1 00:00:01,080 --> 00:00:04,080 Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from house 2 00:00:04,080 --> 00:00:14,200 Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. 3 00:00:14,240 --> 00:00:16,880 Speaker 1: I'm Tracy B. Wilson and I'm Holly Fry. They were 4 00:00:16,880 --> 00:00:19,640 Speaker 1: going to talk about a subject who has been requested 5 00:00:19,760 --> 00:00:24,120 Speaker 1: so many times that we have lost count yep popular 6 00:00:24,480 --> 00:00:28,880 Speaker 1: Yes for many people, especially for women and girls. Laura 7 00:00:29,040 --> 00:00:32,800 Speaker 1: Ingalls Wilder is the primary source of information about what 8 00:00:32,880 --> 00:00:36,000 Speaker 1: life was like for white people on the American frontier. 9 00:00:36,720 --> 00:00:39,840 Speaker 1: It all started, well, not completely started. There's a little 10 00:00:39,840 --> 00:00:42,120 Speaker 1: bit that came before this, but mostly what people are 11 00:00:42,159 --> 00:00:47,040 Speaker 1: familiar with is her semi autobiographical historical Little House novels. 12 00:00:47,760 --> 00:00:50,159 Speaker 1: Then a movie came out in nineteen seventy four, and 13 00:00:50,240 --> 00:00:52,919 Speaker 1: a TV show ran on NBC from the mid seventies 14 00:00:52,960 --> 00:00:55,400 Speaker 1: to the mid eighties. Then there were spinoffs and a 15 00:00:55,480 --> 00:00:58,720 Speaker 1: musical and a mini series. There was even a Little 16 00:00:58,760 --> 00:01:02,560 Speaker 1: House Reunion crew Who's in two thousand and eleven. That 17 00:01:02,600 --> 00:01:05,039 Speaker 1: sounds like fun. I know. I was always a big 18 00:01:05,080 --> 00:01:08,480 Speaker 1: Nellie fan, even though she was terrible, I loved her well. 19 00:01:08,520 --> 00:01:11,320 Speaker 1: In speaking of Nellie, she really did have a nemesis 20 00:01:11,640 --> 00:01:14,920 Speaker 1: named Nellie. Like Laura Angles Wilder really did grow up 21 00:01:14,920 --> 00:01:17,680 Speaker 1: in a little house, although to be more accurate, there 22 00:01:17,680 --> 00:01:21,320 Speaker 1: were a bunch of little houses. She really had a ma, 23 00:01:21,560 --> 00:01:25,000 Speaker 1: a paw and sisters named Mary, Carrie, and Grace. She 24 00:01:25,080 --> 00:01:27,440 Speaker 1: also had a brother named Charles Frederick who died when 25 00:01:27,480 --> 00:01:31,240 Speaker 1: he was a baby. Mary really went blind, uh. And 26 00:01:31,360 --> 00:01:34,760 Speaker 1: Laura really married Almonzo Wilder and called him manly, he 27 00:01:34,880 --> 00:01:38,679 Speaker 1: called her Bessie. And Laura really had a daughter named Rose, 28 00:01:38,920 --> 00:01:41,319 Speaker 1: and the three of them really did all lived together 29 00:01:41,400 --> 00:01:45,440 Speaker 1: at Rocky Ridge Farm. And people who have heard of 30 00:01:45,480 --> 00:01:48,960 Speaker 1: Laura angles Wilder probably conjure up an image of her 31 00:01:49,000 --> 00:01:51,520 Speaker 1: as a child or at the oldest a very young mother, 32 00:01:51,960 --> 00:01:54,880 Speaker 1: But of course she lived long after that and had 33 00:01:54,880 --> 00:01:57,480 Speaker 1: a whole life beyond that. Childhood on the prairie and 34 00:01:57,600 --> 00:02:01,280 Speaker 1: her young adulthood that were also intimately queinted with, and 35 00:02:01,360 --> 00:02:03,400 Speaker 1: her life when she was writing them was very, very 36 00:02:03,400 --> 00:02:06,080 Speaker 1: different from the life that they depict. So we're going 37 00:02:06,120 --> 00:02:09,200 Speaker 1: to talk about her early life, but a lot of 38 00:02:09,240 --> 00:02:12,799 Speaker 1: it's also her as a grown up novelist. Fans of 39 00:02:12,840 --> 00:02:16,760 Speaker 1: the series, either television or books, know the basics by heart. 40 00:02:17,440 --> 00:02:21,600 Speaker 1: Laura Elizabeth Engles was born in February seventh, eighteen sixty seven, 41 00:02:21,600 --> 00:02:25,239 Speaker 1: to Charles Philip and Caroline Choir Ingles. She was born 42 00:02:25,240 --> 00:02:28,079 Speaker 1: in Pepin, Wisconsin, in a log cabin that would later 43 00:02:28,120 --> 00:02:30,360 Speaker 1: become known as the Little House in the Big Woods, 44 00:02:30,880 --> 00:02:34,040 Speaker 1: and Laura and her family moved west from there through 45 00:02:34,080 --> 00:02:36,960 Speaker 1: what is now known as Kansas, then known as Indian Territory, 46 00:02:37,560 --> 00:02:40,800 Speaker 1: uh Minnesota, and South Dakota, which was called Dakota Territory 47 00:02:40,840 --> 00:02:43,919 Speaker 1: at the time. In eighteen seventy four, the family moved 48 00:02:43,960 --> 00:02:47,200 Speaker 1: to Walnut Grove, Minnesota, and they only lived there for 49 00:02:47,280 --> 00:02:50,760 Speaker 1: two years, with another brief stop in eighteen seventy and 50 00:02:50,800 --> 00:02:54,040 Speaker 1: seventy nine, but it became the primary setting for the 51 00:02:54,040 --> 00:02:57,720 Speaker 1: Little House TV show. The book by the same name, 52 00:02:57,720 --> 00:02:59,799 Speaker 1: on the other hand, actually took place in in the 53 00:03:00,000 --> 00:03:03,320 Speaker 1: in dense Kansas, probably because We'll not growve. It's such 54 00:03:03,320 --> 00:03:06,040 Speaker 1: an idyllic perfect name. It is an idyllic perfect name, 55 00:03:06,120 --> 00:03:08,200 Speaker 1: and that that There are some elements of the TV 56 00:03:08,240 --> 00:03:11,120 Speaker 1: show that come pretty much from reality. But the TV 57 00:03:11,200 --> 00:03:15,080 Speaker 1: show is definitely romances eyed in a lot of ways. 58 00:03:15,120 --> 00:03:17,639 Speaker 1: And so, as we said just a moment ago, they've 59 00:03:17,680 --> 00:03:20,840 Speaker 1: moved around a lot many more places than their Little 60 00:03:20,880 --> 00:03:24,560 Speaker 1: House books, which means they are actually seven historical sites 61 00:03:24,600 --> 00:03:27,120 Speaker 1: and museums that are associated with the Wilders that are 62 00:03:27,120 --> 00:03:30,959 Speaker 1: still standing today. So if you wanted to, you could 63 00:03:31,000 --> 00:03:33,720 Speaker 1: totally do a Laura Angles Wilder road trip all over 64 00:03:33,760 --> 00:03:37,080 Speaker 1: the Midwest. I bet people have shortly, there has to 65 00:03:37,120 --> 00:03:41,920 Speaker 1: be Finally, the Ingles family settled in Dismitt, South Dakota. 66 00:03:42,520 --> 00:03:45,160 Speaker 1: The last four books of the series are all set there. 67 00:03:45,720 --> 00:03:48,760 Speaker 1: They moved to Dismit because Charles had taken a job 68 00:03:48,800 --> 00:03:52,520 Speaker 1: for the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad. He was gonna mind 69 00:03:52,520 --> 00:03:56,320 Speaker 1: a store, keep the books and act as timekeeper and 70 00:03:56,440 --> 00:03:59,600 Speaker 1: and has meant. The Charles Ingles filed for a homestead 71 00:03:59,680 --> 00:04:02,600 Speaker 1: under the Homestead Act of eighteen sixty two, and so 72 00:04:02,720 --> 00:04:05,920 Speaker 1: did three members of another family, the Wilders. That was 73 00:04:05,960 --> 00:04:08,920 Speaker 1: al Monso Royal and Eliza Jane. So here's a quick 74 00:04:08,920 --> 00:04:11,839 Speaker 1: primer on the Homestead Act for people who are unfamiliar, 75 00:04:11,880 --> 00:04:15,680 Speaker 1: because there's a pretty important part of the history of 76 00:04:15,720 --> 00:04:19,960 Speaker 1: the American Frontier. Citizens and people who had filed their 77 00:04:19,960 --> 00:04:22,400 Speaker 1: intent to become citizens could get a hundred and sixty 78 00:04:22,480 --> 00:04:26,520 Speaker 1: acres of land that the government had acquired, either from 79 00:04:26,640 --> 00:04:31,320 Speaker 1: Native Americans or from other nations who had previously acquired 80 00:04:31,360 --> 00:04:35,159 Speaker 1: it from Native Americans. In exchange, the homesteaders had to 81 00:04:35,200 --> 00:04:37,640 Speaker 1: build a home on the land and cultivate it, working 82 00:04:37,640 --> 00:04:40,120 Speaker 1: it for five years. At the end of that period, 83 00:04:40,200 --> 00:04:42,400 Speaker 1: they had to prove that they had really done that 84 00:04:42,440 --> 00:04:47,839 Speaker 1: work with witnesses. One of Charles ingles witnesses was Royal Wilder, 85 00:04:48,680 --> 00:04:51,440 Speaker 1: and according to the book The Long Winter, Manly was 86 00:04:51,440 --> 00:04:54,479 Speaker 1: actually too young to file for his own homestead when 87 00:04:54,480 --> 00:04:56,599 Speaker 1: this all went down, But that doesn't mesh with the 88 00:04:56,680 --> 00:05:00,320 Speaker 1: historical record. His ages listed as twenty one when he 89 00:05:00,320 --> 00:05:02,760 Speaker 1: filed for the homestead and twenty six when he filed 90 00:05:02,760 --> 00:05:05,719 Speaker 1: his final proof, and all that matches with his age 91 00:05:05,760 --> 00:05:09,599 Speaker 1: as shown in census records. Most likely, the reason that 92 00:05:09,640 --> 00:05:13,400 Speaker 1: he's presented this way in the books isn't because the reality, 93 00:05:13,440 --> 00:05:15,920 Speaker 1: which is that Laura was fifteen and he was twenty 94 00:05:15,920 --> 00:05:19,080 Speaker 1: five when they started courting, would have really raised some 95 00:05:19,240 --> 00:05:23,359 Speaker 1: serious eyebrows in the thirties when she started writing the books. 