Frank Joslyn Baum - Early Life and Work

Early Life and Work

Baum was born 3 December 1883 to Lyman Frank Baum and Maud Gage Baum, their first son, who was known in the household by the nickname "Bunny". Like his brothers, Robert Stanton, Harry Neal, and Kenneth Gage, he attended the Society for Ethical Culture Sunday school, which taught morality without religion, as the Baums considered religion a mature decision. Despite his father's unflattering caricatures of the military, Baum had always desired to become a soldier, and he attended Michigan Military School in Orchard Lake, Michigan. He briefly attended Cornell University, studying law, and he would act as his parents' lawyer when they traveled abroad. He enlisted in the U.S. Army and served in the Philippinies in 1904. He married Helen Louise Snow on 27 June 1906. His first notable contribution to the cinema was when he served as the projectionist for The Fairylogue and Radio-Plays (1908). Although he could not have the control that writers such as William K. Everson, Yuri Tsivian and others have claimed that early cinema projectionists had, due to the presence of the filmmakers in the room each night, it was a foray into the cinema that would pave the way for things to come. He also worked briefly for his father's publisher, Reilly & Britton, worked in advertising in Chicago, and was the first member of the Baum family to move to the Los Angeles area.