{{short description|Author and historian}} {{Use mdy dates|date=July 2025}} '''Henry M. Littlefield''' (June 12, 1933 – March 30, 2000) was an American [[educator]], [[author]] and [[historian]] most notable for his claim that [[L. Frank Baum|L. Frank Baum's]] ''[[The Wonderful Wizard of Oz]]'' was a political [[satire]], founding a long tradition of [[Political interpretations of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz|political interpretations of this book]]. He wrote an essay about his theory for his high-school students in [[Mount Vernon, New York]], and published it<ref>[https://www.jstor.org/stable/2710826 "The Wizard of Oz: Parable on Populism"], ''American Quarterly'', Vol. 16, No. 1. (Spring, 1964), pp. 47-58.</ref> in the ''[[American Quarterly]]'' in 1964.<ref>Dighe, Ranjit S. ''The Historian's Wizard of Oz: Reading L. Frank Baum's Classic As a Political and Monetary Allegory.'' Westport, Conn: Praeger, 2002.</ref><ref>Thomas Singer. ''The Vision Thing: Myth, Politics, and Psyche in the World'' Routledge, 2000. p.63</ref><ref>Goodwin, Jason. ''Greenback: The Almighty Dollar and the Invention of America.'' New York: Henry Holt, 2003. p.281</ref><ref>Schlesinger, Arthur M. ''A Life in the Twentieth Century.'' Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000. p.64</ref>
Littlefield was also a well-known wrestling coach at [[Mount Vernon High School (New York)|Mt. Vernon High School]] and [[Amherst College]]. Author [[John Irving]] served as an informal assistant coach at Amherst, and mentioned Littlefield in his essay-cum-memoir, "Trying to Save Piggy Sneed." On page 118, Irving wrote, “Henry Littlefield was the coach at Amherst then; Henry was a heavyweight—everything about him was grand. He was more than expansive, he was eloquent; he was better than good-humored, he was jolly. Henry was very rare, a kind of Renaissance man among wrestling coaches, and the atmosphere in the Amherst wrestling room was, to Henry’s credit, both aggressive and good-natured—a difficult combination to achieve.”
Littlefield served as dean of students at Amherst, leaving that position in 1976 to become headmaster of the [[York School (California)|York School]] in [[Monterey, California]]. He also taught at [[Golden Gate University]], [[Naval Postgraduate School]], and the [[Stevenson School]].<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |title=Columbia College Today |url=https://www.college.columbia.edu/cct_archive/dec00/dec00_obituaries.html |access-date=2022-05-04 |website=www.college.columbia.edu}}</ref>
Littlefield received his B.A. from [[Columbia College (New York)|Columbia College]], and his M.A. and Ph.D. from [[Columbia University]].<ref name=":0" /><ref>{{cite web |date=2016-10-31 |title=Populism and the World of Oz |url=https://americanhistory.si.edu/blog/populism-oz |access-date=2022-05-04 |website=National Museum of American History }}</ref> During his studies, he also served as an officer in the Marine Corps from 1954 to 1958.<ref name=":0" /> At Columbia, he played in the ''[[Varsity Show]]'' and attended the [[American Theatre Wing]] with the intention of becoming an actor.<ref name=":0" />
He died on March 30, 2000.<ref name=":0" />
==References== {{reflist|colwidth=30em}}
==External links== * {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20030220073143/http://www.ozclub.org/reference/littlefield.html |date=February 20, 2003 |title=The essay }} * [http://blog.beliefnet.com/viamedia/2005/07/in-honor-of-harry-potter_comments.html His essay on the origins of the Oz essay]{{Dead link|date=November 2025 |bot=InternetArchiveBot }}
{{authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Littlefield, Henry}} [[Category:American literary critics]] [[Category:1933 births]] [[Category:2000 deaths]] [[Category:20th-century American historians]] [[Category:American male non-fiction writers]] [[Category:20th-century American male writers]] [[Category:Columbia College, Columbia University alumni]] [[Category:Columbia Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni]] [[Category:Golden Gate University faculty]] [[Category:Naval Postgraduate School faculty]] [[Category:American high school teachers]] [[Category:Amherst College faculty]] [[Category:Writers from Monterey, California]]
{{US-historian-1930s-stub}}