Depiction of Kansas
Is the way Kansas is portrayed in the opening and closing segments of the film accurate to what Kansas was like in the 1930s?
shareSome rural parts of the state (and others) are still like that even today.
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MovieChat Forums > The Wizard of Oz (1939) Discussion > Depiction of Kansas
Kansas was described in the books exactly as it was portrayed on screen in the movie. Gray, dusty, bland and boring.
These are the first two paragraphs from the first chapter of the first book, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
The Cyclone
Dorothy lived in the midst of the great Kansas prairies, with Uncle Henry, who was a farmer, and Aunt Em, who was the farmer’s wife. Their house was small, for the lumber to build it had to be carried by wagon many miles. There were four walls, a floor and a roof, which made one room; and this room contained a rusty looking cooking stove, a cupboard for the dishes, a table, three or four chairs, and the beds. Uncle Henry and Aunt Em had a big bed in one corner, and Dorothy a little bed in another corner. There was no garret at all, and no cellar—except a small hole, dug in the ground, called a cyclone cellar, where the family could go in case one of those great whirlwinds arose, mighty enough to crush any building in its path. It was reached by a trap-door in the middle of the floor, from which a ladder led down into the small, dark hole.
When Dorothy stood in the doorway and looked around, she could see nothing but the great gray prairie on every side. Not a tree nor a house broke the broad sweep of flat country that reached the edge of the sky in all directions. The sun had baked the plowed land into a gray mass, with little cracks running through it. Even the grass was not green, for the sun had burned the tops of the long blades until they were the same gray color to be seen everywhere. Once the house had been painted, but the sun blistered the paint and the rains washed it away, and now the house was as dull and gray as everything else.
Lyman Frank Baum. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Kindle Locations 591-596). Signet Classics.
I don't know what they have to say. It makes no difference anyway. Whatever it is, I'm against it. share
It was a dust bowl with many farms and rural areas. Very accurate I'd say.
shareI don't remember anything in the movie to indicate it was set during the 1930s (no automobiles, airplanes, radios, etc.). The book, presumably, had a contemporary setting, around the turn of the twentieth century; however, there's really nothing in the book to pin down the period, either. The setting was most likely just as dreary in the 1930s as it was a few decades earlier, or at any other time, so it really doesn't matter.
shareI don't think this movie takes place in the 1930's. I think that it took place around the time the book was written. It just feels earlier than the 1930's. Look how Gulch was dressed. Women did not dress like her in the 1930's.
shareActually, if you take a look at Dorothy's dress, and the clothes her family and friends wore, it is almost exactly what people wore back in the 1930s. Now in Ms. Gulch's case, she's from an older generation that kept up the more conservative, Victorian look, so it's possible she's very out of touch with what were the latest fashions in the 1930s. That, and communication, especially about the latest fashions, would have reached that part of America much more slowly, due to primitive technology and lack of funds everyone had from the Great Depression.
shareYou could be right. I just don't know for sure. I will have to rewatch and see if anything will give me a clue about the actual timeline.
shareThe movie takes place in the 1930s. People just assume it takes place earlier because we don't see any modern trappings of civilization (cars, radios, etc.). I think this was true to the period based on documentaries I've seen about the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. People in those areas seemed to live and dress less modern than people in the rest of the country.
shareI always thought it took place in the early 1900´s as it did in the book. What supports this is that Almira Gulch is supposed to be the richest woman in the county yet travels around on a bicycle. Surely, a rich woman in the late 1930´s wouldn´t travel by such means, even in Kansas.
shareThe book didn't take place in the early 1900s. It was just a book that happened to be written in 1900. I have the book. There's absolutely nothing about it that "dates" it. It just plainly states that it takes place in prairie country. There's so little about it that's contemporary to the period (no mention of presidents, politics, cultural trends, etc.) that nobody reading the book or looking at the illustrations would think, "Oh, this was written in 1900."
Also, a huge clue that the movie took place in the 1930s was a musical number that was cut, called The Jitterbug. This was a hugely popular 1930s dance among teenagers, The Soulja Boy of its day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UB9BdxPDCwQ. Swing music and The Jitterbug didn't exist in 1900, so why would the songwriters have included such a contemporary song otherwise?
Maybe they excluded it for anachronistic reasons? I found a post online that said all farm machinery on Dorothy´s farm is pre 1900. You would think if it was set in the late 1930´s at least some of the machinery would be from the 20th century.
shareI have two answers for that.
1.) Most natives in Kansas will tell you that it is very accurate, because there are two very distinct looks for Kansas (as well as Oklahoma and Nebraska). The eastern half of Kansas is woodland with rolling hills, shallow river valleys, and green meadows. The western half of Kansas is high, dry prairie, and is flat as a table, with very few trees around and tall grass. So yes, it is a very accurate view of western Kansas.
2.) The sets they used for some of the outdoor Kansas scenes, particularly when Dorothy meets Professor Marvel, use the exact same trees used in "Gone with the Wind" from that scene where Scarlett made her vow never to be hungry again.
It looks fairly accurate to central-west Kansas. East Kansas is a bit more green. According to Return To Oz, Dorothy lives north of Pittsburg, KS, which is only a few miles from the Missouri border.
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