96 00:05:23,360 --> 00:05:26,680 Speaker 1: But that age difference in Laura's age when they started, 97 00:05:26,960 --> 00:05:30,240 Speaker 1: you know, seriously, being with one another was really not 98 00:05:30,279 --> 00:05:34,960 Speaker 1: out of the ordinary at the time. Yeah, it's all context. Yes, 99 00:05:35,600 --> 00:05:38,960 Speaker 1: a string of failed homestead attempts had actually led the 100 00:05:38,960 --> 00:05:41,919 Speaker 1: Engles to finally settle into men, and at one point 101 00:05:42,080 --> 00:05:45,240 Speaker 1: Charles had actually illegally settled the family on O Sage 102 00:05:45,279 --> 00:05:48,760 Speaker 1: Indian land in Kansas, and lots of other people had 103 00:05:48,760 --> 00:05:51,000 Speaker 1: done the same thing, and they probably all thought that 104 00:05:51,000 --> 00:05:53,560 Speaker 1: the government would eventually remove the Indians and give them 105 00:05:53,560 --> 00:05:56,839 Speaker 1: the land, but it didn't quite turn out their way. Uh. 106 00:05:56,920 --> 00:05:59,680 Speaker 1: The family had also left at least one other homestead 107 00:05:59,720 --> 00:06:02,560 Speaker 1: before or their five year requirement had been meant. Right. 108 00:06:03,320 --> 00:06:06,640 Speaker 1: The Angles file for this land and this meant was 109 00:06:06,720 --> 00:06:08,440 Speaker 1: in the National Archives and you can look at it 110 00:06:08,480 --> 00:06:11,599 Speaker 1: online for free. You can also find the Angles family 111 00:06:11,680 --> 00:06:14,920 Speaker 1: in several census records from the time, also at the 112 00:06:15,000 --> 00:06:18,680 Speaker 1: National Archives. And while we think of this as very 113 00:06:18,760 --> 00:06:21,400 Speaker 1: romanticized stuff, there were lots of bad things to happen, 114 00:06:21,920 --> 00:06:24,440 Speaker 1: many many, many bad things when you read the Little 115 00:06:24,440 --> 00:06:28,560 Speaker 1: House Books. Uh, the books and the childhood that inspired 116 00:06:28,560 --> 00:06:31,600 Speaker 1: them can seem like this brutal series of terrible tragedies 117 00:06:31,640 --> 00:06:35,160 Speaker 1: and hardships. And here's kind of an overview. It all 118 00:06:35,160 --> 00:06:38,520 Speaker 1: starts with the general overall difficulty of farming and running 119 00:06:38,520 --> 00:06:41,720 Speaker 1: a homestead in a home that only has daughters. So 120 00:06:41,800 --> 00:06:44,039 Speaker 1: the girls did work, but a lot of their work 121 00:06:44,120 --> 00:06:46,000 Speaker 1: was inside the house. It was things like making beds 122 00:06:46,000 --> 00:06:48,599 Speaker 1: and cleaning and helping with the cooking. It wasn't really 123 00:06:48,640 --> 00:06:51,799 Speaker 1: socially appropriate for them to do the work that boys 124 00:06:51,839 --> 00:06:53,920 Speaker 1: would be doing, which was a lot of helping out 125 00:06:53,960 --> 00:06:56,720 Speaker 1: in the fields. Um, they could do some of that, 126 00:06:56,760 --> 00:06:58,680 Speaker 1: but really not as much as a boy would do, 127 00:06:59,320 --> 00:07:01,599 Speaker 1: so Charles to do a lot of it himself or 128 00:07:01,640 --> 00:07:04,520 Speaker 1: pay someone to help them. And there was very frequently 129 00:07:04,560 --> 00:07:07,800 Speaker 1: not enough money or not enough food or not enough 130 00:07:07,839 --> 00:07:10,160 Speaker 1: paying work for Charles to use to help the family 131 00:07:10,200 --> 00:07:13,600 Speaker 1: make ends meet. And they were also in various levels 132 00:07:13,640 --> 00:07:16,920 Speaker 1: of debt at any given time. Uh. As you mentioned, 133 00:07:16,960 --> 00:07:20,000 Speaker 1: it was expensive for him to keep these areas going 134 00:07:20,760 --> 00:07:25,240 Speaker 1: without the free help of male children, So you know, 135 00:07:25,320 --> 00:07:27,400 Speaker 1: there were always money it used to think about. Yeah. 136 00:07:27,440 --> 00:07:30,640 Speaker 1: They went on a number of long, arduous journeys, moving 137 00:07:30,680 --> 00:07:33,240 Speaker 1: from place to place, and sometimes this came with periods 138 00:07:33,240 --> 00:07:36,400 Speaker 1: of separation within the family, like at one point when 139 00:07:36,480 --> 00:07:39,400 Speaker 1: Pa had to go to Dakota Territory and Mary, who 140 00:07:39,440 --> 00:07:42,040 Speaker 1: had been very ill, was not yet well enough to travel. 141 00:07:42,960 --> 00:07:46,320 Speaker 1: And there were extremely tense relations between the family and 142 00:07:46,360 --> 00:07:49,920 Speaker 1: other families like them, uh and the Native Americans, and 143 00:07:49,960 --> 00:07:53,920 Speaker 1: those were justifiable tensions. But again that's another stressor that's 144 00:07:53,920 --> 00:07:56,760 Speaker 1: put on their life. Their life at the time that 145 00:07:56,920 --> 00:07:59,880 Speaker 1: they had some pretty big disasters including everyone getting malaria, 146 00:08:00,240 --> 00:08:03,880 Speaker 1: they're being a major drought, and a prairie fire, basically 147 00:08:03,920 --> 00:08:07,240 Speaker 1: every horrible thing you can think of. They got smacked 148 00:08:07,240 --> 00:08:10,640 Speaker 1: with the Panic of eighteen seventy three, which was a 149 00:08:10,640 --> 00:08:13,760 Speaker 1: major economic crisis that started after J. Cook and Company, 150 00:08:13,800 --> 00:08:17,680 Speaker 1: which was a major railroad investor, shut down, so that 151 00:08:17,720 --> 00:08:19,640 Speaker 1: had been employing a lot of people and then suddenly 152 00:08:20,000 --> 00:08:24,040 Speaker 1: not so much. Uh. They made through one of the 153 00:08:24,040 --> 00:08:28,840 Speaker 1: worst Midwest winters on record ever. Uh. Mary of course 154 00:08:28,920 --> 00:08:32,360 Speaker 1: went blind, which is depicted on the TV series as 155 00:08:32,360 --> 00:08:34,840 Speaker 1: well on the films. And after that she got very, 156 00:08:34,920 --> 00:08:38,440 Speaker 1: very sick. Yeah, a long illness. Yeah. There's some debate 157 00:08:38,480 --> 00:08:42,280 Speaker 1: about exactly what illness led to her losing her site. 158 00:08:42,320 --> 00:08:44,280 Speaker 1: It's kind of described in the books as a brain fever, 159 00:08:44,679 --> 00:08:48,360 Speaker 1: and there's talk about whether it was meningitis or encephalitis 160 00:08:48,400 --> 00:08:52,119 Speaker 1: or measles or what exactly really happened. So a prolonged 161 00:08:52,160 --> 00:08:55,400 Speaker 1: illness that persisted even after she had lost her saying, 162 00:08:56,840 --> 00:08:59,800 Speaker 1: as we said before, Laura's brother, baby Freddie, also died. 163 00:09:00,040 --> 00:09:02,720 Speaker 1: He was only nine months old, and while they were 164 00:09:02,720 --> 00:09:06,320 Speaker 1: in Walnut Grove. There was a devastating locust infestation in 165 00:09:06,400 --> 00:09:09,480 Speaker 1: eighteen seventy four, and this led Charles to work for 166 00:09:09,520 --> 00:09:11,680 Speaker 1: his neighbor just so he could afford to put in 167 00:09:11,679 --> 00:09:14,280 Speaker 1: a crop of his own the following year. And he 168 00:09:14,400 --> 00:09:16,880 Speaker 1: got the crop put in, and the locusts came back 169 00:09:16,920 --> 00:09:19,840 Speaker 1: and destroyed the entire wheat crop, and that happened again 170 00:09:19,880 --> 00:09:23,480 Speaker 1: the next year, so it's just impossible to recover from right. 