum's universe,
I also have to say that Lurline granting permanent immortality to an entire
land of people and animals seems to be the most far-reaching single use of
magic in Baum's books. That act alone indicates she's a major player in
this universe.
 
J. L. Bell                  JnoLBell at compuserve.com

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 22:18:20 -0500
From: "J. L. Bell" <JnoLBell at compuserve.com>
Subject: TIN WOODMAN OF OZ art
Content-Disposition: inline
 
Atticus Gannaway wrote:
<<Last year I made a report on the handwritten manuscripts of _Tin Woodman_
and _Magic_.>>
 
I find it interesting that Baum was hand-writing manuscripts as late as
MAGIC because there's a *typed* scrap of manuscript attributed to him
(published in BEST OF BUGLE, 1965-66). Does anyone know if Baum used a
typewriter before or after these two titles? 

  I can't shake the feeling that scrap's style makes it more likely to have
come from one of Baum's sons--even though, if it were the father's, it
would bolster my theory about how he used maps in his later books. Dave
Hulan wrote <<Maud Baum burned most of L. Frank's papers after his death>>;
depending on the provenance of the manuscripts Atticus has access to, that
might also be evidence this scrap was produced after L. Frank's death.
 
Steve Teller wrote:
<<I should mention the Little Golden Book edition of TIN WOODMAN   that
came out in 1952.  This version omits the main plot altogether.  There is
no Woot, no Polychrome, no Nimmie Amee, no Ku-Klip.  Nick and the Scarecrow
make a trip to a party at Ozma's but they visit Loonville (in one sentence)
meet the Hippogyraf (in the next) and are transformed to a tin own and a
stuffed bear by Mrs Yoop.  Ozma and Dorothy see their predicamentin the
Majic Picture (which looks exactly like a television set with "rabbit
ears."}>>
 
Interesting that TIN WOODMAN would be a [the?] title Golden licensed. It
was also the only Oz book in which Reilly & Lee replaced all its original
illustrations with new ones, by Dale Urey, in 1955. I presume it was one of
the firm's better-selling titles because its title appealed to readers who
(like me) enjoyed the tin man in WIZARD. That might have made R&L more
willing to invest in finding it new readers.
 
Ruth Berman wrote:
<<On the role of parts in addition to the heart required for sexual
passion-- isn't that why the Wizard told Nick at the start that he was
giving him a heart that was kind but not loving?>>
 
The Wizard speaks only of the heart, not about other things Nick would need
to make it loving, and certainly not about needing a soldering iron. 

  But seriously, I have a hard time seeing sexual content in Baum's Oz
stories. He was a child of the Victorian period, and although he was
progressive in presenting sex roles, he seems shy about even hinting at
sexual relations. (I find more inklings of those in Thompson, a Victorian
child but a Jazz-Age adult.) 

  That's why I can't sign onto sexual passion as what distinguishes a
loving heart from a kind one in Baum's terms. Yet it's also why I have no
difficulty arguing that the most loving person in TIN WOODMAN is the
Scarecrow. He's so fond of Nick Chopper that he spends his days at the
man's house, just sitting with him. He undertakes a long and difficult
journey with no likely benefit to himself, just so his pal can satisfy a
whim. He even lets much of his body be fed to a wild beast in order to move
Nick a few feet closer to his goal. We should all be so lucky to inspire
love like that.
 
Tyler Jones wrote:
<<Woot never became much of a major character in the series. He completely
disappeared at the end of _Tin Woodman_ and the truth is most people who
are inclined to write Oz books may not even know who he is. . . . Tip, as a
proto-Ozma has special status, even though he (maybe) no longer exists.>>
 
I didn't mean to bring up this issue again, just to set the context for my
analysis of Woot's character. That said, Tip also appeared in only one
book, and he truly did disappear at the end. Woot's "special status," in
comparison, is that Baum assures us he *does* exist and is wandering Oz.
Perhaps I ask too much in assuming that folks who want to create a
publishable story set in Baum's Oz would read TIN WOODMAN--a book about a
major Ozian that's never been out of print.

