There are so many threads running through Caroline Fraser's excellent Prairie Fires that I don't know how to start my review. I grew up on the Little House books, eventually realizing that as hard as life was for the Ingalls family, the novels were novels rather than history. Beyond that, they were sanitized for their juvenile audience, something I slowly came to realize as I read other, less complete biographies. None of them, even Wilder's memoir Pioneer Girl, told how unremittingly grim Laura's life actually was. Prior books implied this, but Prairie Fires spells out how Charles Ingalls was an abject failure. He moved the family along the frontier not because "the land was too settled" but because he was a terrible businessman who left every outpost out of desperation and a little worse off financially than when he'd arrived. Even when he "won his bet" with the government, earning title to his claim near DeSmet, he soon sold his quarter section and moved into town, eventually dying of overwork and heart disease at 64.
Laura's adult life wasn't much easier. She started working to support the family at age 9, as a dishwasher, companion, seamstress, and eventually a schoolteacher. Once married, she experienced two difficult pregnancies, the death of her infant son, a near-fatal bout of diphtheria, her husband's disabling stroke, and a fire which destroyed her house. The Wilders never proved up on their land; after brief sojourns with Almanzo's relatives in Minnesota and Florida, both took paid jobs (Laura as a seamstress, Almanzo as a day laborer and drayman) to buy property in the Ozarks. Even there, they took odd jobs and took in borders until Almanzo's father bought their house for them.
There was also Rose. Bright and strong willed, prone to depression (and possibly bipolar disorder - Rose called herself "manic depressive" in her diary), outgoing where her mother was reticent, extravagant where her mother was extremely frugal, they were alike and different in the most combustible pairings. It was Rose who encouraged her mother to write her memoir; but it was also Rose who urged her parents to invest in stocks which vaporized in the Depression making the Little House books both possible and necessary. And it was Rose whose rather bitter form of libertarianism overlaid the myth of self-sufficiency over a life of outside help and escaped debts.
The Homestead Act, when you get down to it, was a land swindle executed by the government. The upper plains were originally described as desert land, and the mostly wheat monoculture practiced by the small landholders depleted the soil and adversely affected weather patterns. No one could expect more than subsistence farming on the prairie, and yet the government led thousands to believe the they could make their fortune on just 160 acres. Fraser expands on this, pointing out that we've lived with the myth of the small farmer for much of the country's existence, but that it's not true. Small scale farming has never been able to feed our population and provide export income, and yet we repeat the myth, perhaps hoping that we can make it true.
This myth bloomed into both women's right-wing political views. Laura's were a bit softer but despite knowing that her sister Grace and her husband were struggling before the Depression, she never forgave them for accepting New Deal relief. You can almost understand how Laura came to her views, though, since years of hard work and struggle left her extremely frugal. Still, she overlooked the help she and Almanzo received from his parents or the low interest federal loans they took out. Rose's libertarianism (and she's considered one of the movement's founders), seems a bit more...personal? She could be generous on an individual level, informally (and mercurially) adopting young men and supporting them for years and providing friends with extravagant gifts. She also considered taxes to be theft and when her writing career (which included "fake news" biographies and novels taken heavily from her mother's life) floundered claimed that she'd stopped writing because taxes took too much of her income.
Prairie Fires bursts the myth built up around the Little House books, but it also fleshes out the story. Novelists need to leave out anything not necessary to the story, and even with Caroline Ingalls's emphasis on education there's not much room in the books for reading. Fraser shows that Charles Ingalls wasn't just a storyteller, but as avid of a reader as was possible on the frontier, and that Laura devoured lurid crime tales as an adolescent. It fleshes out DeSmet as a small but bustling town, one that could have grown into a twin of Gopher Prairie. And in the epilogue, it shows how the towns which so vehemently oppose government help rely upon it, even as they flounder.
I'm afraid that my review has done less justice to Prairie Fires than the emetically sweet and hilariously melodramatic TV series did to the Little House books. It's an amazing blend of joint biography and historical analysis that should not be missed.
Showing posts with label Laura Ingalls Wilder. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Laura Ingalls Wilder. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 4, 2018
Wednesday, August 22, 2018
Caroline: Little House, Revisited
I loved the Little House books as a kid (the TV show was another matter - it strayed too far from the script and was cloyingly maudlin so it became my first hate-watch show). I've re-read them a few times as an adult and while I now cringe at parts, I still enjoy them. Caroline: Little House, Revisited, as the title says, tells Little House on the Prairie from Caroline Ingalls's point of view. Laura backtracked when writing her novels (the family moved from Wisconsin to Kansas in 1870, and then back to Kansas a little over a year later), in part because she didn't plan Little House in the Big Woods as part of a series and in part because her publisher didn't trust a three-year-old protagonist.
