<P> Another influence lay in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland . A September 1900 review in the Grand Rapids Herald called The Wonderful Wizard of Oz a "veritable Alice in Wonderland brought up to the present day standard of juvenile literature". Baum found Carroll's plots incoherent, but he identified the books' source of popularity as Alice herself, a child with whom the child readers could identify; this influenced his choice of a protagonist . Baum was also influenced by Carroll's belief that children's books should have many pictures and be pleasurable to read . Carroll rejected the Victorian - era ideology that children's books should be saturated with morals, instead believing that children should be allowed to be children . Building on Carroll's style of numerous images accompanying the text, Baum combined the conventional features of a fairy tale (witches and wizards) with the well - known things in his readers' lives (scarecrows and cornfields). </P> <P> The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is considered the first American fairy tale because of its references to clear American locations such as Kansas and Omaha . Baum agreed with authors such as Carroll that fantasy literature was important for children, along with numerous illustrations, but he also wanted to create a story that had recognizable American elements in it, such as farming and industrialization . </P> <P> Many of the characters, props, and ideas in the novel were drawn from Baum's experiences . As a child, Baum frequently had nightmares of a scarecrow pursuing him across a field . Moments before the scarecrow's "ragged hay fingers" nearly gripped his neck, it would fall apart before his eyes . Decades later, as an adult, Baum integrated his tormentor into the novel as the Scarecrow . According to his son Harry, the Tin Woodman was born from Baum's attraction to window displays . He wished to make something captivating for the window displays, so he used an eclectic assortment of scraps to craft a striking figure . From a washboiler he made a body, from bolted stovepipes he made arms and legs, and from the bottom of a saucepan he made a face . Baum then placed a funnel hat on the figure, which ultimately became the Tin Woodman . John D. Rockefeller was the nemesis of Baum's father, an oil baron who declined to purchase Standard Oil shares in exchange for selling his own oil refinery . Baum scholar Evan I. Schwartz posited that Rockefeller inspired one of the Wizard's numerous faces . In one scene in the novel, the Wizard is seen as a "tyrannical, hairless head". When Rockefeller was 54 years old, the medical condition alopecia caused him to lose every strand of hair on his head, making people fearful of speaking to him . </P> <P> In the early 1880s, Baum's play Matches was being performed when a "flicker from a kerosene lantern sparked the rafters", causing the Baum opera house to be consumed by flames . Scholar Evan I. Schwartz suggested that this might have inspired the Scarecrow's severest terror: "There is only one thing in the world I am afraid of . A lighted match ." </P>

Where did the idea for the wizard of oz come from