Dorothy Gale

Dorothy Gale
Oz character
Dorothy with the silver shoes (illustration by W. W. Denslow)
First appearance	The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900)
Created by	L. Frank Baum
Portrayed by	Judy Garland (The Wizard of Oz) Stephanie Mills (The Wiz) Diana Ross (The Wiz) Fairuza Balk (Return to Oz) Ashanti (The Muppets' Wizard of Oz) Matreya Scarrwener (Once Upon a Time, Young) Teri Reeves (Once Upon a Time, Adult) Shanice Williams (The Wiz Live!) Adria Arjona (Emerald City)
Information
Species	Human
Gender	Female
Occupation	Adventurer Royal princess Government liaison Farm girl
Family	Aunt Em Uncle Henry
Relatives	Zeb of Hugson's ranch (second cousin) Bill Hugson (uncle) Mrs. Hugson (aunt, Em's sister) unnamed Australians (related through Henry) Susan (indirect descendant) Em (niece of Susan) Dori (niece of Susan)
Nationality	American Ozite (later)

Dorothy Gale is the fictional protagonist of many of the Oz novels by the American author L. Frank Baum. Her best friend is Oz's ruler Princess Ozma. Dorothy first appears in Baum's classic children's novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and reappears in most of its sequels. In addition, she is the main character in various adaptations, notably the classic 1939 movie adaptation of the book, The Wizard of Oz.

In later books, Oz steadily becomes more familiar to her than her homeland of Kansas. Indeed, Dorothy eventually goes to live in an apartment in the Emerald City's palace but only after her Aunt Em and Uncle Henry have settled in a farmhouse on its outskirts, unable to pay the mortgage on their house in Kansas. Dorothy's best friend Princess Ozma officially makes her a princess of Oz later in the book series.

An influence on the creation of Dorothy appears to be the Alice books of Lewis Carroll. Although Baum reportedly found these plots incoherent, he identified their source of popularity as Alice herself, a character with whom child readers could identify; this influenced his choice of a protagonist for his own books.

Dorothy's character was probably named after Baum's own niece, Dorothy Louise Gage, who died in infancy. Baum's wife was very attached to her and was deeply grieved by her death, so there is speculation that Baum inserted her name into his stories as a memorial. Elements of Dorothy Gale's character are possibly derived from Matilda Joslyn Gage, Dorothy Gage's grandmother. Dorothy Gage is buried in Evergreen Cemetery in Bloomington, Illinois.