Ma was always stoic in the Little House books; not exactly cheerful but considering gloom as improper as boisterousness. She was the anchor, the practical woman who anchored her wanderlust-stricken husband. She came from a stoic era, but she'd also spent much of her child in deep poverty after the death of her father. That colors the internal monologue that makes up most of Caroline. Where Charles always sees the possibilities of life, Caroline anticipates problems. And yet she follows him, joins in his dream, separating from family and a comfortable life to spend weeks tracking across the endless prairie with nothing to distract her (I can't even handle a half-hour car ride without a book; Caroline went months without reading materials) and to give birth nearly alone (Carrie was born in Kansas, and Mrs. Scott who lived 3 miles away acted as midwife). There's less action in Caroline than in the Little House books, but more fear because an adult can anticipate death (by drowning, due to malaria, or under the logs meant to build shelter). It's quieter and more reflective, and while good, perhaps not quite as memorable.
Ma was always stoic in the Little House books; not exactly cheerful but considering gloom as improper as boisterousness. She was the anchor, the practical woman who anchored her wanderlust-stricken husband. She came from a stoic era, but she'd also spent much of her child in deep poverty after the death of her father. That colors the internal monologue that makes up most of Caroline. Where Charles always sees the possibilities of life, Caroline anticipates problems. And yet she follows him, joins in his dream, separating from family and a comfortable life to spend weeks tracking across the endless prairie with nothing to distract her (I can't even handle a half-hour car ride without a book; Caroline went months without reading materials) and to give birth nearly alone (Carrie was born in Kansas, and Mrs. Scott who lived 3 miles away acted as midwife). There's less action in Caroline than in the Little House books, but more fear because an adult can anticipate death (by drowning, due to malaria, or under the logs meant to build shelter). It's quieter and more reflective, and while good, perhaps not quite as memorable.
Sunday, December 20, 2015
Pioneer Girl
I remember growing up and wondering why the Little House books were listed as fiction. After all, weren't they the author's multi-volume autobiography? Well, no, they're "inspired by a true story" with the messier parts of Wilder's youth downplayed (or outright omitted) for the juvenile audience. More than 80 years after the fictional Laura first appeared, Pioneer Girl gives us Wilder's original, adult-aimed memoir, with copious notes and a detailed introduction.
There's been some controversy over whether Wilder actually wrote the books under her name. Her daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, acted as her editor and was known as a ghostwriter as well as being a fiction author in her own right; Laura never graduated from high school. Pioneer Girl should quiet some of the naysayers. Laura had written regular newspaper columns for twenty years before beginning her memoir (many of these were collected in Little House in the Ozarks), and although it's less polished, many sections of Pioneer Girl track closely to their fictional counterparts. Hill also describes the editorial back-and-forth between mother and daughter, with Lane making suggestions based on her knowledge of the fiction market and Wilder often rejecting them - because they're not right for this particular story.
Since I've read the Little House books enough to have memorized long passages and have also read a few biographies of Wilder, not much of the story was new to me. What was different, though, was the tone. Wilder's juvenile version isn't particularly sentimental, but her real life was more chaotic and occasionally violent. Husbands drag their wives around by their hair, a drunken man accidentally sets his breath on fire and dies, and while working as a companion to a semi-invalid woman, teenage Laura finds herself in a situation that was most likely (she doesn't go into detail) an attempted rape. It's a far cry form the Little House books (and even further from the saccharine TV series).
Hill's notes provide historical context and help organize Wilder's occasionally out-of-order (or simply inaccurate) memories of her childhood. They also describe DeSmet as a booming railroad town. Wilder's last two volumes hint at the town's rapid growth, but for the sake of simplicity, she doesn't introduce many new characters. Hill provides brief biographies of Wilder's teachers and classmates, as well as describing the town's active social life. The Whirl of Gaiety described in Little Town on the Prairie wasn't a single winter but a brief illustration of an organized and long-running social scene. The town had a roller rink and frequent dances by the time Laura was a clothes-conscious teenager. Religious life (fairly central to the books) was more complex as well. Wilder portrayed the town as single-sect, but in addition to the Congregational church the Ingallses attended, there was a Baptist church and a Catholic church (where Mary Power taught Sunday school), and Rev. Brown, well, claim-jumped the DeSmet church (another minister had been authorized to start it). For me, Hill's notes were the highlight. They're about as long as the main text, so I read Wilder's work first (glancing at the notes if they seemed necessary to understand the narrative), and then read the notes.
There's been some controversy over whether Wilder actually wrote the books under her name. Her daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, acted as her editor and was known as a ghostwriter as well as being a fiction author in her own right; Laura never graduated from high school. Pioneer Girl should quiet some of the naysayers. Laura had written regular newspaper columns for twenty years before beginning her memoir (many of these were collected in Little House in the Ozarks), and although it's less polished, many sections of Pioneer Girl track closely to their fictional counterparts. Hill also describes the editorial back-and-forth between mother and daughter, with Lane making suggestions based on her knowledge of the fiction market and Wilder often rejecting them - because they're not right for this particular story.