171 00:09:24,200 --> 00:09:28,240 Speaker 1: The books are also often about work. There's homestead work 172 00:09:28,320 --> 00:09:30,960 Speaker 1: like cleaning and farming, taking care of animals, but there's 173 00:09:31,000 --> 00:09:34,880 Speaker 1: also work outside of their home. Laura and Mary worked 174 00:09:34,920 --> 00:09:38,120 Speaker 1: at the Master's Hotel in Burr Oak, Iowa, when Laura 175 00:09:38,200 --> 00:09:41,600 Speaker 1: was only nine years old. Their parents had become partners 176 00:09:41,600 --> 00:09:43,640 Speaker 1: and a hotel venor with friends of theirs who were 177 00:09:43,840 --> 00:09:47,360 Speaker 1: named the Steadman's. That is a thing that happened after 178 00:09:47,520 --> 00:09:52,320 Speaker 1: those many consecutive years of terrible locust infestations. Laura worked 179 00:09:52,320 --> 00:09:55,160 Speaker 1: at a hotel again in the summer of eighteen seventy eight, 180 00:09:55,400 --> 00:09:57,679 Speaker 1: and this was after her parents had gone back to farming, 181 00:09:58,040 --> 00:09:59,839 Speaker 1: but she wanted to try to bring in more money 182 00:09:59,840 --> 00:10:02,120 Speaker 1: for a family. She was only eleven at the time, 183 00:10:02,840 --> 00:10:05,079 Speaker 1: and in the summer of eighteen eighty one, she had 184 00:10:05,080 --> 00:10:08,440 Speaker 1: a job at a store making shirts for homesteaders, and 185 00:10:08,600 --> 00:10:10,400 Speaker 1: the money that she made there was to help send 186 00:10:10,400 --> 00:10:13,960 Speaker 1: her sister Mary to college. There was just a huge 187 00:10:14,000 --> 00:10:17,040 Speaker 1: focus about hard work and the hardships of poverty in 188 00:10:17,080 --> 00:10:19,800 Speaker 1: the books, and in addition to this being a reflection 189 00:10:20,000 --> 00:10:23,200 Speaker 1: of the reality that Laura Engles lived through as a child, 190 00:10:23,679 --> 00:10:25,880 Speaker 1: it also fits into the theme of when the book 191 00:10:25,960 --> 00:10:30,199 Speaker 1: started publishing, which is during the Great Depression, And of course, 192 00:10:30,240 --> 00:10:33,440 Speaker 1: when Laura was fifteen she became a teacher. She passed 193 00:10:33,480 --> 00:10:36,360 Speaker 1: her teaching exam in eighteen eighty two and she taught 194 00:10:36,360 --> 00:10:39,480 Speaker 1: for three years, and during that time, Manly was often 195 00:10:39,480 --> 00:10:41,600 Speaker 1: the one who drove her to and from the schoolhouse, 196 00:10:42,000 --> 00:10:44,560 Speaker 1: which was twelve miles away from where her family lived. 197 00:10:45,080 --> 00:10:48,439 Speaker 1: While he's depicted in the books as Laura's only suitor, 198 00:10:49,000 --> 00:10:51,560 Speaker 1: the real life Laura was actually courted by other men 199 00:10:51,960 --> 00:10:55,280 Speaker 1: before she and Almondo met. She had even been proposed 200 00:10:55,320 --> 00:10:57,400 Speaker 1: to when she was very young, in the sort of 201 00:10:57,600 --> 00:11:01,200 Speaker 1: when We grow up schoolyard kind away, which she broke 202 00:11:01,240 --> 00:11:05,960 Speaker 1: off almost immediately when that boy proved himself to be jealous. 203 00:11:06,080 --> 00:11:09,720 Speaker 1: When she played with other boys. In particular, one of 204 00:11:09,760 --> 00:11:12,880 Speaker 1: the people who courted her was Cap Garland, who at 205 00:11:13,000 --> 00:11:18,560 Speaker 1: various points she actually preferred to Almonzo. I know, Uh. 206 00:11:18,720 --> 00:11:21,600 Speaker 1: Laura was actually kind of cool to Manly at first, 207 00:11:22,080 --> 00:11:24,200 Speaker 1: saying that she had accepted the offer of a ride 208 00:11:24,800 --> 00:11:27,480 Speaker 1: just so she could be home. But eventually their rides 209 00:11:27,520 --> 00:11:30,360 Speaker 1: did evolve into a courtship and they were married, as 210 00:11:30,400 --> 00:11:33,840 Speaker 1: we all know, And that took place on August five, 211 00:11:34,240 --> 00:11:37,080 Speaker 1: and she was eighteen at the time, uh, and their daughter, 212 00:11:37,160 --> 00:11:41,000 Speaker 1: Rose was born the next winter. The hardships that Laura 213 00:11:41,080 --> 00:11:44,760 Speaker 1: wrote about in her childhood did not stop with their marriage. Unfortunately. 214 00:11:45,559 --> 00:11:48,440 Speaker 1: The year after Laura and Manly got married, their whole 215 00:11:48,520 --> 00:11:52,400 Speaker 1: crop was destroyed in a hailstorm. Rose was then born 216 00:11:52,440 --> 00:11:54,959 Speaker 1: in eighteen eighty six, and the next year their barn 217 00:11:55,040 --> 00:11:59,640 Speaker 1: burned down. Manly was partially paralyzed after a stroke that 218 00:11:59,679 --> 00:12:03,960 Speaker 1: followed it about of diphtheria in that fall. Their son 219 00:12:04,080 --> 00:12:06,440 Speaker 1: died when he was less than a month old, and 220 00:12:06,480 --> 00:12:10,559 Speaker 1: their house burned down not long afterwards, possibly because Rose, 221 00:12:10,640 --> 00:12:13,880 Speaker 1: who had been trying to help, started a fire while 222 00:12:13,960 --> 00:12:16,440 Speaker 1: trying to fuel the stove while Laura was in bed 223 00:12:16,520 --> 00:12:20,560 Speaker 1: recovering from the birth. That's just such a pile of 224 00:12:20,760 --> 00:12:23,600 Speaker 1: like stress. It just goes on and on and on 225 00:12:23,800 --> 00:12:26,120 Speaker 1: like that had a baby. You have to run now 226 00:12:26,160 --> 00:12:30,439 Speaker 1: from your burning down home. Uh. In eighteen ninety four, 227 00:12:30,920 --> 00:12:34,160 Speaker 1: Laura Manly and Rose settled in Mansfield, Missouri, on a 228 00:12:34,160 --> 00:12:36,760 Speaker 1: piece of property that they called Rocky Ridge Farm, which 229 00:12:36,800 --> 00:12:39,080 Speaker 1: is where she wrote the books. Uh. This is a 230 00:12:39,080 --> 00:12:42,439 Speaker 1: six d and fifty miles six week journey, so an 231 00:12:42,440 --> 00:12:46,200 Speaker 1: extremely arduous trek. They traveled along with some of their 232 00:12:46,200 --> 00:12:48,520 Speaker 1: families who had also decided to make a new start 233 00:12:48,520 --> 00:12:52,800 Speaker 1: in the Ozarks. They moved to Missouri with almost nothing. 234 00:12:53,480 --> 00:12:56,200 Speaker 1: In an interview, she said they had brought a bedspring, 235 00:12:56,360 --> 00:13:00,160 Speaker 1: a feather mattress, quilts, plots and pans, a skillet, a 236 00:13:00,200 --> 00:13:04,440 Speaker 1: coffee pot, a homemade cupboard, some hens, and a portable 237 00:13:04,440 --> 00:13:07,000 Speaker 1: writing desk that Manly had made. She also had a 238 00:13:07,000 --> 00:13:11,080 Speaker 1: pearl handled pen. In the writing desk was a hundred 239 00:13:11,080 --> 00:13:13,160 Speaker 1: dollar bill that when they had meant to use as 240 00:13:13,160 --> 00:13:15,320 Speaker 1: a down payment on a property, and they had saved 241 00:13:15,320 --> 00:13:19,000 Speaker 1: this up from Laura's sewing money. Laura also used this 242 00:13:19,080 --> 00:13:21,360 Speaker 1: pen to keep a diary of the journey, which was 243 00:13:21,360 --> 00:13:24,760 Speaker 1: written on a notepad from a Life Insurance Company in 244 00:13:24,880 --> 00:13:28,199 Speaker 1: nineteen sixty two, about five years after her death. This 245 00:13:28,280 --> 00:13:31,199 Speaker 1: diary was published as On the Way Home, The Diary 246 00:13:31,280 --> 00:13:33,960 Speaker 1: of a Trip from South Dakota to Mansfield, Missouri, in 247 00:13:34,000 --> 00:13:37,920 Speaker 1: eight This diary records the day to day events of 248 00:13:37,920 --> 00:13:41,120 Speaker 1: the trip, the site she saw, the families she met, 249 