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"Wilder, Laura Ingalls (1867-1957)"
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Little house, long shadow : Laura Ingalls Wilder's impact on American culture
Beyond their status as classic children’s stories, Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House books play a significant role in American culture that most people cannot begin to appreciate. Millions of children have sampled the books in school; played out the roles of Laura and Mary; or visited Wilder homesites with their parents, who may be fans themselves. Yet, as Anita Clair Fellman shows, there is even more to this magical series with its clear emotional appeal: a covert political message that made many readers comfortable with the resurgence of conservatism in the Reagan years and beyond.
In Little House, Long Shadow , a leading Wilder scholar offers a fresh interpretation of the Little House books that examines how this beloved body of children’s literature found its way into many facets of our culture and consciousness—even influencing the responsiveness of Americans to particular political views. Because both Wilder and her daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, opposed the New Deal programs being implemented during the period in which they wrote, their books reflect their use of family history as an argument against the state’s protection of individuals from economic uncertainty. Their writing emphasized the isolation of the Ingalls family and the family’s resilience in the face of crises and consistently equated self-sufficiency with family acceptance, security, and warmth.
Fellman argues that the popularity of these books—abetted by Lane’s overtly libertarian views—helped lay the groundwork for a negative response to big government and a positive view of political individualism, contributing to the acceptance of contemporary conservatism while perpetuating a mythic West. Beyond tracing the emergence of this influence in the relationship between Wilder and her daughter, Fellman explores the continuing presence of the books—and their message—in modern cultural institutions from classrooms to tourism, newspaper editorials to Internet message boards.
Little House, Long Shadow shows how ostensibly apolitical artifacts of popular culture can help explain shifts in political assumptions. It is a pioneering look at the dissemination of books in our culture that expands the discussion of recent political transformations—and suggests that sources other than political rhetoric have contributed to Americans’ renewed appreciation of individualist ideals.
eBook
Laura Ingalls Wilder and Rose Wilder Lane : authorship, place, time, and culture
The mother-daughter partnership that produced the Little House books has fascinated scholars and readers alike. Now, John E. Miller, one of America's leading authorities on Laura Ingalls Wilder and Rose Wilder Lane, combines analyses of both women to explore this collaborative process and shows how their books reflect the authors' distinctive views of place, time, and culture. Along the way, he addresses the two most controversial issues for Wilder/Lane aficionados: how much did Lane actually contribute to the writing of the Little House books, and what was Wilder's real attitude toward American Indians.
Interpreting these writers in their larger historical and cultural contexts, Miller reconsiders their formidable artistic, political, and literary contributions to American cultural life in the 1930s. He looks at what was happening in 1932—from depression conditions and politics to chain stores and celebrity culture—to shed light on Wilder's life, and he shows how actual \"little houses\" established ideas of home that resonated emotionally for both writers.
In considering each woman's ties to history, Miller compares Wilder with Frederick Jackson Turner as a frontier mythmaker and examines Lane's unpublished history of Missouri in the context of a contemporaneous project, Thomas Hart Benton's famous Jefferson City mural. He also looks at Wilder's Missouri Ruralist columns to assess her pre–Little House values and writing skills, and he readdresses her literary treatment of Native Americans. A final chapter shows how Wilder's and Lane's conservative political views found expression in their work, separating Lane's more libertarian bent from Wilder's focus on writing moralist children's fiction.
These nine thoughtful essays expand the critical discussion on Wilder and Lane beyond the Little House. Miller portrays them as impassioned and dedicated writers who were deeply involved in the historical changes and political challenges of their times—and contends that questions over the books' authorship do not do justice to either woman's creative investment in the series. Miller demystifies the aura of nostalgia that often prevents modern readers from seeing Wilder as a real-life woman, and he depicts Lane as a kindred artistic spirit, helping readers better understand mother and daughter as both women and authors.
eBook
The selected letters of Laura Ingalls Wilder
The Selected Letters of Laura Ingalls Wilder is a portrait of this American author, illuminating her thoughts, travels, philosophies, writing career, and dealings with family, friends, and fans. This is a fresh look at the author in her own words. Gathered from museums, archives, and personal collections, the letters span over sixty years, from 1894 to 1956, and shed new light on Wilder's day-to-day living. Here we see her as a businesswoman and an author -- through reflections on her Little House books; her editor, Ursula Nordstrom; and her readers -- and as a wife and a friend. In her letters, Wilder shares political opinions and reminiscences of frontier childhood. Also included are letters to her daughter, writer Rose Wilder Lane, who filled a silent role as editor and collaborator while the famous Little House books were being written. Wilder biographer William Anderson collected and researched references throughout these letters, and the result is a historical collection, tracing Wilder's life through the final days of covered wagon travel and her years of fame as the writer of the Little House books. Here we see her as a farm woman, a country journalist, and a Depression-era author.
