On Nov. 9, 1882, Baum married Maud Gage, a daughter of Matilda Joslyn Gage, a famous womens' suffrage activist. In July 1888, Baum and his wife moved to Aberdeen, Dakota Terrotory, where he opened a store, "Baum's Bazaar". His habit of giving out wares on credit led to the eventual bankrupting of the store, so Baum turned to editing a local newspaper, The Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer, where he wrote a column, Our Landlady. During much of this time, Matilda Joslyn Gage was living in the Baum household. After Baum's newspaper failed in 1891, he, Maud and their four sons moved to Chicago, where he worked as a reporter for the Evening Post, as well as work as a traveling salesman.
Baum's career as a children's author began with the 1897 publication of Mother Goose in Prose. The book sold well, and Baum followed it in 1899 in a partnership with illustrator W. W. Denslow, to create the poetry collection Father Goose: His Book. Although Father Goose was the children's bestseller of the year, it was soon overshadowed by the classic The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900), which he shared the copyright with Denslow. The demand for additional stories about Dorothy and her friends was so great that Baum wrote thirteen more Oz books. Other fictional works created for boys and girls were published by Baum under the pen names "Floyd Akers" and "Edith Van Dyne." After Baum's death in 1919, a new generation of authors continued the Oz series as well as several of Baum's other story lines.
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