00:13:41,640 --> 00:13:43,920 Speaker 1: and her voice and her skill as a writer evolve 250 00:13:44,040 --> 00:13:46,920 Speaker 1: over the course of it. In the diary, she also 251 00:13:46,960 --> 00:13:50,320 Speaker 1: refined her skill at observation and description, which is something 252 00:13:50,360 --> 00:13:52,200 Speaker 1: that she might have started to build up in her 253 00:13:52,240 --> 00:13:55,640 Speaker 1: youth while describing the world to marry after she lost 254 00:13:55,640 --> 00:13:59,200 Speaker 1: her sight. The family arrived in Mansfield, where Laura and 255 00:13:59,200 --> 00:14:03,200 Speaker 1: Manly would live of the rest of their lives, on August, 256 00:14:04,000 --> 00:14:07,000 Speaker 1: and at that time fewer than five people were living 257 00:14:07,000 --> 00:14:10,760 Speaker 1: in Mansfield. They found a spot that they loved. There 258 00:14:10,840 --> 00:14:13,440 Speaker 1: was already a log cabin there and an orchard of 259 00:14:13,520 --> 00:14:17,640 Speaker 1: apple trees. There was also a spring and a school nearby, 260 00:14:17,920 --> 00:14:20,600 Speaker 1: but somehow the money had disappeared from the writing desk. 261 00:14:21,080 --> 00:14:23,520 Speaker 1: They wound up buying a different piece of property which 262 00:14:23,520 --> 00:14:26,200 Speaker 1: had a cabin but not as nice, and very little 263 00:14:26,240 --> 00:14:29,440 Speaker 1: of the land was already cleared. Only later did they 264 00:14:29,480 --> 00:14:31,880 Speaker 1: find the money which had been wedged in the writing 265 00:14:31,920 --> 00:14:38,040 Speaker 1: desk the whole time. Heartbreaking, so heartbreaking. Well, and Rose 266 00:14:38,160 --> 00:14:40,840 Speaker 1: wrote about her mother, because you know, Rose was old 267 00:14:40,920 --> 00:14:44,120 Speaker 1: enough to remember all this happening. When they got back 268 00:14:44,120 --> 00:14:45,840 Speaker 1: from looking at this property, she was saying that she 269 00:14:45,880 --> 00:14:49,040 Speaker 1: had never heard her mother talking so fast about this 270 00:14:49,080 --> 00:14:51,680 Speaker 1: beautiful place that they had found, and then they weren't 271 00:14:51,720 --> 00:14:54,880 Speaker 1: able to get it, and then later they found the money. Again. 272 00:14:56,680 --> 00:15:01,040 Speaker 1: It's just the universe kind of kicking yet. Uh. They 273 00:15:01,040 --> 00:15:03,280 Speaker 1: spent a year clearing the land that they did purchase, 274 00:15:03,440 --> 00:15:05,360 Speaker 1: getting rid of some of the rocks that they had 275 00:15:05,360 --> 00:15:08,080 Speaker 1: actually named it for, and living off of money that 276 00:15:08,160 --> 00:15:10,680 Speaker 1: came from Laura's hens and selling the timber that they 277 00:15:10,680 --> 00:15:13,360 Speaker 1: had cleared. They worked on making this a home of 278 00:15:13,400 --> 00:15:17,040 Speaker 1: their own and turning it into a profitable enterprise. In 279 00:15:18,240 --> 00:15:20,480 Speaker 1: they moved into town for a while after the death 280 00:15:20,520 --> 00:15:23,320 Speaker 1: of a friend whose business Manly bought to try to 281 00:15:23,360 --> 00:15:26,240 Speaker 1: make ends meet. At that point they took in borders 282 00:15:26,320 --> 00:15:29,560 Speaker 1: and Rose picked berries and helped churn butter, and they 283 00:15:29,560 --> 00:15:32,920 Speaker 1: really were still a frontier family. They were raising an 284 00:15:33,000 --> 00:15:35,720 Speaker 1: orchard and planting their food crops between the rows until 285 00:15:35,760 --> 00:15:38,320 Speaker 1: the trees were too big to allow for that, and 286 00:15:38,360 --> 00:15:41,400 Speaker 1: when that actually happened, they planted grass and clover instead 287 00:15:41,520 --> 00:15:43,560 Speaker 1: so they could use that land for a hay crop. 288 00:15:44,320 --> 00:15:46,960 Speaker 1: Laura also continued to raise hens, making money off of 289 00:15:47,000 --> 00:15:50,080 Speaker 1: their eggs, and they joined the local Methodist church, which 290 00:15:50,160 --> 00:15:52,480 Speaker 1: Laura and Manly remained members of for the remainder of 291 00:15:52,520 --> 00:15:54,600 Speaker 1: their lives. Yeah. One of the things we didn't really 292 00:15:54,600 --> 00:15:58,240 Speaker 1: mention about had like important themes in the book is 293 00:15:58,280 --> 00:16:00,200 Speaker 1: the theme of faith that runs all the way through 294 00:16:01,120 --> 00:16:05,160 Speaker 1: end um. Their first decade or so in Missouri was 295 00:16:05,200 --> 00:16:08,920 Speaker 1: a really pretty lean one. We don't know quite so 296 00:16:09,000 --> 00:16:11,600 Speaker 1: much about what Laura thought of it, but we do 297 00:16:11,760 --> 00:16:14,920 Speaker 1: know what Rose thought of it. She has letters and 298 00:16:14,960 --> 00:16:18,480 Speaker 1: diaries and things from this time. She described her childhood 299 00:16:18,520 --> 00:16:22,520 Speaker 1: as a deeply unhappy one and very very poor. But really, 300 00:16:22,720 --> 00:16:25,720 Speaker 1: the Wilders weren't any poorer than other families, and the 301 00:16:25,800 --> 00:16:29,840 Speaker 1: Ozarks really were at that time. It's possible that Rose 302 00:16:30,000 --> 00:16:32,760 Speaker 1: was picked on because she was shy and stubborn and 303 00:16:32,800 --> 00:16:35,440 Speaker 1: geared toward being kind of a bookworm, and not because 304 00:16:35,440 --> 00:16:39,200 Speaker 1: their family was poor like a frontier Litha Simpson and 305 00:16:39,480 --> 00:16:44,080 Speaker 1: the Yeah. Well uh. In nineteen o three, the Wilders 306 00:16:44,120 --> 00:16:46,760 Speaker 1: actually sent Rose to live with manly sister who was 307 00:16:46,840 --> 00:16:49,760 Speaker 1: named Eliza Jane who's also called e j. And she 308 00:16:49,840 --> 00:16:53,360 Speaker 1: lived in Crowley, Louisiana, and pretty much immediately after she 309 00:16:53,440 --> 00:16:56,360 Speaker 1: graduated from high school. The next year, Rose left for 310 00:16:56,440 --> 00:16:59,840 Speaker 1: Kansas City. She really clearly preferred city life to the frontier. 311 00:17:00,000 --> 00:17:02,520 Speaker 1: Stracy was just alluding to. Yeah, she didn't want to 312 00:17:02,520 --> 00:17:04,399 Speaker 1: be on the frontier at all, and she didn't quite 313 00:17:04,480 --> 00:17:07,840 Speaker 1: understand why her parents liked it like she. She couldn't 314 00:17:08,000 --> 00:17:12,520 Speaker 1: fathom what that was about. Once Rose had moved down 315 00:17:12,520 --> 00:17:15,600 Speaker 1: on her own, Laura and Manly turned their attention pretty 316 00:17:15,600 --> 00:17:18,119 Speaker 1: strongly to the farm. They improved it and built what 317 00:17:18,200 --> 00:17:21,439 Speaker 1: Laura thought of as her dream house. This house is 318 00:17:21,480 --> 00:17:25,560 Speaker 1: really tiny by today's standards. Neither Laura nor Manly were 319 00:17:25,600 --> 00:17:28,560 Speaker 1: tall people, and they had really built it exactly to 320 00:17:28,680 --> 00:17:32,360 Speaker 1: suit them, down to being scaled to how big they were. 321 00:17:32,720 --> 00:17:37,119 Speaker 1: It's pretty awesome. They finished this house in thirteen. Laura 322 00:17:37,200 --> 00:17:40,560 Speaker 1: also focused more on her writing during this time. In 323 00:17:41,000 --> 00:17:43,440 Speaker 1: en she published a column in the St. Louis Star 324 00:17:43,560 --> 00:17:47,760 Speaker 1: Farmer about her experience raising leg horn hens. She started 325 00:17:47,760 --> 00:17:52,680 Speaker 1: publishing columns and the Missouri Ruralists in nineteen eleven. Sometimes 326 00:17:52,720 --> 00:17:55,840 Speaker 1: she published as Mrs A. J. Wilder and sometimes just 327 00:17:55,880 --> 00:17:59,040 Speaker 1: as A. J. Wilder, with the gender neutrality of that 328 00:17:59,080 --> 00:18:03,399 Speaker 1: byline giving her some more publishing options and more credibility. 