That thesis has been ably challenged: http://www.halcyon.com/piglet/Populism.htm http://www.halcyon.com/piglet/Populism.htm I'll just quote a bit from the end

That thesis has been ably challenged: http://www.halcyon.com/piglet/Populism.htm http://www.halcyon.com/piglet/Populism.htm I'll just quote a bit from the end: > Thomas A. Bailey once suggested that we set up a computer network to keep track of misinformation that has been corrected--sort of a national clearinghouse for discredited myths. Is it time to move Littlefield to the computer trashpile of misinformation? Given the mounting evidence against it--given that Littlefield himself has admitted that it has "no basis in fact"--should we forget the whole notion of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz as a parable on Populism? That would be a big mistake. Perhaps we can no longer say that Baum wrote The Wonderful Wizard of Oz "as an allegory of the silver movement," but we can still read it as an allegory of the silver movement--or, as Henry Littlefield noted just two years ago, "we can bring our own symbolism to it." Recent scholarship might have taken away Baum's intent, but the images are still there, vivid as ever.