The Dorothy of 1939 was given these enchanted shoes by Glinda, as they are taken from the dead Wicked Witch of the East who was crushed to death under Dorothy's fallen farmhouse after it was carried to the magical Land of Oz via Kansas cyclone.
What is the significance of Dorothy's ruby slippers?
In the movie, Dorothy is gifted the slippers from Glinda, the Good Witch of the North, to keep them safe from the Wicked Witch of the West and to help her return home to Kansas. Over the years, they have become one of the most iconic parts of the film and of American culture.
The slippers were stolen from the museum in 2005, but were recovered in 2018 during a sting operation in Minneapolis, according to the US District Attorney's Office of North Dakota. Terry Martin and Jerry Hal Saliterman, both in their 70s, were separately charged with the theft.
Glinda tells Dorothy never to take them off, as the slippers must be very powerful, or the Wicked Witch would not want them so badly. Throughout the rest of the film, the Wicked Witch schemes to obtain the shoes. She tries to take the slippers when she captures Dorothy, but receives a painful shock.
This time, Mulan served as a vehicle to help Ruby realize her romantic feelings for Dorothy, who in the episode falls victim to a sleeping curse. Ruby later wakes Dorothy up — with a magical kiss, of course, a major theme in the Storybrooke world.
What do Dorothy's shoes symbolize in The Wizard of Oz?
Symbolism in The Wizard of Oz
Dorothy's silver shoes were seen by economic historians as crucial to the symbolic associations between the story and the politics of the moment. These articles described the story in terms of the bimetal debates. In representing silver, Dorothy is seen to represent the populist movement.
In a phone interview with MPR News on Monday morning, Judy Garland Museum founding director and curator John Kelsch said the FBI returned the slippers to their owner, Michael Shaw, in a ceremony at the museum on Feb. 1. Ruby slippers once worn by Judy Garland in the "The Wizard of Oz," are displayed.
As CNN reports, Martin and Saliterman had hatched their plan under the impression that the slippers were made with real rubies. In reality, they're painted red and covered in red sequins. Still, Dorothy's slippers are worth a pretty penny. As of 2023, they're valued at $3.5 million.
Terry Martin, the thief who stole a pair of ruby slippers that Dorothy wore in The Wizard of Oz from the Judy Garland Museum in 2005, received no prison time at a sentencing hearing this week.
In the end Glinda tells Dorothy that she had the power to return back home all along. After she learned that there is no place like home, she clicked her heels three times and woke up in her bed in Kansas surrounded by her loved ones as if it had all been just a dream.
In the original book by L. Frank Baum, Dorothy's magic slippers are silver; for the Technicolor movie, costumers created ruby red shoes to show up more vividly against the yellow-brick road.
After nearly a yearlong investigation—with invaluable assistance from the FBI's Art Crime Team, the FBI Laboratory, and field offices in Chicago, Atlanta, and Miami—the slippers were recovered during an undercover operation in Minneapolis.
In the classic 1939 musical, Garland's character, Dorothy, had to click the heels of her ruby slippers three times and repeat, “There's no place like home,” to return to Kansas from Oz. She wore several pairs during filming, but only four authentic pairs are known to remain.
What do the slippers symbolize in The Wizard of Oz?
That's part of the reason why they've become so important and iconic, is because they stand for much more than just pretty shoes." Mankiewicz takes it a step further, saying, "They symbolize hope.
Terry Jon Martin, 76, stole the slippers adorned with sequins and glass beads in 2005 from the Judy Garland Museum in the late actor's hometown of Grand Rapids, Minnesota.
They were recovered more than a decade later in 2018, and two men have been federally charged for their roles in stealing and concealing them. During the ceremony, which took place in Garland's hometown of Grand Rapids, the iconic ruby slippers were placed on their original pedestal.
In 1938, when Garland was sixteen, she was cast as the young Dorothy Gale in The Wizard of Oz (1939), a film based on the 1900 children's book by L. Frank Baum. In the film, she sang the song with which she would be constantly identified afterward, "Over the Rainbow".
According to John Kelsh, founding director of the museum, the slippers were returned to Shaw and are being held by an auction house that plans to sell them. Garland was born Frances Gumm in 1922. She lived in Grand Rapids, about 200 miles north of Minneapolis, until she was 4, when her family moved to Los Angeles.
The pair that Warner delivered to MGM for the auction sold for an astounding $15,000 to an anonymous buyer, who donated them to the Smithsonian Institution nine years later. Today, we know that the Smithsonian's Ruby Slippers are a mismatched pair, with a half-size difference.
The Tin Man did not have a heart because he was turned into a living statue made of tin by the Wicked Witch of the East, who cast a spell on him that took away his ability to feel emotions.
The Silver Shoes are the magical shoes that appear in L. Frank Baum's 1900 novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz as heroine Dorothy Gale's transport home. They are originally owned by the Wicked Witch of the East but passed to Dorothy when her house lands on the Witch.
The Wicked Witch of the West is a fictional character who appears in the classic children's novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900), created by American author L. Frank Baum.
Dorothy thus is saved from death by the Good Witch's kiss. Beyond that, it's also interesting to note that the Wicked Witch isn't aware that the girl possesses the “silver shoes” of the Witch of the East until Dorothy actually stands before her.