  I suspect Tip's appeal stems somewhat from what we know of his character
(he's more fun on his own than Woot, that's certain), and mostly from his
suddenly being taken away from us. Which leads to these questions: Do
people writing new Oz stories primarily want to extend favorite characters
(e.g., how can Ozma have fun)? Or to explore particular story premises
(what if Chiss met the Loons)? Or to explain glitches in the books (are
Lulea and Lurline the same lady)? Or to fill gaps (why have no Mexicans
gone to Oz)? I suspect we may have all these motivations in varying
amounts. 
 
Here are some comments about John R. Neill's black-and-white art in TIN
WOODMAN. (As I've plaintively mentioned, my edition's not colorized.) I saw
two differences in how Neill went about making these illustrations compared
to the preceding four Oz books:

  1) Since TIK-TOK the b/w drawings within the text have all been chapter
openers, chapter closers, or full-page (or -spread) art. In this book Neill
also go back to supplying art within the chapters, each filling 3/5 of a
page. I suspect those drawings meant this book required a little more time
in layout than previous titles. 

  2) For the first time since TIK-TOK, Neill doesn't use those graying
patterns we've discussed: parallel lines and mottled ink. Instead, he
shades everything by hand. That, too, might indicate he had more time to
work on this book than he had on earlier Oz books. 

  Is there any indication from R&B correspondence or the Copyright Office
that Baum delivered the TIN WOODMAN manuscript earlier in the year than he
had delivered his previous four books?
 
Comments on individual TIN WOODMAN drawings--
  copyright page: Obviously no Loon would be pleased to meet a man with a
sharp sword! That sword and the two columns of buttons indicate this tin
man in Captain Fyter, even though he's wearing Nick Chopper's funnel hat.
The soldier might well encounter Loons while patrolling the Gillikin
Country. 

  87: This intriguing picture of Woot sipping from Mrs. Yoop's coffee cup
is (a) a how-to for second-degree burns; (b) at a different scale from how
large Woot appears on pages 76-77 and 79. Nice picture, though.

  119, 121, 131: Each of these illustrations shows one of our heroes in his
or her true shape although in the story they're still a canary, a green
monkey, and a straw bear. The picture of Woot is most likely to be a
mistake in picture placement, not drawing. 

  127: Doesn't this dragon look like Agnes in GIANT HORSE? Did anyone
besides Neill draw dragons like this? 

  171: This is one of my favorite illustrations. Nice composition on first
look, fine characterization of Ozma and Woot the monkey when you know the
story and look more carefully. A museum in Philadelphia has a Dutch
painting called something like VENUS IN AN ANTIQUE SHOP that presents a
similar juxtaposition of beauty and monkey.

  178: I've mentioned the drawings of Ozma and Woot that Neill based on
previous work. This picture of Jinjur looks stylistically different enough
from the rest of TIN WOODMAN's art to make me hypothesize there was an
earlier version of it, too.  

  184: I suspect this picture of a rabbit was meant to go on page 270,
showing the Blue Rabbit instead of (as its placement implies) a rabbit in
Jinjur's garden. [Unless, of course, this rabbit belongs to the Golden Book
version of the Magic Picture.] 

  201, 251: Neill gives Woot back the knapsack he left in Yoop Castle [110]. 

  246: Neill's depiction of the Hip-po-gy-raf seems much more dinosaur-like
than Baum's description. Not that for little boys there's anything wrong
with that! Fortunately, if the beast's a dinosaur, it's a plant-eater.

  285: This artwork also appears on page 45, which I think is the only
repetition in this book. Its dimensions and the thickness of the line make
me think Neill meant it as a small chapter-opener on this page. 
 
J. L. Bell                  JnoLBell at compuserve.com

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 22:56:37 -0500
From: Tyler Jones <tnj at compuserve.com>
Subject: Oz
Content-Disposition: inline
 
Steve:
While the adventure with Mrs. Yoop is an IE in the sense that it does not
advance the plot, it is relevant in that a lot happens there. It's not your
run-of-the-mill blowing into a strange city where the inhabitants try to
enslave you and you manage to escape just in time to get to the NEXT
strange city...
 
Jinjur's house is important in that it is the resolution of the Mrs. Yoop
adventure.
 
Incognito:
The trio in _Tin Woodman_ could easily have tramped through the green
country and avoided both EC and the Gilikin country, or just skirted the
border. It's a weak device, since as David Hulan pointed out, Ozma could
look in the magic picture at any time anyway, and that does, in fact
happen.
 
