The Wizard of Oz

Benjamin Baum makes his son Frank the manager of a string of opera houses he owns in New York and Pennsylvania; eventually Benjamin gives them to him.

1881 - James A. Garfield, Republican of Ohio, inaugurated as 20th President, is shot on 2 July and dies 19 September. Vice-President Chester A. Arthur, Republican from Vermont, becomes 21st President.

Woodlawn Cemetery, “first garden mausoleum in Central New York,” opens in Syracuse.

21 September 1881 - The Solvay Process Company was formed.

According to Rennselaer Polytechnic’s website, alumni William Process canal Cogswell “took an interest in the Solvay soda ash producing process . . .Solvay and applied it toand thethe saltErie lands of Onondaga County, N.Y. His company, the Solvay Process Company, formed in 1881, became the largest manufacturer in the U.S. of soda ash and its derivatives, which are used in a variety of industries including water treatment, detergents, paper, and pharmaceuticals.” He and Rowland Hazard (manufacturer, scientist, and president) established a factory on the western shore of Onondaga Lake 4 October 1881 – A meeting conducted by Clara Barton in Syracuse’s Larned Building results in the formation one week later of the Syracuse chapter of the American Red Cross.

1882 - Over a quarter of a million Germans enter the United States this year.

15 May 1882 - On his 26th birthday, L. Frank Baum’s play, The Maid of Arran has its first performance (at the Grand Opera House, Syracuse); it is a financial and critical success.

3 August 1882 - Federal government passes the Immigration Act, which outlaws immigration of “any convict, lunatic, idiot, or any other person unable to take care of him or herself without becoming a public charge. . . Such persons shall not be permitted to land.” A fifty-cent head tax is imposed on all arriving immigrants. The Federal government takes control from the various states of admission of all immigrants as the first national immigration law is applied to all U.S. ports of entry.

9 November 1882 – L. Frank Baum marries Maud Gage of Fayetteville; they had met when she was still a Cornell University student. Maud is the daughter of Matilda Joslyn Gage, a leader of the women’s suffrage movement. Mrs. L. Frank Baum accompanies her husband on his theatre company’s Maid of Arran tour.

1883 - There are 82 German-language daily newspapers in the U.S. (the Scandinavian press, with a total of 49, runs a distant second). Tolls on the Erie Canal are abolished. St. Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran Church erects frame building for worship on the corner of Oswego and Shonnard Streets, Syracuse. Author and playwright L. Frank and Maud Baum rent a home at #8 (now #107) Shonnard Street in Syracuse, where their son Frank Joslyn Baum is born in December).

April 1883 – The Taft Settlement Grange is organized near North Syracuse with 13 charter members.

4 April 1883 - Frank Baum’s play, Kilmourn or O’Connor’s Dream is performed at the Weiting Opera House, by the Young Men’s Dramatic Club, a local amateur group.

24 May 1883 - German-born engineer John A. Roebling’s Brooklyn Bridge (“Eighth Wonder of the World”) opens at 2 p.m.