 His Edith Van Dyne stories depict girls and young women engaging in traditionally masculine activities, including the "Aunt Jane's Nieces", "The Flying Girl" and its sequel, and his girl sleuth Josie O'Gorman from The Bluebird Books.During the period surrounding the 1890 Ghost Dance movement and Wounded Knee Massacre, Baum wrote two editorials about Native Americans for the "Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer" which have provoked controversy in recent times because of his assertion that the safety of white settlers depended on the wholesale genocide of American Indians.Sociologist Robert Venables has argued that Baum was not using sarcasm in the editorials.