Nathan:
Woot's ignorance of the nobody-can-die rule serves to make me believe that
the effect is of fairly recent origin, and not something that happened
centuries ago when Lurline enchanted Oz.
 
Tyler Jones

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 98 12:38:12 CST
From: "Ruth Berman" <berma005 at maroon.tc.umn.edu>
Reply-To: Ruth A Berman <berma005 at maroon.tc.umn.edu>
Subject: ozzy digest ps
 
J.L. Bell mentioned the "Bugle" article pointing out that both the portrait 
of "Woot in court dress" and the "To My Readers" illo of Ozma were redrawn 
from illos Neill had done earlier for a magazine article.  With a little 
difficulty (Fred Otto's index to the "Bugle" gives only limited 
subject-heading listings), I found it again to look at.  The (unsigned) 
article is "The Adaptable Mr. Neill," Autumn 1981, and the pair of drawings 
in their earlier versions illustrated an article on (of all things!) 
"Children Who Kill Themselves" from the "Sunday Magazine," a newspaper 
supplement syndicated to several newspapers, May 7, 1916.  J.L. also 
mentioned Woot's love of coffee.  The same issue of the "Bugle" had Mary E. 
Schaller's "Food for Thought" article on food in Oz,  She pointed out that 
both Woot in "Tin Woodman" and Dorothy in "Ozma" relish coffee -- and 
quoted from the "To Please a Child" bio of Baum on his own love for 
coffee.  He liked to have several cups a day, "strong enough to float a 
spoon on."
 
Ruth Berman

Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 11:52:14 -0500
From: "J. L. Bell" <JnoLBell at compuserve.com>
Subject: Oz, copyright, and TIN WOODMAN
Content-Disposition: inline
 
In the dwindling TIN WOODMAN conversation, I'm grateful to Ruth Berman for
tracking down that Autumn 1981 BUGLE article on the recycled Woot and Ozma
pictures. Their original subject was "Children Who Kill Themselves"?! It's
a measure of how disturbing that topic is that I'd misremembered the
article as about children who were merely missing. 
 
J. L. Bell                  JnoLBell at compuserve.com

Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 21:47:43 -0500
From: Tyler Jones <tnj at compuserve.com>
Subject: Oz
Content-Disposition: inline
 
Thoughts on _Tin Woodman_:
The first time I ever read this story I was very suprised at Woot's suprise
that Nick was not killed when he was chopped to pieces with his own axe. If
Woot had been living for centuries without aging or dying, and by extension
so would the rest of his village, then he would be very familiar with the
rule of never dying in Oz. This is one of the many tidbits of evidence
sprinkled throughout the FF that suggests to me that non-aging was not an
immediate effect of Lurline's enchantment.
 
Being mainly interested in Pre-Dorothean history, I was also interested in
Baum's discussion of Oz in chapter 12. His comment that aging and death
stopped immediately on Lurline's enchantment is contradicted several times
in the FF (and even in this very book), and the statement that Lurline left
a fairy to rule has caused many interpretations and guesswork as to the
lineage of Ozma.
 
I'm now tending to lean in the direction of Dave Hardenbrook's theory that
Ozma is a fairy descendant of a member of hte band left by Lurline long
ago. Just as the Dryad lineage bred true on the female side of  the House
of Borune of the _Belgariad_ series, so to does the fairy side breed true
on the female side of Pastoria's family. This would also explain why Ozma
doesn't seem to have much of a memory of Lurline or her band.
 
It's interesting that when Dorothy and Ozma leave the Emerald City to
render assistance, Ozma is not sure that she can help them. According to
Dave Hardenbrook, this is a turning point in Ozian history, since this
episode convinces Ozma to start learning magic and to take an active role
in things.
 
Tyler Jones

Date: Fri, 30 Oct 98 10:16:39 CST
From: "Ruth Berman" <berma005 at maroon.tc.umn.edu>
Reply-To: Ruth A Berman <berma005 at maroon.tc.umn.edu>
Subject: ozzy digest
 
 
J.L. Bell: Knowing when an author started typewriting manuscripts 
doesn't really tell you when the same author would have stopped 
handwriting them -- some authors do a first draft in longhand and a 
second draft in typescript.

