Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Real Life Wasn’t As Lovely As “Little House On The Prairie” Made It Seem
Little House on The Prairie was first published in 1932 and quickly turned into an iconic children's book series. The first book in the series, Little House in the Big Woods (Little House on the Prairie is actually the third book in the series!), tells the story of the Ingalls family as they navigate life in rural Wisconsin. The Ingalls family is based on author Laura Ingalls Wilder's actually family, and the protagonist Laura is based on Laura Ingalls Wilder herself.
Readers of the books get to learn more about Laura's upbringing, from what duties she had on her family's farm to how she met her husband, Almanzo Wilder. But how much of what is in these books is true and how much is fiction? Was Laura Ingalls Wilder's life really as idyllic as the books made it seem? Keep reading to find out.
The Early Years
Laura Ingalls was born in Wisconsin on Feb. 7, 1867. She was born to Charles and Caroline Ingalls. Caroline was a schoolteacher and Charles became the town butcher and a justice of the peace. Caroline and Charles had five children in total: Mary Amelia, Laura, Carrie, Charles, and Grace. Unfortunately, Charles, the couple's only son, died in infancy.
The Ingalls family moved from Wisconsin in 1869 to settle in Indian territory. When they got to Kansas, where they thought they would be settling, they were informed that white settlers weren't allowed to take over Indian land in that region, and they promptly made the long trip back to Wisconsin.
The Basis Of The Novels
The time the Ingalls family spent in Wisconsin after they moved back from Kansas forms the basis of Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House novels. While in the novels, Laura's character lives in Wisconson from age four to age five and in Kansas from age six to age seven, in reality, Laura was actually younger in Kansas and older when she moved back to Wisconsin.
She changed her ages in the books because it seemed unrealistic for a three or four-year-old to have such vivid, specific memories of a place.
Laura Ingalls Wilder As A Young Teacher
Laura Ingalls Wilder began a career as a teacher when she was very young. She accepted her first teaching job 1882, two months before her 16th birthday. In the Little House novels, Laura receives her teaching certificate on Christmas Eve, but that was a detail added for dramatic effect.
Laura admitted that she didn't particularly enjoy teaching, but she felt pressure to help her family with their financial responsibilities. Laura attended high school while she taught primary school, but she didn't end up graduating from high school.
Laura And Almanzo's Marriage
Laura Ingalls became Laura Ingalls Wilder when she married Almanzo Wilder on August 25th, 1885. Almanzo was 28 years old at the time and Laura was 18. These two always had cute nicknames for each other. Laura called Almanzo "Manly" and Almanzo called laura "Bess" because he already had a sister named Laura and Laura Ingalls' middle name was Elizabeth.
On December 5th, 1886, Laura gave birth to the couple's first child— a daughter they named Rose.
A Family Tragedy
Laura and Almanzo didn't have a lot of money. It only added to their troubles that Almanzo, who was once a young and healthy man, contracted diphtheria, which is a bacterial infection that causes a sore throat, fever, and cough.
Eventually, Almanzo became partially paralyzed and he wasn't able to work as a wheat farmer anymore. Almanzo's health wasn't getting any better when Laura became pregnant with the couple's second child. Unfortunately, their son died just two weeks after he was born.
Team Work Makes The Dream Work
Almanzo's health continued to worsen, so Laura picked up some more work to help the family afford food and shelter. In October 1891, Laura and Almanzo moved to Florida with their daughter, Rose.
Larua thought that the sunshine would do Almanzo some good, and they had heard that the land in Florida was ripe for farming. They stayed in Florida for almost a year, but Laura soon realized that she didn't much care for the heat and humidity in the Sunshine State. The family went back to Wisconsin in August 1892.
Ain't No Rest For The Wilders
In 1894, Laura, Almanzo, and Rose moved yet again, but this time, they moved to Mansfield, Missouri. They bought a farm and grew apples, among other crops. Most of their income came from firewood.
It took a while for those apple trees to actually produce apples, so in the meantime, the couple got a helping hand from Almanzo's parents. After much strife and tragedy, Laura and Almanzo eventually owned a successful 200 farm. They sold fruit, poultry, and dairy to the local population.
Issues Of Race In The "Little House" Novels
The Little House books contain content related to settlers, race relations, American Indians, and other minorities. These books were written in the '30s and '40s, and the way they depict Native Americans is exactly what you might expect from a book written in the '30s and '40s. We've come a long way as a culture since then, and we've recognized the harm that settler culture has done to many Native communities.
In many of the books, Ingalls Wilder suggests that the land that her characters occupy was "uninhabited," which we now know it was not.