329 00:18:03,560 --> 00:18:06,280 Speaker 1: She especially published as A. J. Wilder when she was 330 00:18:06,280 --> 00:18:09,800 Speaker 1: writing about farming techniques. These were things that women did, 331 00:18:10,119 --> 00:18:13,080 Speaker 1: but women did not really write about them, and her 332 00:18:13,160 --> 00:18:16,560 Speaker 1: writing became so popular that The Missouri Ruralist published a 333 00:18:16,600 --> 00:18:20,199 Speaker 1: profile of her. She kept publishing there, although sometimes it 334 00:18:20,320 --> 00:18:24,000 Speaker 1: was kind of sporadically, from nineteen eleven to nineteen fifteen, 335 00:18:24,320 --> 00:18:26,840 Speaker 1: and she and Rose wrote letters to each other during 336 00:18:26,880 --> 00:18:29,480 Speaker 1: this time about everything from the craft of writing to 337 00:18:29,520 --> 00:18:32,919 Speaker 1: whether to get a typewriter. Rose herself was becoming a 338 00:18:32,920 --> 00:18:37,040 Speaker 1: writer too. Laura went to San Francisco to visit her 339 00:18:37,119 --> 00:18:40,080 Speaker 1: daughter in nineteen fifteen, and while she was there, they 340 00:18:40,080 --> 00:18:42,879 Speaker 1: outlined a story about the Ozarks for Laura to finish 341 00:18:42,920 --> 00:18:45,320 Speaker 1: writing when she got home again. I love this idea 342 00:18:45,359 --> 00:18:50,160 Speaker 1: of a mother daughter collaboration. Starting in nineteen fifteen, Laura 343 00:18:50,200 --> 00:18:53,959 Speaker 1: became a really regular contributor to The Missouri Ruralist, with 344 00:18:54,040 --> 00:18:57,000 Speaker 1: her byline appearing in the paper almost every week for 345 00:18:57,040 --> 00:19:01,040 Speaker 1: the next nine years. Her first publication a Nationale magazine 346 00:19:01,080 --> 00:19:03,600 Speaker 1: was in nineteen nineteen in McCalls, and it was an 347 00:19:03,600 --> 00:19:07,080 Speaker 1: assignment that she got thanks to Rose's influence. This was 348 00:19:07,119 --> 00:19:10,800 Speaker 1: also the first time her byline appeared as Laura Ingalls Wilder, 349 00:19:11,480 --> 00:19:13,760 Speaker 1: and it was also the first time that Rose heavily 350 00:19:13,920 --> 00:19:16,720 Speaker 1: edited her mother's work, something that would carry on as 351 00:19:16,760 --> 00:19:19,840 Speaker 1: Laura published in larger magazines and then later when she 352 00:19:19,880 --> 00:19:22,399 Speaker 1: wrote The Little House Books. Before we get onto talking 353 00:19:22,440 --> 00:19:24,919 Speaker 1: about those books, let's take a second and talk about 354 00:19:24,960 --> 00:19:29,080 Speaker 1: our sponsor, and now we will returned to the Little 355 00:19:29,119 --> 00:19:33,080 Speaker 1: House Books. Pioneer Life. Yes, Rose grew up to be 356 00:19:33,160 --> 00:19:36,439 Speaker 1: a reporter and writer, and as early as the nineteen 357 00:19:36,480 --> 00:19:39,440 Speaker 1: teen she was really encouraging her mom to write her 358 00:19:39,480 --> 00:19:45,000 Speaker 1: life's story. In nineteen four, Caroline Ingles, Laura's mother, passed 359 00:19:45,000 --> 00:19:47,760 Speaker 1: away and one of Laura's aunts asked her to write 360 00:19:47,760 --> 00:19:52,600 Speaker 1: down some stories about her mom's childhood. Then in Mary 361 00:19:52,680 --> 00:19:55,560 Speaker 1: died as well, and not long after that Laura started 362 00:19:55,560 --> 00:19:59,399 Speaker 1: writing her autobiography, Pioneer Girl. So there's some theories that 363 00:19:59,480 --> 00:20:02,640 Speaker 1: these loss in her life prompted her a little bit 364 00:20:02,680 --> 00:20:05,000 Speaker 1: on the road of writing down all of these memories. 365 00:20:05,600 --> 00:20:08,479 Speaker 1: But even with the help of Rose's literary agent, they 366 00:20:08,520 --> 00:20:11,560 Speaker 1: couldn't find a publisher for Pioneer Girl. The world of 367 00:20:11,600 --> 00:20:15,720 Speaker 1: autobiography was just not very popular just then. And that 368 00:20:15,800 --> 00:20:18,320 Speaker 1: same year. Though Rose had a modern house which was 369 00:20:18,359 --> 00:20:21,320 Speaker 1: known as Rock House, built for her parents, her over 370 00:20:21,320 --> 00:20:23,879 Speaker 1: writing career was actually a little shaky at that point, 371 00:20:24,359 --> 00:20:27,240 Speaker 1: so she moved back home. Her parents moved into the 372 00:20:27,320 --> 00:20:30,239 Speaker 1: Rock House and she moved into their old farmhouse, and 373 00:20:30,320 --> 00:20:32,840 Speaker 1: Rose and her mother worked extensively together for the next 374 00:20:32,840 --> 00:20:37,080 Speaker 1: several years. Their first project after Pioneer Girl was a 375 00:20:37,200 --> 00:20:39,840 Speaker 1: children's picture book that they called When Grandma Was a 376 00:20:39,880 --> 00:20:43,639 Speaker 1: Little Girl. It's a little bit unclear exactly whether Rose 377 00:20:43,720 --> 00:20:47,240 Speaker 1: adapted this from Pioneer Girl with or without her mom's 378 00:20:47,240 --> 00:20:50,640 Speaker 1: knowledge or help, but it immediately got more attention than 379 00:20:50,680 --> 00:20:54,600 Speaker 1: Pioneer Girl had. Maryan fiery it. Alfred A Not saw 380 00:20:54,680 --> 00:20:58,600 Speaker 1: this and asked Laura to revise the book. She wanted 381 00:20:58,680 --> 00:21:01,239 Speaker 1: to add in more length than more to tail, and 382 00:21:01,320 --> 00:21:04,280 Speaker 1: with input from both Rose and Mary, and Laura gradually 383 00:21:04,400 --> 00:21:08,200 Speaker 1: rewrote the book, changing the audience from a picture book 384 00:21:08,240 --> 00:21:11,040 Speaker 1: age to more like eight to ten year olds. She 385 00:21:11,160 --> 00:21:14,200 Speaker 1: also changed the narration from first person to third person, 386 00:21:14,280 --> 00:21:18,400 Speaker 1: because third person novels sold better. The revision of When 387 00:21:18,440 --> 00:21:21,080 Speaker 1: Grandma was a little Girl became Little House in the 388 00:21:21,119 --> 00:21:24,280 Speaker 1: Big Woods, and Laura was actually offered a three book 389 00:21:24,280 --> 00:21:27,280 Speaker 1: contract with NOT, but she didn't sign it right away. 390 00:21:27,400 --> 00:21:30,159 Speaker 1: She and Rose sent it to Rose's literary agent, a 391 00:21:30,160 --> 00:21:32,919 Speaker 1: man named George By, to look at it first, and 392 00:21:33,000 --> 00:21:37,160 Speaker 1: during the interim, NOT decided to disband its children's book department, 393 00:21:37,240 --> 00:21:39,960 Speaker 1: which meant that Mary and Fiery would no longer work there. 394 00:21:40,600 --> 00:21:43,280 Speaker 1: But Marian was so attached to the book that she 395 00:21:43,400 --> 00:21:45,679 Speaker 1: actually advised Laura and Rose to try to sell it 396 00:21:45,720 --> 00:21:49,399 Speaker 1: to another publisher instead, just so that it wouldn't be abandoned. 397 00:21:49,760 --> 00:21:52,960 Speaker 1: This idea number one. It's kind of shocking that she was, like, 398 00:21:53,000 --> 00:21:55,480 Speaker 1: my publishers and I gotta do anything with this, Let's 399 00:21:55,520 --> 00:21:58,920 Speaker 1: find you another one. Uh. But that idea worried both 400 00:21:59,040 --> 00:22:01,480 Speaker 1: Laura and Rose. They were afraid that they wouldn't be 401 00:22:01,520 --> 00:22:04,679 Speaker 1: able to find another publisher, and when Rose expressed this 402 00:22:04,840 --> 00:22:09,000 Speaker 1: fear to Marian, Marian went directly to Virginia Kirkis at 403 00:22:09,040 --> 00:22:12,400 Speaker 1: what was then Harper and Brothers. Virginia loved this book 404 00:22:12,480 --> 00:22:14,560 Speaker 1: upon reading it, and in the end it was Harper 405 00:22:14,600 --> 00:22:17,560 Speaker 1: that published Little House in the Big Woods in two 406 00:22:18,359 --> 00:22:20,919 Speaker 1: The next book that Laura wrote was Farmer Boy, and 407 00:22:20,960 --> 00:22:24,600 Speaker 1: that was about Manly's young life, although Harper rejected it, 408 00:22:25,200 --> 00:22:27,760 Speaker 1: and at about the same time the Saturday Evening Post 409 00:22:27,800 --> 00:22:31,960 Speaker 1: accepted Rose's piece Let the Hurricane Roar, to be published 410 00:22:31,960 --> 00:22:34,960 Speaker 1: as a serial. But this was a problem because it 411 00:22:35,040 --> 00:22:38,040 Speaker 1: actually had a lot in common with Laura's earlier autobiography, 412 00:22:38,040 --> 00:22:40,960 Speaker 1: Pioneer Girl, and that was right down to the characters 413 00:22:41,000 --> 00:22:44,520 Speaker 1: being named Charles and Caroline. Was caused a huge rift 414 00:22:44,640 --> 00:22:48,199 Speaker 1: between mother and daughter. Rose actually left the farm for 415 00:22:48,240 --> 00:22:52,040 Speaker 1: a while, and when she came back in ninety three, though, 416 00:22:52,320 --> 00:22:55,080 Speaker 1: the two of them got back to work together again, 417 00:22:55,160 --> 00:22:58,919 Speaker 1: revising Farmer Boy, which was published the same year, and 418 00:22:59,040 --> 00:23:01,600 Speaker 1: Farmer Boy in Little House in the Big Woods started 419 00:23:01,640 --> 00:23:04,600 Speaker 1: out selling other children's books, and this allowed them to 420 00:23:04,680 --> 00:23:07,720 Speaker 1: negotiate a better contract for their next book, which was 421 00:23:07,760 --> 00:23:10,560 Speaker 1: called Little House on the Prairie. It had originally been 422 00:23:10,560 --> 00:23:15,399 Speaker 1: titled Indian Country, and it came out in Nive is 423 00:23:15,440 --> 00:23:19,160 Speaker 1: also the year that Rose finally left Rocky Creek Farm 424 00:23:19,240 --> 00:23:22,600 Speaker 1: to strike out on her own again, uh for good, 425 00:23:22,800 --> 00:23:25,480 Speaker 1: rather than the brief departure she had made after her 426 00:23:25,560 --> 00:23:29,000 Speaker 1: publication of Let the Hurricane Roar. As soon As she left, 427 00:23:29,000 --> 00:23:31,600 Speaker 1: her parents moved back into their farmhouse, and they eventually 428 00:23:31,640 --> 00:23:33,520 Speaker 1: sold the rock house that she had built for them. 429 00:23:33,560 --> 00:23:36,680 Speaker 1: It had really never been to their tastes. I kind 430 00:23:36,680 --> 00:23:40,320 Speaker 1: of think that they moved into it just to be polite. Um, 431 00:23:40,359 --> 00:23:42,880 Speaker 1: but their farmhouse really suited them perfectly, and that's where 432 00:23:42,880 --> 00:23:45,400 Speaker 1: they wanted to live. That's always a big question mark 433 00:23:45,440 --> 00:23:48,280 Speaker 1: for me in the story, Like I can't imagine just 434 00:23:48,320 --> 00:23:50,280 Speaker 1: being like I'm building you a house to my dad, 435 00:23:50,359 --> 00:23:52,879 Speaker 1: for example. Yeah, who would be like, Oh, that's my 436 00:23:53,119 --> 00:23:56,400 Speaker 1: dumb kid, what are you doing? Like that's a big 437 00:23:56,440 --> 00:23:59,359 Speaker 1: thing to go through and just everybody being polite about 438 00:23:59,359 --> 00:24:03,480 Speaker 1: it when it's not what everything. But Rose carried on 439 00:24:03,720 --> 00:24:08,240 Speaker 1: editing her mother's books through letters, and Laura sometimes pushed 440 00:24:08,280 --> 00:24:10,840 Speaker 1: back very hard on changes that Rose had advised that 441 00:24:10,880 --> 00:24:13,760 Speaker 1: she felt didn't make sense. Rose was really good at 442 00:24:13,760 --> 00:24:16,800 Speaker 1: finding places that needed additional detail and the sort of 443 00:24:16,840 --> 00:24:20,000 Speaker 1: basic writing criticism that most people would learn, for example, 444 00:24:20,000 --> 00:24:22,520 Speaker 1: in a writing one on one class in college, But 445 00:24:22,640 --> 00:24:25,919 Speaker 1: sometimes her own very different experience of growing up in 446 00:24:25,920 --> 00:24:29,600 Speaker 1: the Ozarks didn't really match her mother's life elsewhere, so 447 00:24:29,640 --> 00:24:32,360 Speaker 1: they kind of had a different point of view issue. Yeah, well, 448 00:24:32,400 --> 00:24:36,440 Speaker 1: and as as Laura got more and more experience under 449 00:24:36,440 --> 00:24:39,639 Speaker 1: her belt, she did take a stronger stand against some 450 00:24:39,720 --> 00:24:43,200 Speaker 1: of her daughter's suggestions as that as time went on. 451 00:24:43,920 --> 00:24:45,600 Speaker 1: The next book that came out was On the Banks 452 00:24:45,600 --> 00:24:48,680 Speaker 1: of Plum Creek in seven, and Laura won a new 453 00:24:48,680 --> 00:24:52,439 Speaker 1: Marry Honor for it in eight. Then came By the 454 00:24:52,480 --> 00:24:55,040 Speaker 1: Shores of Stilver Lake in nineteen thirty nine, and the 455 00:24:55,040 --> 00:24:56,679 Speaker 1: rest of the books came out at a rate of 456 00:24:56,760 --> 00:24:59,920 Speaker 1: one per year after that. That was The Long Winter, 457 00:25:00,440 --> 00:25:03,159 Speaker 1: Little Town on the Prairie, and these Happy Golden Years. 458 00:25:03,600 --> 00:25:07,840 Speaker 1: All of them got Newberry honors as well. And once 459 00:25:07,840 --> 00:25:11,480 Speaker 1: she had wrapped up, uh, all of those books, she 460 00:25:11,560 --> 00:25:15,040 Speaker 1: really felt like her children's book series was completed and done. Yeah, 461 00:25:15,119 --> 00:25:18,119 Speaker 1: there are other books by her. One is called The 462 00:25:18,160 --> 00:25:21,080 Speaker 1: First Four Years, and that came out in nineteen seventy one. 463 00:25:21,760 --> 00:25:24,960 Speaker 1: Uh that was after her death. Rose had inherited her 464 00:25:24,960 --> 00:25:28,160 Speaker 1: mother's papers, and then upon her own death everything had 465 00:25:28,200 --> 00:25:32,479 Speaker 1: gone to Roger Lee McBride, who found the manuscript and 466 00:25:32,520 --> 00:25:36,120 Speaker 1: published it. A collection of letters called West from Home 467 00:25:36,240 --> 00:25:39,560 Speaker 1: also came out in nineteen seventy four. And these books 468 00:25:39,600 --> 00:25:42,399 Speaker 1: are historical, but it's important to remember that they're also 469 00:25:42,480 --> 00:25:47,080 Speaker 1: highly crafted novels. Laura is always learning about family, community 470 00:25:47,080 --> 00:25:49,960 Speaker 1: and values, about how to treat other people, and the 471 00:25:50,040 --> 00:25:52,760 Speaker 1: value of things like hard work and education, and the 472 00:25:52,800 --> 00:25:55,760 Speaker 1: descriptions of Laura's life and her observations of other people 473 00:25:56,160 --> 00:25:58,520 Speaker 1: are often framed in a way that is intended to 474 00:25:58,560 --> 00:26:02,000 Speaker 1: reveal things about human nick. Sure, it's also clear that 475 00:26:02,080 --> 00:26:05,560 Speaker 1: Laura took liberties with the actual facts sometimes to make 476 00:26:05,600 --> 00:26:09,120 Speaker 1: a better story. And a speech at the Detroit Bookfair 477 00:26:09,160 --> 00:26:12,399 Speaker 1: in ninety seven she said, all I have told is true, 478 00:26:12,760 --> 00:26:15,399 Speaker 1: but it is not the whole truth. I love that. 479 00:26:16,119 --> 00:26:18,879 Speaker 1: There's a lot of discussion about the difference between facts 480 00:26:18,880 --> 00:26:21,880 Speaker 1: and truth and uh, and the idea that that Laura's 481 00:26:21,920 --> 00:26:26,000 Speaker 1: books are truth but not fact uh. And there's a 482 00:26:26,040 --> 00:26:29,200 Speaker 1: lot of debate about just what role Rose actually played 483 00:26:29,200 --> 00:26:32,240 Speaker 1: in the writing of these books. Rose wrote a lot 484 00:26:32,280 --> 00:26:35,600 Speaker 1: of other material besides the Frontier related cereals that she 485 00:26:35,640 --> 00:26:38,560 Speaker 1: published while her mother was working on the Little House books, 486 00:26:38,640 --> 00:26:42,399 Speaker 1: and some were celebrity biographies, some were ghost written autobiographies 487 00:26:42,440 --> 00:26:45,280 Speaker 1: about people like Henry Ford or Herbert Herbert Hoover or 488 00:26:45,359 --> 00:26:48,959 Speaker 1: Charlie Chaplin. And she also wrote travelogs and fiction, and 489 00:26:49,000 --> 00:26:53,000 Speaker 1: she was a magazine writer, so it's unclear how much 490 00:26:53,119 --> 00:26:57,320 Speaker 1: is her influence versus her mother's writing. We definitely know 491 00:26:57,520 --> 00:27:02,640 Speaker 1: for sure that Rose was editing Laura's work, but writers 492 00:27:02,680 --> 00:27:05,960 Speaker 1: who have compared Laura's early drafts to the finished product 493 00:27:06,000 --> 00:27:08,640 Speaker 1: have come up with wildly different conclusions about just how 494 00:27:08,720 --> 00:27:11,960 Speaker 1: much credit Rose should get and the ghost in the 495 00:27:12,040 --> 00:27:15,080 Speaker 1: Little House, William Holtz suggests that Rose had a much 496 00:27:15,160 --> 00:27:18,320 Speaker 1: much bigger role in the books than anyone has previously thought, 497 00:27:18,720 --> 00:27:21,840 Speaker 1: that she really should be considered a ghostwriter writing under 498 00:27:21,880 --> 00:27:25,359 Speaker 1: her mom's byline, or at least a really heavy contributor 499 00:27:25,400 --> 00:27:28,480 Speaker 1: to the books rather than just an editor. In Becoming 500 00:27:28,520 --> 00:27:31,720 Speaker 1: Laura Ingalls Wilder by John E. Miller, on the other hand, 501 00:27:32,080 --> 00:27:34,080 Speaker 1: the author makes a case for Laura having had the 502 00:27:34,119 --> 00:27:36,399 Speaker 1: skill to really do all of this work herself from 503 00:27:36,440 --> 00:27:38,920 Speaker 1: the start uh and that her daughter was a part 504 00:27:38,960 --> 00:27:41,840 Speaker 1: of it, but really not the whole and not deserving 505 00:27:41,840 --> 00:27:45,480 Speaker 1: of the same level of credit that William Holtz suggests. 