page_title: Maud Gage Baum
section_title: Aberdeen, South Dakota (1888–1900)
hierarchical_section_title: Maud Gage Baum / Life with L. Frank Baum / Marriage / Aberdeen, South Dakota (1888–1900)
caption_attribution_description: English: "Inscription in Maud Gage Baum's copy of Father Goose, His Book, signed by both L. Frank Baum and W. W. Denslow, 1899"
context_page_description: Maud Gage Baum was the wife of American children's publisher L. Frank Baum. Her mother was the suffragist Matilda Joslyn Gage. In her early life, she attended a boys' high school.
  Maud lived in Fayetteville, New York, with her aging parents until she married Frank in 1882, sacrificing her college education at Cornell University. At the onset of their marriage, she accompanied her husband's acting troupe throughout the United States. After she became pregnant, Maud and Frank settled down in a rented house, where she gave birth to Frank Joslyn in 1883. Complications arising from giving birth to her second son Robert Stanton in 1886 caused Maud to become afflicted with peritonitis. Ill for two years, she found solace in visiting her mother and siblings. In 1889 and 1891, she gave birth to Harry Neal and Kenneth Gage, respectively.
  Described by her children as a no-nonsense mother, Maud took charge of the family finances and the disciplining of her children. She was their primary caretaker because her husband's business obligations frequently led to his being away for weeks at a time.
context_section_description: Maud's two sisters and brother were in the Dakota Territory. Maud, Frank, and her two sons moved to Aberdeen, South Dakota, on September 20, 1888, because Frank believed there would be better business opportunities in the West. In 1882, when Maud had traveled with Frank while he had been performing in The Maid of Arran, she had not felt at ease in the western cities they visited. But scholar Katharine M. Rogers noted that Maud would have liked being close to her siblings and being afforded a chance at economic security. Frank started a dry goods store, Baum's Bazaar, on October 1, 1888, to make a stable living for his family. However, because he granted too much credit to his destitute customers, his store went out of business.
  Maud's third son, Harry Neal Baum was born on December 18, 1889. His birth, which was a month before his father's store was foreclosed by the bank, increased the financial burden on the family. Maud's fourth son and final child, Kenneth Gage, was born on May 24, 1891.
  The family moved to Chicago, where Frank found a job as a newspaper reporter. By then, Maud and Frank had four sons, Robert, Harry, Kenneth, and Frank. Their Chicago home had neither running water nor a restroom. Because the family's finances were dire, Maud also had to be a breadwinner. Teaching embroidery and lace-making, Maud was so successful that by February 1897, she had over 20 students. The money from her students' tuition allowed her to purchase a new rug and furniture for the house.
  Maud's mother Matilda frequently spent the winter at their house, as she did when Maud and Frank were residents of Aberdeen. Maud cherished her mother's visits, especially when Frank traveled for his job. During this time, Maud discontinued attending the Episcopal Church, instead choosing to have her boys go to the West Side Ethical Culture Sunday School. She and Frank agreed with Matilda's spiritualist beliefs. Matilda favorably commented that the new school was where "morality and not religion is taught".
  
  In Frank's first children's book, published in 1897, he wrote in Maud's copy: 
  One critic I always fear and long to please. It is my Sweetheart. Shall I win her approval how vain would be the plaudits of the small remnant of humanity! I hope this book will succeed, for her sake, for we need the money success would bring. But aside from that sordid fact I care little what the world thinks of it. The vital question is: What does my sweetheart, my wife of fifteen years, think of it?
   Frank relied on Maud to give him advice about business decisions. His publisher, F. K. Reilly, began to presume that Frank's letter would start with "After a conference with Mrs. Baum ... I have decided to ..." Reilly considered Maud to be one of Frank's finest pundits.
  After Frank's publication of Father Goose: His Book, the best-selling picture book in 1900, the family began to live a comfortable life. They passed their summers at Macatawa Park, Michigan, where Frank purchased a cottage, christening it the "Sign of a Goose". On November 17, 1900, Frank transferred the literary rights of his most recent books—Mother Goose in Prose, Father Goose: His Book, A New Wonderland (later published as The Magical Monarch of Mo), and From Kansas to Fairyland (later published as The Wonderful Wizard of Oz)—to Maud. Maud gave Frank $1,000 to validate the contract, and the signing of the contract was witnessed by W. W. Denslow and Ann Waters.
  Frequently, the family had "musical evenings" in their home that lasted about an hour. While Frank sang folk songs and played the square piano, Maud played mandolins and the violin while the children played various instruments. When it was the boys' bedtime, Maud would sew while Frank wrote. Maud's niece, Matilda Jewell Gage, frequently paid visits to them. Enchanted by the Baums' extravagant way of living, she later wrote that "[t]hey represented to me something that I knew nothing about. I was thrilled with the things they did, their food, the household, everything."
caption: Inscription in Maud's copy of Father Goose, His Book, signed by both L. Frank Baum and W. W. Denslow in 1899
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