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Laura Ingalls Wilder
Laura Ingalls Wilder was 65 when she published her first book. Already an extraordinary feat, it boggles the mind that Little House in the Big Woods spawned a 9-book series, with the last one published after her death. Her life was a series of curve balls and disasters for decades, and very different from most anyone you’ll meet today. On top of moving more than 6 times across the American frontier, farming, teaching, suffering from diseases you aren't likely to contract today, almost starving in a blizzard, and losing her house and barn in 2 separate fires, she also spent years of writing articles for local papers on top of everything else she did. Despite her extraordinary life, she’s most well-known for her Little House book series It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say she is one of the most well-known and important American authors for her contribution to children’s literature, and her understanding of aging a story with its audience. In Laura Ingalls Wilder we find not only classical American literature, but a somewhat fictionalized autobiography that serves as a lens for children to peer back into frontier America. To see the country as it expanded and understand just how recent much of this history is. But what was Wilder’s history, and what led her to become an author at such an old age?
History:
Born February 7, 1867, in Lake Pepin, Wisconsin, Laura Ingalls grew up frequently moving from one part of the American frontier to another. Her parents, Charles and Coraline, lived on the edge of United States territory. It was unforgiving, and the family moved often looking for work and a better life. They rarely stayed in one place for more than a few years, and Wilder was practically born into this lifestyle. In 1869, when she was 2, her family moved from Wisconsin to Rothville, Missouri, before settling in Kansas, on what was still Native American country. After building a log cabin, and starting to farm, the family found out they had no legal right to stay there and were forced by troops to leave in the spring of 1871. They returned to Pepin, Wisconsin, but by spring of 1874, they had moved again to the banks of Plum Creek, Walnut Grove, Minnesota. Between 1874 and 1881, Wilder moved another 4 times, gained a brother, lost a brother, and gained another younger sister named Grace. In 1881 they moved to De Smet, South Dakota, where her parents and her blind older sister Mary would spend the rest of their lives. After surviving a blizzard that nearly starved De Smet to death, her life calmed down for a few years. Finally settled, Wilder attended school, made friends, and began working a few part time jobs to help with the family finances.
As her book series can attest Wilder spent her life moving frequently, and far. But this part of her life, which would serve as inspiration for her books, was also a fraction of her life. Wilder received her first teachers’ certificate in December of 1882 and began teaching just 2 months before her 16th birthday at the Bouchie School in 1883. It was around this time that she met Almanzo Wilder in De Smet. The two married in 1885 and their daughter Rose was born a year later. Their lives were difficult for the first several years of their marriage. Almanzo and Laura suffered from diphtheria in Spring, 1888. This illness partially paralyzed Almanzo and severely limited their mobility and options. Almanzo eventually regained near complete control of his legs but required a cane for the rest of his life. This, along with the death of their newborn son in 1889, a series of fires that left them without a home, and a drought that put them in debt, defined their early years of misfortune.
After a brief move to Florida, and promptly finding it too humid for their liking, Wilder and her husband moved to Mansfield, Missouri in 1894. They made a down payment on a ramshackle property they named Rocky Ridge Farm and eked a living out of selling firewood until their apple trees were old enough to bear fruit. Which took 7 years. They finally found financial stability when Almanzo’s parents visited and gave them the deed to the house they had been renting in Mansfield. With the house in hand, they focused on developing their farm until 1910, when they sold the house and finished the farmhouse with the funds. After decades of disasters and misfortunes, the Wilders were able to live on a diversified farm of dairy, poultry, and their apple orchard. No longer one bad year away from ruin, Wilder became more involved in local clubs. Her familiarity with farming made her an authority in the town, and in 1911, she began submitting articles to the Missouri Ruralist.
1911 marks the beginning of Wilder’s writing career, at the age of 44. Wilder used her articles to discuss topics of local interest, whether that be farming, politics, or anything else. During this time, she also began branching out and experimenting with new topics and writing styles. My Ozark Kitchen was published in Country Gentlemen. Many of her letters, articles, and diary entries were published after she passed, but aside from the articles, most were never seen publicly before then. Disaster struck again in 1929 when the stock market crash wiped out their savings. Encouraged by her daughter Rose, who had become a very famous author in her time, and in desperate need of financial stability after losing her savings, Wilder set about writing Pioneer Girl, the autobiographical memoir that became an early draft for the entire Little House series.
Published 1932, when Laura Ingalls Wilder was 65, Little House in the Big Woods was a success. It brought her family into financial stability, and she continued writing book after book about her childhood. There is some debate about how involved Rose was in the Little House series. It’s undeniable that Rose helped edit several of the books and used her connections to help her mother get published, but there have been accusations that Rose was an outright ghost writer for Wilder. However, knowing that the series spawned out of a memoir written before Rose was involved in the series, and that the manuscript for The First Four Years was found and published nearly 3 decades after the 8th book in the series, well after Wilder had passed and Rose could have had it published, it seems likely that Wilder was the author of her own books.