Since I've read the Little House books enough to have memorized long passages and have also read a few biographies of Wilder, not much of the story was new to me. What was different, though, was the tone. Wilder's juvenile version isn't particularly sentimental, but her real life was more chaotic and occasionally violent. Husbands drag their wives around by their hair, a drunken man accidentally sets his breath on fire and dies, and while working as a companion to a semi-invalid woman, teenage Laura finds herself in a situation that was most likely (she doesn't go into detail) an attempted rape. It's a far cry form the Little House books (and even further from the saccharine TV series).
Hill's notes provide historical context and help organize Wilder's occasionally out-of-order (or simply inaccurate) memories of her childhood. They also describe DeSmet as a booming railroad town. Wilder's last two volumes hint at the town's rapid growth, but for the sake of simplicity, she doesn't introduce many new characters. Hill provides brief biographies of Wilder's teachers and classmates, as well as describing the town's active social life. The Whirl of Gaiety described in Little Town on the Prairie wasn't a single winter but a brief illustration of an organized and long-running social scene. The town had a roller rink and frequent dances by the time Laura was a clothes-conscious teenager. Religious life (fairly central to the books) was more complex as well. Wilder portrayed the town as single-sect, but in addition to the Congregational church the Ingallses attended, there was a Baptist church and a Catholic church (where Mary Power taught Sunday school), and Rev. Brown, well, claim-jumped the DeSmet church (another minister had been authorized to start it). For me, Hill's notes were the highlight. They're about as long as the main text, so I read Wilder's work first (glancing at the notes if they seemed necessary to understand the narrative), and then read the notes.
Thursday, May 7, 2015
The Others on the Prairie
How and why did Miss Bell come to live in DeSmet? I've read all of the Little House books too many times to count, but I never thought about Miss Bell before this week. How did a young, single woman end up as a dressmaker in 1883 Dakota Territory? How is such a tiny town even large enough to support a dressmaker?
Well, I can answer the last question. Although Laura Ingalls Wilder never describes the physical town after The Long Winter, she mentions how quickly DeSmet grows in both Little Town on the Prairie and These Happy Golden Years. The school expands from a dozen students to upper and lower schools (maybe 50-60 students in all), and someone had to live and work in those buildings Pa helped build every spring. We only meet those who are important to Laura's story, because extraneous characters could become confusing.
But I wonder about Miss Bell. Laura describes her as young, so she's not a spinster or childless widow trying to make a living. She's a businesswoman, though, so not as young as Laura, and there's no mention of her family. Is she the oldest child of a family that went west to stake their claim? Or did she strike out on her own, deciding that a depot town, even in a remote area, would attract enough residents to support a dressmaker?
As I ponder the question of Miss Bell, I wonder whom else we don't know in 1885 DeSmet. The school expands, but Florence Wilkins is the "big girl" joins Laura, Mary Power, Minnie Johnson, Ida Brown, and Nellie Oleson in the years spanning the last two books. I can believe that Laura, Minnie, and Mary were, at 13, the oldest girls in school during The Long Winter because the town was so small then, but did none of the new families send their 15-year-old daughters to school? We know there's a bank (Mary Powers's new beau works there), and a hotel (one of the first buildings in town), several stores, and two bars. There's a printer, so there must have been at least a basic newspaper.
I could answer these questions with a little research. A few hours on Google will bring me links to census data and personal histories. Do I really want to know, though? Or would I rather speculate on what would drive a young woman to start a dressmaking business in a frontier outpost.
Well, I can answer the last question. Although Laura Ingalls Wilder never describes the physical town after The Long Winter, she mentions how quickly DeSmet grows in both Little Town on the Prairie and These Happy Golden Years. The school expands from a dozen students to upper and lower schools (maybe 50-60 students in all), and someone had to live and work in those buildings Pa helped build every spring. We only meet those who are important to Laura's story, because extraneous characters could become confusing.
But I wonder about Miss Bell. Laura describes her as young, so she's not a spinster or childless widow trying to make a living. She's a businesswoman, though, so not as young as Laura, and there's no mention of her family. Is she the oldest child of a family that went west to stake their claim? Or did she strike out on her own, deciding that a depot town, even in a remote area, would attract enough residents to support a dressmaker?
As I ponder the question of Miss Bell, I wonder whom else we don't know in 1885 DeSmet. The school expands, but Florence Wilkins is the "big girl" joins Laura, Mary Power, Minnie Johnson, Ida Brown, and Nellie Oleson in the years spanning the last two books. I can believe that Laura, Minnie, and Mary were, at 13, the oldest girls in school during The Long Winter because the town was so small then, but did none of the new families send their 15-year-old daughters to school? We know there's a bank (Mary Powers's new beau works there), and a hotel (one of the first buildings in town), several stores, and two bars. There's a printer, so there must have been at least a basic newspaper.
I could answer these questions with a little research. A few hours on Google will bring me links to census data and personal histories. Do I really want to know, though? Or would I rather speculate on what would drive a young woman to start a dressmaking business in a frontier outpost.
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