It's All About Context
In our modern context, Laura Ingalls Wilder's descriptions of Native Americans and other minorities don't sit so well. In 1998, an eight year old girl read Little House on the Prairie in her classroom and was quite disturbed by the line, "The only good Indian is a dead Indian."
This line was said by a minor character in the novel and it was not mean to be a reflection of what Ingalls Wilder or her character truly believed. Still, a line like that may not be suitable for an elementary school classroom nowadays— at least, not without a full explanation of the context of the line provided by an experienced teacher.
A Tainted Legacy
Because of the way certain minorities were depicted in her books, In 2018, Laura Ingalls Wilder's name was dropped from an American children's literature award. An award that was once known as the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award is now called the Children's Literacy Legacy Award.
The Association for Library Service to Children explained, "While we are committed to preserving access to Wilder's work for readers, we must also consider if her legacy today does justice to this particular award for lifetime achievement, given by an organization committed to all children."
Rose Became An Author Before Laura
Laura became an active member of her local community in Missouri. In 1911, she wrote an article for the Missouri Ruralist which piqued her interest in writing. In the mid-1920s, LAura became a regular columnist for the magazine. Around the same time, Laura's daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, also became a successful writer. She encouraged her mother to branch out from columns and start writing stories.
In May 1930, Laura wrote her first book, an autobiography for adult readers titled, Pioneer Girl. Rose edited the book and helped her mother promote it.
Laura Ingalls Wilder's Road To Success As An Author
During the stock market crash of 1929, the Wilders lost much of their savings. Laura decided to try to make some extra cash through writing. Thankfully, some children's book editors in New York were interested in Laura's stories. They thought that her work had promise in the field of children's literature, but some changes had to be made to make the books suitable for a younger audience.
With Rose's help and Laura's own determination, Laura was able to publish her first children's book. Rose and Laura had a strong relationship, and the two collaborated on writing projects a lot.
More About Rose Wilder Lane
After graduating high school, Rose Wilder traveled to the Golden State and started her career as a writer in San Francisco. In the 1930s, San Fransisco was a hub for art and culture (much like it is today). Many literary movements began in that creative and vibrant city.
Rose dabbled in socialism for a while, but after traveling to Europe and seeing the theory in practice, she decided that libertarianism was more up her alley.
A Rose By Any Other Name
Rose had a huge influence on her mother's writing career. Some people have even theorized that Rose was her mother's ghostwriter. Rose's strong political views may have also made their way into Laura's books. In 1935, Rose wrote:
"I am now a fundamentalist American; give me time and I will tell you why individualism, laissez faire and the slightly restrained anarchy of capitalism offer the best opportunities for the development of the human spirit. Also, I will tell you why the relative freedom of human spirit is better — and more productive, even in material ways — than the communist, Fascist, or any other rigidity organized for material ends."
Wilder Was Related To One Of The Salem "Witches"
One of Laura Ingalls Wilder's ancestors, Martha Ingalls Allen Carrier, got caught up some of the darkest moments of America's past. Martha was the granddaughter of Edmund Ingalls, who is believed to be the first member of the Ingalls family to have settled in America.
She was called "a rampant hag" by Cotton Mather a famous New England Puritan minister and Witch Trial leader. Martha was determined to be a witch, and as punishment, she was hanged at Gallows Hill during the Salem Witch Trials.
She Survived A Cloud Of Locusts
In the mid-1870s, Laura and her family experienced a plague of biblical proportions. A cloud of locusts, and by a cloud we mean 3.5 trillion locusts, ravaged the American south from Dakota to Texas. The insects caused 116 billion dollars worth of damage. Many people were facing starvations, including Laura's own family.
In 1902, the species of swarming grasshopper that caused all of that damage went extinct. Nobody has figured out why they just stopped existing all of a sudden.
The Truth And Untruth In Ingalls Wilder's Writing
Laura Ingalls Wilder once claimed that "every story" in her books was "true," but what is truth really? While the emotions Laura's character experiences in the novels may express Wilder's own truth, many of the events and characters in the novels have been altered or entirely fabricated.
For example, the story about her father being a member of a vigilante gang known as the "Bloody Benders" was totally made up. The Bloody Benders did exist, but Laura's father wasn't involved with them.
A Famous Relative And A Family Feud
Laura Ingalls Wilder was related to former President Franklin D. Roosevelt through her paternal great-grandmother, Margaret Delano Ingalls. Laura Ingalls Wilder actually didn't care for Roosevelt's politics at all. She was a vocal Democrat and, like many other rural farmers, she had a lot of problems with the New Deal. She also didn't care for FDR's wife, Eleanor Roosevelt.