   Interesting comments on the illos.  A pleasant reference (pointed out 
in "Bugle" articles on Neill) is the inclusion of a young woman wearing 
a dress monogrammed MC in the endpapers group, sitting next to 
Glinda.  She's Neill's wife, Margaret Carroll.  In the three pictures of 
not-shown-transformed characters -- I think you're right that the picture 
of Woot is probably an error in placement rather than in drawing.  I 
think Neill might have argued that the chapter heading of the 
Scarecrow is a portrait of the Scarecrow, not an illustration of the 
specific events in the chapter, and so can show him as himself rather 
than in his Yooped shape.  And the picture of Polychrome with the 
Jaguar is maybe meant to show her as she sees herself -- the figure 
has a sort of ghostly, legless, flowing-line sort of quality that suggests 
spirit rather than body.

   Yes, the dragon looks very much like Agnes the dragon in "Giant 
Horse," and also like Enorma in "Grampa."  I don't know of anyone but 
Neill who has drawn dragons as having short, round bodies, short-
snouted, round (almost toad-like) faces, and stalked eyes.  
Traditionally, drawings of dragons had been based on snakes or 
lizards.  The discovery of dinosaurs in the 19th century meant that 
artists started drawings as more dinosaurian than saurian (and a good 
deal larger than they'd been before -- medieval paintings of St. George 
usually showed a wolf-sized dragon).  A.B. Frost, in his drawing for 
Carroll's mention of "Balbus and his mother-in-law attempting to 
convince the dragon" ("A Tangled Tale") and Frank Verbeck, in his 
drawing of Baum's Purple Dragon, are a little bit like Neill in showing a 
round snout, but still have the long face and long body of more 
traditional drawings.  (Neill also was more traditional in his drawings of 
the dragonettes of "Dorothy and the Wizard" and "Wonder City," and 
Quox, Quiberon, and the Blue Dragon ["Tik-Tok," "Giant Horse," and 
"Ojo" -- that last in a handsome color plate.)  There hadn't been many 
dragons in 18th/19th century writing, but at the end of the 19th century 
there was an explosion of them.  (I had an article on this subject, 
"Victorian Dragons: The Reluctant Brood," in "Children's Literature in 
Education" in 1984, and an offshoot of it, "More Dragons in Oz," in the 
Winter 1989 "Bugle.")

   Looking at the Ozma/monkey-Woot drawing with your comments in 
mind, I notice that part of the humor comes from having their postures 
so similar -- position of hands and arms almost exactly the same, but 
reversed, as if in a sort of wildly distorted mirror image.
 
Ruth Berman

Date: Sat, 31 Oct 1998 10:41:56 -0800
From: Steve Teller <steller at pittstate.edu>
Subject: Ozzy matters
 
Apparently only the superscription, and not the contents of my last
entry arrived.  So I will resend the contents with some new comments::
 
"J. L. Bell"
 
  Interesting that TIN WOODMAN would be a [the?] title Golden licensed.
 
  There were two others, ROAD and EMERALD CITY.
 
 
   Neill's depiction of the Hip-po-gy-raf seems much more dinosaur-like
  than Baum's description. Not that for little boys there's anything wrong
  with that! Fortunately, if the beast's a dinosaur, it's a plant-eater.
 
  This was a popular critter.  It forms Michael Herring's    cover of
the Del-Rey edition. and appears in both the LGB and Russian
editions.  They all look saurian.
 
Another example of violence in Baum's Oz book is the chopping up of
Choggenmugger in RINKITINK, which is the subject of an
illustration..  This made such an impression on Fred Meyer that when he
was writing a menu for a convention and macaroni
saladwas being served he called in Choggenmugger Salad.
 
Ruth Berman wrote:
 
>Neill also was more traditional in his drawings of
>the dragonettes of "Dorothy and the Wizard" and "Wonder City,"
 
It should be noted that Neill's Evan-Geline in WONDER CITY had two
heads.
 
Steve T.

Date: Sat, 31 Oct 1998 13:13:11 -0500
From: "J. L. Bell" <JnoLBell at compuserve.com>
Subject: the Ozzy mailbag
Content-Disposition: inline
 
Ruth Berman wrote:
<<Knowing when an author started typewriting manuscripts doesn't really
tell you when the same author would have stopped handwriting them -- some
authors do a first draft in longhand and a second draft in typescript.>>
 
Quite so. I do that myself sometimes. But if that scrap in the BUGLE was
Baum's *second* draft, I must severely downgrade my image of his writing
talent. (It could, of course, have been typed from a handwritten page with
no changes.)
 