Little House Books
Hard work is the seed of the Little House Series. Born from Wilder’s own childhood, the series tells a somewhat fictionalized account of her life and what life was like on the American frontier. And as early as the first book, Little House in the Big Woods, the necessity of hard work is planted as the core theme. Although the story depicts Laura as a 5-year-old child, she contributes to her family’s livelihood. Every household chore, from cleaning the house, to making maple syrup, to preparations for Christmas, is described in detail, and great attention is given to how her hard work, like collecting sap, will result in good things for her, such as maple syrup. Work is the defining characteristic of this book. What kinds of work they do each season, how it gets done, what it does for them. Even when they’re preparing for Christmas, the story doesn’t let you forget the preparations for the celebration. There’s rarely a time when the family is idle. Presented through the eyes of a child, it can be easy to forget the necessity of farming. That stumbling onto a beehive doesn’t just mean honey for a few weeks, but an extra source of food to keep the family going just a little bit longer. The decision to sell the farm and head for Kansas is the ultimate show of hard work. Kansas is an unknown. They don’t know if farming will be easier, what kind of resources they’ll have, or if they can even return. It sets the tone for the rest of the series, as each new book presents new challenges for them to manage.
The Little House series is also notable for being appropriate in both content and complexity for the age Laura is depicted in the book. When she’s five, the sentences are short. We’re given details about her life. But only what she knows. We see things entirely from a child’s point of view. And the theme is easy to understand. Work hard and do your chores. Then good things will happen.
But as Laura grows older, so does the series. Where earlier books might have omitted the idea of limited resources or possible starvation, later books like The Long Winter push these ideas to the front of the story. It's this laddering complexity, in addition to its depiction of frontier life, that has kept Wilder’s series so relevant. As a young reader improves, they can continue to enjoy her series at an appropriate difficulty. Series like Harry Potter have attempted this laddering of complexity, but often end up with a startling disconnect between actions and expectations of earlier books, and how they would be viewed in later books. Notably, Hagrid trying to turn Dudley into a pig in the first book is silly fun, until the later book’s moral complexity makes it apparent that this would be entirely unacceptable, especially when done on a non-magical person. This values dissonance between the first and last books raises awkward questions about Hagrid’s character that the series never addresses. Wilder avoids this values dissonance by side stepping it entirely. She only raises her stories’ complexity by aging up Laura’s narration and self-awareness to a new level. Ma and Pa make racist comments about Native American in Little House on the Prairie, and it is given little attention because Laura is a little girl more interested in the things happening around her. So as Laura becomes older, and can better understand racism and race relations, conflict with Native Americans is able to become a more prominent theme in the series without retroactively changing how we should interpret her parent's attitudes in earlier books because the only thing that changed was attention by the narration, and a willingness to address the topic.
Writing Advice
One of the most remarkable things about Laura Ingalls Wilder is that she was 65 when her first book was published. By 65 most of us would be happy to retire. Or, perhaps, pick up writing as a hobby. But Wilder, like most things in her life, found happiness in the monetary need to write by sharing her stories of the frontier and the simple joys of living day by day, even while incredible hardship followed in her shadow. From a family wide bout of malaria to the struggles she endured with her husband during the early years of their marriage, her life could never be called easy. But not just in spite of this, but because of it, she found joy in the little things in life. Be it woodchopping, farming, or even writing, she found purpose in it and used these daily activities to push herself forward until she finally found success. A quality we should nurture as writers. We want to become published, see our books plastered on bookstore walls while sprawling lines circle back on each until our readers are packed together like sardines, all carrying our books to the check out. But as tantalizing as that dream is, and as necessary as it was for Wilder’s financial stability, we shouldn’t lose sight of the simple pleasure of writing.
Putting words to paper, scribing worlds and characters from graphite detritus on paper liberates us to share the contents of our mind in a medium at once ancient, and wholly unique to humans. Writing allows us to reveal experiences both intimate and alien to strangers, so that they might understand us and the days we lived. It’s okay to sit down and stare at a mind numbingly blank page, wondering if anyone will even read what you write, but we shouldn’t let that keep us from finding joy in creation. People will read your work, but you have to write it. It’ll be hard, but whether your house burns down, or your brother dies, and your savings disappear into the stock market, you’ll always have the words you wrote in your mind, and the days you lived with the people around you. Laura Ingalls Wilder became an award-winning author at 65. There’s no reason you can’t too.
Laura Ingalls Wilder in Memory
Although her books have raised controversy in recent decades for their depiction of Native Americans and smoothing over the details of the Ingalls' time in Kansas, that hasn’t diminished the memory of Laura Ingalls Wilder. The Little House series continues to delight young readers today, offering not just life on the frontier, but into the wild ride of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s early years. Inspired by the impact of her series, the American Library Association created a book award for children’s literature. Although it’s no longer named after her, the award continues to spotlight excellence in children’s literature and inspire similarly impactful stories for a new generation of readers.
Discussion Questions
1. It is only in the last few decades that scrutiny has been given to Wilder’s depiction of Native Americans, and settlers moving onto Native land. Racism and a white perspective on events are something that has plagued many classic American authors like Mark Twain. Does the depiction of Native Americans in Wilder’s books propagate racism and stereotypes, or does it attempt to portray attitudes as they were even as it smooths over the reality of Wilder’s family settling on Native Land?
2. The Little House series depicts a very specific time in the history of the United States. Which books offer a similar look at other points in America’s history?
3. If Laura Ingalls Wilder hadn’t had her daughter’s help getting her first book published, do you think her series would have seen as much success, if it was published at all?
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