Laura never knew that she and Roosevelt were distantly related. Biographers discovered they were connected after Laura died.
Ingalls Wilder's Books Were Used As Propaganda For WWII
If you've been paying attention to the dates in this article, you may have noticed that the Little House books were published around the same time that WWII started. After the whole series was finished, in 1943, General Douglas MacArthur's post-war occupation headquarters selected Ingalls Wilder's book The Long Winter as one of the first American books to be translated into Japanese.
Obviously, somebody saw something in these books that they thought would support the war effort, even if that wasn't what Laura intended.
Ingalls Wilder Never Knew Her "Adopted Grandson"
Laura Ingalls Wilder's daughter, Rose Wilder Lane never had any children of her own. She did, however, become quite close to a teenage boy who became her lawyer and literary agent. This boy's name was Roger Lea MacBride. Rose and Roger became so close, that rose left the entire Wilder estate to Roger when she died in 1968.
Roger got the rights to the Little House books and the rights to the television show based on the books. Roger actually ran for President in 1976 as a Libertarian. He got 0.2% of the popular vote.
Laura Never Owned A Television
Laura Ingalls Wilder actually got to see one filmed version of her novels. She watched The Long Winter, but she didn't like what she saw. She told a friend: "The children will read my books, and watch this movie, and they won't know which is right. My books are just like I lived them."
Well, maybe not "just like" she lived them, but they may have been closer to reality than the filmed versions. Laura never saw Michael Landon's adaptation of Little House on the Prairie. She never even owned a television set.
Laura Was Sculpted Out Of Butter
Laura Ingalls Wilder dedicated her life to representing rural living, so it only makes sense that a representation of her was made out of butter, a symbol of rural life. In honor of her 150th birthday, a butter sculpture of Laura Ingalls Wilder was unveiled at the dairy pantheon at the Iowa State Fair.
The sculpture of Laura was placed right next to the sculpture of the very popular Butter Cow. This sculpture was the perfect tribute for a woman who actually sang to her cows as she milked them.
The Land Of Big Red Apples
Remember how Laura and Almanzo decided to move to Missouri when times got tough? Well, Laura gave us some insight into what she was thinking at that time in her life. Laura saw an advertisement much like the one pictured above and said, "Then I understood that in my own life I represented a whole period of American History."
Laura and Almanzo, like many other Americans, saw an opportunity to carve out their own destiny in American soil.
A Legend's Legacy
Laura's books have been wildly successful. They've stated in print ever since the 1932 publication of Little House in the Big Woods, and they've been translated into 40 different languages.
Laura made good money from her writing and she was able to use her earnings to provide for her family. Laura's royalty cheques allowed the Wilders to keep their farm, even during hard times and low-yield years. Laura quickly amassed many loyal fans and she won a lot of literary awards for her work.
Even More Success
Laura's books became even more popular after they were reprinted in 1953 with new artwork from Garth Williams, the man behind the illustrations in Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little He and E.B. White had an excellent working relationship, and he was used to illustrating children's literature about farm life.
Laura said, "I have thought that I would spend what is left of my life living, not writing about it, but a story keeps stirring in my mind and if it pesters me enough I may have to write it down."
The Day That Laura Ingalls Wilder Died
In her later years, Laura spent her time at Rocky Ridge Farm with her husband, Almanzo. They kept a few farm animals, but they lived off of savings and Laura's book earnings. They spent most of their time gardening.
Sometimes fans of the books would drop by the farm to meet Laura. In 1949, Almanzo passed away. He was 92 years old at the time. Laura then lived alone until she passed away in her sleep eight years later in 1957. She died three days after her 90th birthday.
What Laura Left Behind
Before she died, Laura began working on a project that chronicled the difficulties she faced in the early years of her marriage to Almanzo. After Almanzo died, Laura had time to reflect on her life with him and what their marriage meant to her.
Laura never completed this final project. The unfinished manuscript was found with Rose's belongings after Rose died in 1968. The manuscript was published in 1971 as a book titled, The First Four Years.
A Lasting Mark On The World
"The children send me their pictures, Christmas cards and presents, valentines, birthday cards and gifts," Laura said. "I think I had letters from every state." Children all over the country could relate to Laura's stories about her own childhood. They saw themselves in her characters and they felt understood.
Now there are many libraries, reading rooms, elementary schools, awards, and honors named after the great Laura Ingalls Wilder. Clearly, this woman made an impact with her words.