About TIN WOODMAN, Ruth Berman wrote:
<<A pleasant reference (pointed out in "Bugle" articles on Neill) is the
inclusion of a young woman wearing a dress monogrammed MC in the endpapers
group, sitting next to Glinda.  She's Neill's wife, Margaret Carroll.>>
 
Endpapers? This book has endpapers?! What I miss by keeping my old Rand
McNally edition!
 
J. L. Bell                  JnoLBell at compuserve.com

Date: Sat, 31 Oct 1998 16:03:26 -0800
From: Peter Hanff <phanff at library.berkeley.edu>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 10-30-98
Cc: phanff at library.berkeley.edu
 
Hi Dave,
 
A couple of days ago I drafted comment on the original Baum manuscripts
for <italic>The Tin Woodman of Oz</italic>, <italic>The Magic of
Oz</italic>, and <italic>Glinda of Oz</italic>. Alas, the message sank
into the miOzma when our network crashed. So I'll redraft:
 
These are, alas, the only surviving manuscripts of Baum's Oz books. The
former two are at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, as
described by Atticus Gannaway recently, the last still held by the Baum
family. All three are completely in L. Frank Baum's hand. Gauging from
the shakiness of the hand-writing in <italic>Tin Woodman</italic>, it
appears he wrote that one when he was quite ill. The handwriting is
stronger in the other two.
 
What is really surprising about all three manuscripts is how clean they
are. There are almost no internal corrections, and one might almost think
they were fair copies, but there are just sufficient emendations and
differences between manuscript and printed book to make clear that there
was an intermediate editorial step. Baum used a typewriter very early in
the century, and his custom appears to have been to write a longhand
text, then typewrite it, and then, we assume, read galley proofs.
(Actually quite a few pages of one of the two Texas manuscripts are on
the back of a sequence of pages from an early <italic>Mary
Louise</italic> title). The relative rarity of change between the
holograph manuscript and the printed book reveals, I believe, that there
was very little editorial intervention. 
 
The lack of corrections in the manuscripts themselves suggested to Warren
Hollister and me that Baum was an excellent natural writer, and that he
could write out the full text, including the dialogue, almost in a
continuous stream. Stylists can argue about the final outcome (clearly
Baum's work could sometimes have used a second look), but his skill at
story-telling is directly apparent from the manuscripts.
 
I was fortunate to be able to read the two Texas manuscripts, line by
line, against the printed versions of those books. Warren Hollister did
much the same with the privately owned manuscript.
 
The manuscript I have long wished could be examined is that for
<italic>Queen Zixi of</italic> <italic>Ix</italic>. That work, published
serially in <italic>St. Nicholas</italic> magazine from November 1904
through October 1905, is the most carefully wrought of all the Baum
books, and I have often wondered if Baum didn't benefit from dialogue
with Mary Mapes Dodge, the conductor of the magazine.
 
Peter Hanff

Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 23:44:28 -0500
From: "J. L. Bell" <JnoLBell at compuserve.com>
Subject: canonical Oz
 
Peter Hanff wrote:
<<What is really surprising about all three [Baum] manuscripts is how clean
they are. There are almost no internal corrections, and one might almost
think they were fair copies, but there are just sufficient emendations and
differences between manuscript and printed book to make clear that there
was an intermediate editorial step. Baum used a typewriter very early in
the century, and his custom appears to have been to write a longhand text,
then typewrite it, and then, we assume, read galley proofs.>>
 
Verrrry interesting. Thanks for the description, Peter, html tags and all.
I read the implication that Baum didn't type (or have typed) these last
three Oz books until he'd completed writing the stories by hand. 
  The Baum fragment I mentioned earlier was published in the Christmas 1965
issue of the BAUM BUGLE, then in BEST OF BUGLE 65-66. I believe it later
became the seed for one of March Laumer's novels. It's described as "four
and one-half typewritten pages, undated, with an attached note written by
the author's son, Robert Stanton Baum: 'The start of the first chapter of
an Oz book which Father never finished. No title had been decided on.'" I
recall somehow that R. S. Baum had passed away by that time, and therefore
could not give any further description of how he'd found the fragment or
attributed it to his father, but perhaps I'm wrong. The fragment certainly
doesn't show the storytelling facility Peter sees in Baum's completed
manuscripts.
 