506 00:27:46,400 --> 00:27:50,119 Speaker 1: Laura and Manly sold Rocky Ridge Farm in night, and 507 00:27:50,160 --> 00:27:53,520 Speaker 1: they kept just their home in the land immediately around it. 508 00:27:54,240 --> 00:27:56,879 Speaker 1: Manly died about a year later following a heart attack. 509 00:27:57,640 --> 00:28:01,280 Speaker 1: Laura's own health had started to decline too long after that. 510 00:28:01,760 --> 00:28:03,720 Speaker 1: She died at home at the age of ninety on 511 00:28:03,800 --> 00:28:07,720 Speaker 1: February ten of ninety seven. Rose was at the farm 512 00:28:07,800 --> 00:28:11,480 Speaker 1: that day. Laura had outlived mo Pa, Mary, Carrie, and 513 00:28:11,520 --> 00:28:16,080 Speaker 1: Grace and her husband. Because life is cruel, so cruel 514 00:28:16,880 --> 00:28:21,320 Speaker 1: throughout the whole books, but everyone generally keeps their chin 515 00:28:21,480 --> 00:28:23,920 Speaker 1: up and then they soldier on. They keep working hard, 516 00:28:24,160 --> 00:28:27,720 Speaker 1: keep having faith. That is kind of the it's a 517 00:28:27,760 --> 00:28:30,800 Speaker 1: good life lesson. There are lots of good life lessons 518 00:28:30,840 --> 00:28:33,600 Speaker 1: in the really good life lessons like At this point, 519 00:28:33,680 --> 00:28:37,720 Speaker 1: children's literature had moved away somewhat from sort of and 520 00:28:37,880 --> 00:28:41,920 Speaker 1: the moral of this story is that they are definitely 521 00:28:42,000 --> 00:28:44,440 Speaker 1: morals to a lot of the stories that are in 522 00:28:44,480 --> 00:28:48,880 Speaker 1: these particular books. In the early nineteen fifties, the books 523 00:28:48,880 --> 00:28:51,720 Speaker 1: did start to draw some criticism about their depictions of 524 00:28:51,800 --> 00:28:55,960 Speaker 1: Native Americans. For example, a portion of the original text 525 00:28:56,000 --> 00:28:58,480 Speaker 1: of The House on the Prairie red there the wild 526 00:28:58,520 --> 00:29:00,959 Speaker 1: animals wandered and fed as though they were in a 527 00:29:01,000 --> 00:29:03,920 Speaker 1: pasture that stretched much farther than a man could see, 528 00:29:04,320 --> 00:29:09,840 Speaker 1: and there were no people. Only Indians lived there. It 529 00:29:10,080 --> 00:29:14,720 Speaker 1: took from until the fifties up for someone to bring 530 00:29:14,800 --> 00:29:18,760 Speaker 1: up that that is a pretty offensive statement. Um. And 531 00:29:18,800 --> 00:29:20,560 Speaker 1: it was one of those things where when the people 532 00:29:21,000 --> 00:29:23,880 Speaker 1: who received this letter got it, they kind of went whole, 533 00:29:24,520 --> 00:29:29,440 Speaker 1: that's terrible, awful. Uh. And you know, these books are 534 00:29:29,440 --> 00:29:31,760 Speaker 1: a product of their time and being written is also 535 00:29:31,800 --> 00:29:33,440 Speaker 1: a product of the time when they were written in, 536 00:29:33,480 --> 00:29:35,760 Speaker 1: which was a much different time than the fifties and 537 00:29:35,800 --> 00:29:40,239 Speaker 1: a deeply different time then now. Um, that line was 538 00:29:40,360 --> 00:29:42,640 Speaker 1: changed in the next edition of the books to say 539 00:29:42,800 --> 00:29:45,160 Speaker 1: and there were no settlers rather than and there were 540 00:29:45,200 --> 00:29:48,120 Speaker 1: no people. And the treatment of Native Americans in the 541 00:29:48,160 --> 00:29:52,840 Speaker 1: books continues to be controversial today. There are times when 542 00:29:53,080 --> 00:29:56,320 Speaker 1: the it seems as though Native Americans are written about 543 00:29:56,600 --> 00:29:59,840 Speaker 1: with both sympathy and empathy, but then also times when 544 00:29:59,840 --> 00:30:04,360 Speaker 1: the depictions are pretty stereotypical and they are not considered people. 545 00:30:04,880 --> 00:30:09,480 Speaker 1: That too problem And then and the very the entirety 546 00:30:09,480 --> 00:30:11,720 Speaker 1: of the books, like the fact that the American Frontier 547 00:30:12,280 --> 00:30:16,520 Speaker 1: was people settling land on which there had previously been people, 548 00:30:16,920 --> 00:30:20,760 Speaker 1: many of whom had been forcibly removed, is pretty problematic. 549 00:30:21,360 --> 00:30:23,640 Speaker 1: My own personal feeling about this is that it's a 550 00:30:23,800 --> 00:30:27,280 Speaker 1: It's an important part of history to learn about and 551 00:30:27,320 --> 00:30:29,040 Speaker 1: the best thing to do is to read these books 552 00:30:29,080 --> 00:30:32,680 Speaker 1: and then talk about them, especially if children are interested 553 00:30:32,800 --> 00:30:36,400 Speaker 1: in them, rather than kind of saying, no, we're not 554 00:30:36,440 --> 00:30:39,000 Speaker 1: going to read this because it's offensive today while they're 555 00:30:39,040 --> 00:30:41,360 Speaker 1: altering it so that that's not the case. And it 556 00:30:41,960 --> 00:30:44,880 Speaker 1: is an important element of the times, and especially you 557 00:30:44,920 --> 00:30:47,760 Speaker 1: know the portion where we were talking about earlier where 558 00:30:47,840 --> 00:30:52,760 Speaker 1: Charles tried to settle an area and assumed that eventually 559 00:30:53,240 --> 00:30:55,280 Speaker 1: the Native Americans that were there would just be pushed 560 00:30:55,280 --> 00:30:57,840 Speaker 1: out and they would get the land. Yeah, those are 561 00:30:57,880 --> 00:31:00,680 Speaker 1: important issues to discuss and kind of the development of 562 00:31:01,320 --> 00:31:04,480 Speaker 1: our treatment of Native Americans. Yeah. Well, and that had 563 00:31:04,480 --> 00:31:09,040 Speaker 1: a multifaceted issue too, because a railroad speculator also was 564 00:31:09,080 --> 00:31:11,000 Speaker 1: involved in it, and it was it became this question 565 00:31:11,040 --> 00:31:12,960 Speaker 1: of if the railroad wants to land, it's going to 566 00:31:13,080 --> 00:31:17,400 Speaker 1: cost more. There are a lot of issues that I 567 00:31:17,480 --> 00:31:21,400 Speaker 1: think are are important and how America developed, how the 568 00:31:21,480 --> 00:31:24,680 Speaker 1: United States developed as a nation, uh, which I think 569 00:31:24,720 --> 00:31:29,720 Speaker 1: are better read and discussed then the ignored or overlooked. 