BOOK
Laura Ingalls Wilder, Farm Journalist
Before Laura Ingalls Wilder found fame with her Little House books, she made a name for herself with short nonfiction pieces in magazines and newspapers. Read today, these pieces offer insight into her development as a writer and depict farm life in the Ozarks—and also show us a different Laura Ingalls Wilder from the woman we have come to know.
This volume collects essays by Wilder that originally appeared in the Missouri Ruralist between 1911 and 1924. Building on the initial compilation of these articles under the title Little House in the Ozarks, this revised edition marks a more comprehensive collection by adding forty-two additional Ruralist articles and restoring passages previously omitted from other articles.
Writing as \"Mrs. A. J. Wilder\" about modern life in the early twentieth-century Ozarks, Laura lends her advice to women of her generation on such timeless issues as how to be an equal partner with their husbands, how to support the new freedoms they'd won with the right to vote, and how to maintain important family values in their changing world. Yet she also discusses such practical matters as how to raise chickens, save time on household tasks, and set aside time to relax now and then.
New articles in this edition include \"Making the Best of Things,\" \"Economy in Egg Production,\" and \"Spic, Span, and Beauty.\" \"Magic in Plain Foods\" reflects her cosmopolitanism and willingness to take advantage of new technologies, while \"San Marino Is Small but Mighty\" reveals her social-political philosophy and her interest in cooperation and community as well as in individualism and freedom. Mrs. Wilder was firmly committed to living in the present while finding much strength in the values of her past.
A substantial introduction by Stephen W. Hines places the essays in their biographical and historical context, showing how these pieces present Wilder's unique perspective on life and politics during the World War I era while commenting on the challenges of surviving and thriving in the rustic Ozark hill country. The former little girl from the little house was entering a new world and wrestling with such issues as motor cars and new \"labor-saving\" devices, but she still knew how to build a model small farm and how to get the most out of a dollar.
Together, these essays lend more insight into Wilder than do even her novels and show that, while technology may have improved since she wrote them, the key to the good life hasn't changed much in almost a century. Laura Ingalls Wilder, Farm Journalist distills the essence of her pioneer heritage and will delight fans of her later work as it sheds new light on a vanished era.
eBook
Animal adventures
Laura Ingalls and her pioneer family encounter a variety of animals traveling through and living on the American frontier at the turn of the century.
BOOK
Little house parties
From the maple syrup party at her grandpa's house in the Big Woods in Wisconsin to parties with her school friends in Plum Creek and her first co-ed party in De Smet, Dakota Territory, Laura enjoys all kinds of gatherings.
BRAILLE
The Sweet Science of Socks
On the way I pass framed copies of the circus-poster-style wedding invitation I designed in the Union Street apartment in Brooklyn, cutting letters into linoleum and printing dozens of dripping copies on the kitchen table with Anna's help. Utilitarian receptacles (including cigar boxes donated by a Nat Sherman's clerk, the most rumpled salesman at the 42nd Street store, chewing a stogie, charismatic overbite) contain pieces of Art Deco jewelry she's gathered from glass cases in antique stores in Greenwich Village and out here. Green plastic pour-over cone that came free with the bag of Starbucks beans I mail-ordered in 1993 since stores did not exist nationwide yet -Digital clock chosen as a premium when we opened a joint bank account in 1992 in Burlington, Vermont -Palm-sized Scully date books refilled annually with months since 1990 - Cheap but apparently indestructible Old Homestead steak knives, 1989 wedding gift from Aunt Mary and Uncle Jim -Colander from our first Brooklyn apartment, a poetic address: 8 First Place -Anna's green down vest, St. Ann's School, circa 1979 -My peach dashiki, Davenport Central High, circa 1980 Have these items endured because we have lasted? Passing the cotton bulb from hand-to-hand, I lean on a line from Melissa Rachleff's catalogue essay to the exhibit Inventing Downtown: Artist-Run Galleries in New York City 1952-1965: \"The merging of Space and Time underlies theories of the fourth dimension, or the way in which traditionally defined spatial dimensions-length, width, depth-can become warped when affected by time.\"
Journal Article