J. L. Bell                  JnoLBell at compuserve.com

Date: Thu, 5 Nov 98 16:37:54 CST
From: "Ruth Berman" <berma005 at maroon.tc.umn.edu>
Reply-To: Ruth A Berman <berma005 at maroon.tc.umn.edu>
Subject: ozzy digest
 
Steve Teller: Multiheadedness in dragons is itself fairly traditional.  
There's a Grimms' story about a seven-headed dragon, I think.  And 
the Chimera in some versions of the myth has three heads, with one 
of them a dragon-head.
 
Ruth Berman

Date: Thu, 05 Nov 1998 17:02:24 -0600
From: "R. M. Atticus Gannaway" <atty242 at mail.utexas.edu>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 11-04-98
 
MY FINDINGS AFTER PERUSING THE HANDWRITTEN "TIN WOODMAN" MANUSCRIPT:
 
Well, at long last, I was able again to examine Baum's manuscript, and I
now have an answer to the Til Loon/Sal Loon question!
 
The answer is yes, in the handwritten manuscript the character is Sal Loon.
 I would like to note that in one spot Baum wrote "Sal Loon" and then
crossed out the "Loon," as though the juxtaposition of the two words made
his "illicit" pun too obvious.
 
Atticus
* * *
 
"...[T]here is something else: the faith of those despised and endangered
that they are not merely the sum of damages done to them."
 

Date: Sat, 7 Nov 1998 23:46:01 -0500
From: "J. L. Bell" <JnoLBell at compuserve.com>
Subject: Oz judgments
Content-Disposition: inline
 
About TIN WOODMAN, Atticus Gannaway wrote:
<<in the handwritten manuscript the character is Sal Loon. I would like to
note that in one spot Baum wrote "Sal Loon" and then crossed out the
"Loon," as though the juxtaposition of the two words made his "illicit" pun
too obvious.>>
 
Fascinating! Thanks very much for confirming a hunch of some years'
standing. Now I can start focusing on my new hunch about Baum family
typewriters.
 
J. L. Bell                  JnoLBell at compuserve.com

Date: Sun, 08 Nov 1998 10:48:45 -0600
From: Gordon Birrell <gbirrell at post.cis.smu.edu>
Subject: Ozzy Digest
 
Before we leave _Tin Woodman_ I have some comments on Nimmie Amee's name.
In the Fall 1996 Baum Bugle, Martin Gardner notes that scholars have
detected the presence of the Latin words "amour" [sic] ("love"), and
"nimmie" [also sic] ("too much").  I.e.:  Nimmie Amee is the girl who is
loved, or who loves, too much.  Understandably unimpressed by this
etymology, Gardner adds that he himself sees the name simply as Minnie with
the n's and m's reversed plus an alternate spelling of Amy.
 
I think there is another possibility.  Amee is close enough to the French
aimee to suggest "loved" (with the feminine ending), and Nimmie, with its
double m, is more remote from the Latin "nimius" than from the German
"nimmer," which means "never" or "nevermore."  Going by this interpretation,
Nimmie Amee is not the girl who was loved too much but on the contrary the
girl who was never loved--which is surely the way she sees herself, having
apparently been abandoned for no good reason by two lovers in succession.
 
Since 75% of American schoolchildren learned German up until 1918, it seems
likely that Baum's readers would have been in a position to catch this
allusion if they thought about it a little.  What is more, it ties in with
the truly horrifying image of a loveless marriage with which the book
concludes:  Nimmie Amee and the surly, churlish, inert Chopfyte, who reminds
her of the two men who deserted her and otherwise has the function of a
dutiful servant who (under threat of verbal and physical punishment) tends
the garden, brings in the wood, and dusts the furniture.  All of this in a
remote cottage on Mount Munch, behind an impassible though invisible barrier
that insures that the couple will live in utter solitude forever.  Rereading
this passage I couldn't help thinking of Sartre's _No Exit_.
 
In general, all three marriages that are depicted in the book have elements
of solitude.  Jinjur is married, but her husband doesn't appear and there is
no mention whatsoever of him (from _Ozma of Oz_, though, we know that
Jinjur, like Nimmie, beats up on her husband if he disobeys her); Mrs. Yoop
lives in isolation "in my own private castle in this secluded Valley,"
fearful of leaving home and effectively as imprisoned in her castle as her
distant husband is in his barred cave in the mountains.
 