The Stories Live On
In the 1970's Laura Ingalls Wilder's books got even more attention when a little TV show called Little House on the Prairie came out. It had been 40 years since the first Little House book was published when these stories got a chance to live a new life.
All of Laura's houses and favorite locations have become National Historic Landmarks. Tourists travel from near and far to see where this pioneer woman and beloved writer got the ideas for her famous novels.
She Has A Medal Named After Her
The best and most prestigious children's books in America win the famous Newbery Medal. Laura's books never received the medal, but she was a runner up for the award five times. She may have never won the Newbery, but she did get something better. In 1954, the American Library Association created a new lifetime achievement award for children's writers and illustrators. That award was named the Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal.
Laura was the first person to receive the award.
Posthumous Publications
In 1974, Harper & Row published West From Home: Letters of Laura Ingalls Wilder. This non-fiction scrapbook style publication features a collection of letters Laura sent to Almanzo in 1915. In 1915, Laura was in San Fransisco visiting Rose. She sent letters back to her husband about her adventures with Rose and her time at the World's Fair.
Many people consider this book to be a part of the Little House series, even though Laura never intended for the letters to be published.
Rose's Literary Career
We already know that Rose was a writer just like her mother, but we haven't discussed her publications in much detail. Rose and another author published books that had a huge influence on the modern Libertarian movement. Journalist John Chamberlain wrote about the impact of Rose's writing:
"If it had been left to pusillanimous males probably nothing much would have happened," he wrote. ... Indeed, it was three women — Paterson, Rose Wilder Lane, and Ayn Rand — who, with scornful side glances at the male business community, had decided to rekindle a faith in an older American philosophy."
The TV Series
The first episode of the NBC show Little House on the Prairie aired in 1974. It starred Michael Landon, Melissa Gilbert, and Karen Grassle. The show focused on a family living on a farm in Minnesota in the 1870s and 1880s.
Michael Landon, who played Charles Ingalls, also directed the show. He only agreed to direct the show if he was allowed to play Charles. The show ran for nine seasons and received rave reviews.
What The Other Little House Books Are About
Little House on the Prairie isn't the first book in the Little House series, but it became the most famous book because that's the book that the TV show was named after. In that novel, the Ingalls leave their cabin in the big woods and travel to Kansas Territory.
Farmer Boy, the second book in the series, tells the story of Almanzo's childhood before he met Laura. He lived on a farm in New York.
Sequels Upon Sequels Upon Sequels
In On the Banks of Plum Creek, the fourth book in the series, the Ingall family moves to a farm near Walnut Grove, Minnesota.
In the fifth book, By the Shores of Silver Lake, the Ingalls sell their farm in Minnesota and move to Dakota Territory. In The Long Winter, the sixth book in the series, the Ingalls deal with snow squalls, famine, and bitter cold. Each book expands on some of the major events in Laura's rural life.
The Rest Of The Books
In Little Town on the Prairie, the seventh book in the series, Laura becomes a school teacher. We see Laura take on more professional responsibilities so she can help her family out with their financial issues. Laura wants to make enough money to send her sister to a special school for blind children.
These Happy Golden Years, the eighth book in the series, focuses on Laura's teaching career and her relationship with Almanzo, the man who would become her husband.
The Tone Of Laura's Books
Laura Ingalls Wilder once said, "The spirit of the frontier was one of humor and cheerfulness no matter what happened. It shines through all the volumes of my children's novel." Laura may have had a rough childhood and a rough life, but through her books, we know that all in all, she saw her childhood as a happy one.
Even though these stories are technically fiction, they do teach us some fundamental truths— one of them being that positivity will get you everywhere.
Some Small Changes To Reality
We already know that these novels are technically fictional, so it makes sense that some of the details in the books have been altered or fabricated to make for a better story. Still, anything that was altered was something that Laura chose to alter. We can learn more about her through her actions than through her words.
Because of Laura Ingalls Wilder, we now have a better idea of what life was like in this country all those years ago.
What's Not True About Laura's Life
The themes that Laura discusses in her novels are the same themes that she wrestled with as a child. The characters in the novels all have the same names as people she knows. These books straddle a fine line between fiction and autobiography.
While many of the events in the novels were based on true events, those events didn't always play out as they did in the novels. Liberties were taken, but only so we can enjoy the books more.
Never Forget Where It All Started
In 1932, Laura Ingalls Wilder published her first book. The rest is history. Literally. Laura was 65 years old at the time, which should tell you something very important. It's never too late. if you have a story to tell, you should take this as your cue to tell that story to anybody who will listen to you.
Laura didn't let age, famine, drought, fatigue, or low morale hold her back. You're never too old to appreciate the simpler things in life.