570 00:31:30,360 --> 00:31:33,560 Speaker 1: And that is my feeling on that. I believe I 571 00:31:33,600 --> 00:31:36,320 Speaker 1: have some listener mail. Would you share it with us, 572 00:31:36,960 --> 00:31:41,680 Speaker 1: just treat it quietly to yourself. I actually have two 573 00:31:41,680 --> 00:31:45,760 Speaker 1: pieces of mail about our episode about small Box. The 574 00:31:45,800 --> 00:31:47,719 Speaker 1: first one is a correction, and we got this from 575 00:31:47,760 --> 00:31:51,800 Speaker 1: a couple of people, and this particular version of the 576 00:31:51,840 --> 00:31:54,800 Speaker 1: correction is from Matt. Matt says, I really love your show. 577 00:31:54,840 --> 00:31:57,040 Speaker 1: I wanted to let you guys know that while smallpox 578 00:31:57,120 --> 00:32:00,960 Speaker 1: is the only human disease so far completely eradicated by mankind, 579 00:32:01,480 --> 00:32:05,560 Speaker 1: render pest virus was eradicated from livestock worldwide in two 580 00:32:05,600 --> 00:32:09,760 Speaker 1: thousand eleven. Previously it had been a considerable infectious burden, 581 00:32:10,000 --> 00:32:13,080 Speaker 1: especially in the developing world. Also, it is the only 582 00:32:13,120 --> 00:32:16,440 Speaker 1: disease so far eradicated from livestock. And that he sends 583 00:32:16,600 --> 00:32:21,240 Speaker 1: some links that is completely my bad with the caveat 584 00:32:21,320 --> 00:32:23,840 Speaker 1: that that is so wrong in so many places. Still, 585 00:32:25,520 --> 00:32:28,000 Speaker 1: even the materials that I was researching that are are 586 00:32:28,040 --> 00:32:32,440 Speaker 1: really recent publications um have generally not been updated to 587 00:32:32,480 --> 00:32:36,760 Speaker 1: talk about render pests. So there are two entire diseases 588 00:32:36,880 --> 00:32:40,400 Speaker 1: that mankind has eliminated from the planet, one being small 589 00:32:40,400 --> 00:32:43,520 Speaker 1: box the underbea, the other being render pest. One in 590 00:32:43,640 --> 00:32:51,080 Speaker 1: humans winning cattle alight Yeah yeah, well, and and render 591 00:32:51,120 --> 00:32:53,640 Speaker 1: pest would like wipe out entire herds and then people 592 00:32:53,640 --> 00:32:57,400 Speaker 1: would start So thanks science, Yes, it was very similar 593 00:32:57,480 --> 00:33:00,840 Speaker 1: in in scope to UH to smallpox, Like we talked 594 00:33:00,840 --> 00:33:03,520 Speaker 1: about how smallpox would change a line of succession, or 595 00:33:03,880 --> 00:33:06,040 Speaker 1: like an army in the field would have a smallpox 596 00:33:06,040 --> 00:33:07,880 Speaker 1: efford to make and then the battle would go in 597 00:33:07,880 --> 00:33:12,560 Speaker 1: a different way. Similarly, UH, like a whole herd of 598 00:33:12,960 --> 00:33:17,480 Speaker 1: cattle would get render pest and die, and then the 599 00:33:17,520 --> 00:33:19,920 Speaker 1: people who had been relying on them for food and 600 00:33:20,000 --> 00:33:22,120 Speaker 1: leather and that kind of thing would be attacked by 601 00:33:22,160 --> 00:33:27,560 Speaker 1: someone and since they were all starving and naked. Really yeah, 602 00:33:27,720 --> 00:33:29,840 Speaker 1: so thank you Matt and everyone else he wrote to 603 00:33:29,920 --> 00:33:34,320 Speaker 1: us about render pest. I learned something new our others 604 00:33:34,480 --> 00:33:38,160 Speaker 1: our other emails from Ann, Marie, and Marie says, Hi, there, 605 00:33:38,600 --> 00:33:40,640 Speaker 1: I just wanted to respond to an off handed comment 606 00:33:40,680 --> 00:33:42,920 Speaker 1: you made about parents trying to expose their children to 607 00:33:43,040 --> 00:33:46,680 Speaker 1: chicken pox up their anti vaccination. Unfortunately, that is still 608 00:33:46,720 --> 00:33:49,960 Speaker 1: going on, and it's an incredibly bad idea. Chicken pox 609 00:33:50,040 --> 00:33:52,360 Speaker 1: isn't as harmless as people believe it is, and can 610 00:33:52,360 --> 00:33:55,360 Speaker 1: be dangerous even in children. It can also easily spread 611 00:33:55,560 --> 00:33:58,960 Speaker 1: from the children to at risk populations, like infants who 612 00:33:58,960 --> 00:34:01,400 Speaker 1: are too young to be back needed, or people with 613 00:34:01,480 --> 00:34:04,480 Speaker 1: weakened immune systems. Who can't get vaccines or who don't 614 00:34:04,520 --> 00:34:07,480 Speaker 1: build up a good immune response to the vaccine, the 615 00:34:07,560 --> 00:34:11,040 Speaker 1: vaccine cannot spread to others. In this way, the vaccine 616 00:34:11,040 --> 00:34:12,960 Speaker 1: will also not cause the people who get it to 617 00:34:13,040 --> 00:34:16,440 Speaker 1: suffer needlessly for days with the symptoms of the disease. 618 00:34:17,080 --> 00:34:21,520 Speaker 1: It's also been pointed out by many doctors and epidemiologists 619 00:34:21,560 --> 00:34:24,280 Speaker 1: that even if there were no vaccine available, pox parties 620 00:34:24,360 --> 00:34:28,040 Speaker 1: promote the spread of disease and can cause epidemics rather 621 00:34:28,120 --> 00:34:33,719 Speaker 1: than actually helping to contain the disease. Uh, because I'm 622 00:34:33,719 --> 00:34:36,840 Speaker 1: talking a little bit more about vaccines. So, yes, that 623 00:34:37,000 --> 00:34:40,040 Speaker 1: is very interesting to know that there are still pox 624 00:34:40,120 --> 00:34:44,560 Speaker 1: parties going on. Um. I don't really remember any actual 625 00:34:44,640 --> 00:34:47,160 Speaker 1: pox parties when I was a child, but I definitely knew, 626 00:34:48,200 --> 00:34:51,520 Speaker 1: uh sort of a oh you were at their house 627 00:34:51,520 --> 00:34:53,239 Speaker 1: and now they have chicken box. Maybe you'll get it too, 628 00:34:53,280 --> 00:34:56,880 Speaker 1: and we'll get this over with. Yeah. I can't remember 629 00:34:57,040 --> 00:35:00,160 Speaker 1: very well. It's a little bit of a blur. Well, 630 00:35:00,200 --> 00:35:02,239 Speaker 1: I actually remember that when I hadn't and all of 631 00:35:02,280 --> 00:35:05,080 Speaker 1: my siblings have it, I really wanted my friends to 632 00:35:05,080 --> 00:35:09,719 Speaker 1: come over and they weren't allowed. Yes, I have had 633 00:35:09,760 --> 00:35:12,800 Speaker 1: that vaccine. I think I already said in our previous episode, 634 00:35:13,000 --> 00:35:15,640 Speaker 1: because I didn't not get chicken pox as a child 635 00:35:16,080 --> 00:35:19,000 Speaker 1: like many other people at that time. If you would 636 00:35:19,000 --> 00:35:21,440 Speaker 1: like to write to us about this or any other episode, 637 00:35:21,480 --> 00:35:24,479 Speaker 1: you can. We are at History Podcast at Discovery dot com. 638 00:35:24,680 --> 00:35:27,520 Speaker 1: We're also on Facebook at facebook dot com, slash history 639 00:35:27,600 --> 00:35:30,560 Speaker 1: class stuff, and on Twitter at misston. His stry our 640 00:35:30,680 --> 00:35:33,759 Speaker 1: tumbler is missing History dot tumbler dot com, and we 641 00:35:33,880 --> 00:35:36,840 Speaker 1: are on Pinterest. If you would like to learn a 642 00:35:36,840 --> 00:35:39,040 Speaker 1: little more about what we have talked about today, you 643 00:35:39,080 --> 00:35:41,600 Speaker 1: can come to our website and put the word Ozarks 644 00:35:41,600 --> 00:35:44,200 Speaker 1: in the search bar and you will find an article 645 00:35:44,280 --> 00:35:46,920 Speaker 1: called a Guide to Hiking the Ozarks, so you can 646 00:35:46,960 --> 00:35:50,879 Speaker 1: go get some firsthand looking at the area where Laura 647 00:35:50,960 --> 00:35:54,120 Speaker 1: Ingalls Wilder eventually settled as an adult. We can do 648 00:35:54,200 --> 00:35:56,400 Speaker 1: all that and a whole lot more at our website, 649 00:35:56,520 --> 00:36:03,440 Speaker 1: which is how stuff Works dot com. For moral this 650 00:36:03,640 --> 00:36:17,080 Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com. 651 00:36:17,080 --> 00:36:19,399 Speaker 1: This episode of Stuff you missed in History Classes brought 652 00:36:19,400 --> 00:36:21,360 Speaker 1: to you by Linda dot com. You can learn it 653 00:36:21,400 --> 00:36:23,719 Speaker 1: at Linda dot com, an online learning company with more 654 00:36:23,719 --> 00:36:27,360 Speaker 1: than seventy seven thousand video tutorials that teach software, creative 655 00:36:27,400 --> 00:36:30,239 Speaker 1: and business skills. Membership starts at twenty five a month 656 00:36:30,280 --> 00:36:34,120 Speaker 1: and provides unlimited seven access to top quality video courses 657 00:36:34,160 --> 00:36:37,360 Speaker 1: taught by expert instructors with real world experience. 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