Set against these rather dismal images of marriage is the theme of
friendship that J.L. identified.  In fact, the friendship of the Tin Woodman
and the Scarecrow, while platonic, is as close and loving and comfortable as
that of an old married couple.  The book begins and ends with the Tin
Woodman and "his chosen comrade" joined in happy memories of their mutual
adventures, sharing so much that they scarcely even need to speak:  "they
found themselves contented in merely being together, speaking now and then a
brief sentence to prove they were wide awake and attentive."
 
I'm not sure what to make of all this, but it seems likely that even very
young readers would come away from the book with the idea that true
friendship is a happier state than marriage.
 
--Gordon Birrell

Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1998 22:37:06 -0500
From: Tyler Jones <tnj at compuserve.com>
Subject: Oz
Content-Disposition: inline
 
Gordon:
You forgot one more marriage in _Tin Woodman_. Professor and Mrs. Swyne
were married, and they seemed fairly isolated, yet their marriage was a
peaceful and content one, unlike the others.
 
You mentioned that the book started by celebrating the close friendship of
the Scarecrow and Tin Woodman, but it also ends in the same way,. The final
paragraph has the two comrades return to the castle where "they found their
greatest amusement in conversation".
 
Tyler Jones

Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1998 12:23:47 -0500
From: "J. L. Bell" <JnoLBell at compuserve.com>
Subject: Neill's Oz books and others
Content-Disposition: inline
 
About TIN WOODMAN, Gordon Birrell wrote of:
<<the truly horrifying image of a loveless marriage with which the book
concludes:  Nimmie Amee and the surly, churlish, inert Chopfyte...in utter
solitude forever.>>
 
Without disagreeing with your conclusion--that the Tin Woodman and
Scarecrow have the most loving relationship of any couple living together
in TIN WOODMAN--I quibble with some of the steps that brought you there. 

  First, I don't recall a mention of Jinjur's husband in TIN WOODMAN. So
many books had passed since OZMA that I doubt Baum expected his readers to
remember him. (Indeed, I doubt Baum remembered himself; Jinjur had made
brief appearances in other manuscripts between these two with no sign of
spouse.) Therefore, I don't think Jinjur's household can be counted as a
portrait of a marriage in TIN WOODMAN.

  Second, in assessing that book's depiction of marriages we also have to
factor in the happy Winkie couple with whom the travelers first stay, and
the well-matched Swynes. 

  Finally, early on Nick speaks of Nimmie Ammee's sharp tongue. We know Mr.
Yoop is no joy, and Mrs. Yoop shows herself to be even worse. The message I
take away from these couples is that Nimmie Ammee and Mrs. Yoop found the
husbands and the lifestyles they desired and deserved. But not all
marriages or relationships have to turn out that unhappy. 
 
Gordon Birrell wrote:
<<75% of American schoolchildren learned German up until 1918>>
 
What's the source for this factoid? Might it be that 75% of US high schools
*offered* German before the World War? 

  Baum having German ancestors himself, he might have been especially
sensitive to Germanic words and/or customs. 
 
J. L. Bell                  JnoLBell at compuserve.com

Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1998 10:47:53 -0800
From: Steve Teller <steller at pittstate.edu>
Subject: Ozzy Stuff
 
Gordon Birell's comments about marriages in Baum's Oz books make me
think about Baum's own marriage, which was presumably very successful.
His wife Maud, daughter of pioneering femilist Matilda Gage, was without
doubt the dominant member of the household, and that seems to be the way
Frank wanted it.  There is one frightening story about the "affair of
the Bismarks" when Frank bought a dozen bismarks (filled donuts) without
consulting Maud, and she silently served them to him every morning even
after they were stale, and, when he buried them, she dug them up and
served them to him the next morning, until he made peace by promising
never to buy anything to eat without consulting her first.  This is not
my idea of domestic bliss.
 
Steve T.

Date: Mon, 16 Nov 98 13:56:11 (PST)
From: Dave Hardenbrook <DaveH47 at delphi.com>
Subject: Ozzy Things
 
BAUM'S MARRIAGE:
I don't know whether Baum regarded his marriage as "domestic bliss",
but is it true what I've heard that Maud vetoed Frank's desire to spare 
his boys the hell he went through at Military Acadeny?
 
                             -- Dave

Date: Tue, 17 Nov 98 11:57:23 CST
From: "Ruth Berman" <berma005 at maroon.tc.umn.edu>
Subject: ozzy digest
 
Gordon Birrell: Idea of deriving "Nimmie" from German seems 
plausible, but combining different families of languages for roots is 
unusual (mindset for root from one usually produces root from another 
when a writer is inventing long-phrase-names).  Is there something 
"Aimee" could mean in German?
 
Ruth Berman

Date: Tue, 24 Nov 98 09:28:22 CST
From: "Ruth Berman" <berma005 at maroon.tc.umn.edu>
Subject: ozzy digest - tin woodman ps
 
An article from the "Bugle" (Autumn 1996) that is a good one to read in 
connection with "Tin Woodman" (but I'd forgotten it was there until running 
across it again) is Martin Gardner's "Appreciation" of "TW."  Incidentally, 
in that article he had already revealed that Til Loon was originally Sal 
(he had access to a copy of the ms. at the time through Warren Hollister, 
Fred Meyer tells me).
 
Ruth Berman

From: sahutchi at iupui.edu
Date: Mon, 30 Nov 1998 11:16:48 -0500 (EST)
Reply-To: sahutchi at iupui.edu
To: "Dave L. Hardenbrook" <DaveH47 at mindspring.com>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 11-25-98
 
On Tin Woodman:  The Hip-o-gy-raf makes a surprise appearance in the
"Yellow Submarine Sandwich" sequence of _All You Need Is Cash_
 
Scott

Date: Sat, 12 Dec 1998 14:44:37 -0600
From: Gordon Birrell <gbirrell at post.cis.smu.edu>
Subject: Ozzy Digest
 
Some old business:
Ruth Berman:
As far as I can see, there is no German word that would fit with Nimmie to
convey the same sense as the cross-language Nimmie Amee and still sound even
remotely like a plausible name (Nimmee Geliebt??!).  Baum could have taken
the all-French route and come up with Jammie Amee, which is rather wonderful
in its own right but probably too frivolous for Nick Chopper's erstwhile
true love.  (It sounds more like a RPT name, in fact.)  It's true that
authors don't generally mix languages like this (big exception:  James
Joyce), but on the other hand Button Bright's real name is a similar
amalgamation of European allusions.  If my explanation of the meaning of
"Nimmie Amee" is correct, Baum might have thought that encoding it in two
different languages would make the reference less obvious and intrusive--a
sort of playful wink over the heads of the children to his adult readers.
 
J.L. Bell:
The "factoid" about the percentage of American students taking German prior
to WWI appeared a couple of years ago in a scholarly article on German
enrollments in American schools in the last century, in _Unterrichtspraxis_,
the pedagogical journal of the American Association of Teachers of German.
The percentage stated referred to students, not institutions, and I see no
reason to question the validity of the figure.
 
--Gordon Birrell

Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1998 08:51:32 -0500
From: "J. L. Bell" <JnoLBell at compuserve.com>
Subject: Oz whither and weather
 
Gordon Birrell wrote:
<<The "factoid" about the percentage of American students taking German
prior to WWI appeared a couple of years ago in a scholarly article on
German enrollments in American schools in the last century, in
_Unterrichtspraxis_, the pedagogical journal of the American Association of
Teachers of German. The percentage stated referred to students, not
institutions, and I see no reason to question the validity of the figure.>>
 
What made me skeptical about the statement <<75% of American schoolchildren
learned German up until 1918>> was a hazy memory of the relatively low
number of US students getting *any* sort of intermediate education then. I
checked my source on that--the HISTORICAL STATISTICS OF THE UNITED STATES,
published by the Census Bureau for the Bicentennial--and discovered that it
helpfully gives figures for language study in American public high schools.
[That's a different sample from all schoolchildren, of course, but I assume
more students in high school than in elementary school studied foreign
languages.]

  While the fraction of secondary-school students studying German was much
smaller than UNTERRICHTSPRAXIS's figure, that article mapped the same
trends. In 1915, 24.4% of high-school students studied German, more than
any other modern language (though less than Latin); that percentage had
more than doubled since 1890. In 1922, after the World War, the percentage
of pupils studying German had dropped to .6%! 
 
J. L. Bell                  JnoLBell at compuserve.com