WEBVTT - 7. The Problem of Laura 0:00:00.440 --> 0:00:04.040 This episode contains racist depictions and racial slurs from The 0:00:04.040 --> 0:00:04.960 Little House Books. 0:00:05.720 --> 0:00:07.240 Listeners, please be advised. 0:00:09.080 --> 0:00:11.400 The name of one of the nation's best known children's 0:00:11.400 --> 0:00:14.440 authors is being removed from a major literary award. 0:00:15.200 --> 0:00:19.240 In June twenty eighteen, the Children's Division of the American 0:00:19.280 --> 0:00:23.520 Library Association, the group that gives out coveted children's book 0:00:23.520 --> 0:00:28.280 awards like the Newbery Medal and the Caldecott Medal, announced that, 0:00:28.360 --> 0:00:32.960 after much consideration, they were renaming their prestigious Laura Ingalls 0:00:33.040 --> 0:00:33.800 Wilder Award. 0:00:33.960 --> 0:00:38.280 The Association for Library Service to Children unanimously voted this 0:00:38.360 --> 0:00:42.440 weekend to rename the Laura Ingles Wilder Award the Children's 0:00:42.479 --> 0:00:46.520 Literature Legacy Award. Due to negative depictions of Native Americans 0:00:46.560 --> 0:00:49.000 and African Americans and Wilder's books. 0:00:49.440 --> 0:00:52.479 It would now be called the Children's Literature Legacy Award. 0:00:53.680 --> 0:00:54.680 Here was their reasoning. 0:00:55.960 --> 0:00:58.880 Although Wilders were called a significant place in the history 0:00:58.880 --> 0:01:03.240 of children's literature and continues to be read today, ALSC 0:01:03.560 --> 0:01:07.440 has had to grapple with inconsistency between Wilder's legacy and 0:01:07.520 --> 0:01:10.720 its core of values of inclusiveness, integrity, and respect. 0:01:12.440 --> 0:01:14.919 You will probably not be shocked to hear that people 0:01:14.920 --> 0:01:20.280 were upset and angry, outraged. Even it demonstrated the reach 0:01:20.319 --> 0:01:23.839 of Laura and Little House. It wasn't just regular fans 0:01:23.880 --> 0:01:28.800 who were upset. People like William Shatner aka Captain Kirk 0:01:29.520 --> 0:01:33.920 were very, very angry and took to Twitter to express 0:01:33.959 --> 0:01:34.520 that anger. 0:01:35.080 --> 0:01:38.440 I find it disturbing that some take modern opinion and 0:01:38.520 --> 0:01:42.720 obliterate the past isn't progress learning from our mistaches. 0:01:44.360 --> 0:01:49.280 Like a lot of young readers, I loved Laura obviously. 0:01:49.360 --> 0:01:51.840 If you've made it this far and wilder, you know this, 0:01:53.000 --> 0:01:56.280 and growing up, nothing that is in the books bothered me. 0:01:57.320 --> 0:02:01.600 Nothing stood out as a problem. But Laura is a problem. 0:02:03.760 --> 0:02:03.960 You know. 0:02:04.040 --> 0:02:10.800 You push together this coziness with the decimation of Native. 0:02:10.560 --> 0:02:13.160 Tribes, or with you know, the. 0:02:13.240 --> 0:02:20.640 Erasure and bigotry about black people, and even the marrying 0:02:20.680 --> 0:02:24.240 off of girls who are very young, and you just 0:02:24.720 --> 0:02:27.560 have this confusing diet. 0:02:27.680 --> 0:02:29.960 But of course that's America. 0:02:31.080 --> 0:02:34.440 And the problems of Laura are also disturbingly relevant. 0:02:35.639 --> 0:02:39.079 I think it's important for us to remember that our 0:02:39.240 --> 0:02:44.520 past isn't always rosy, that there were controversies, There was, 0:02:46.240 --> 0:02:49.560 and racism is still part of our culture now. If 0:02:49.560 --> 0:02:55.000 we pretend the past was not as controversial and difficult 0:02:55.760 --> 0:02:57.160 and racist as it was. 0:02:57.919 --> 0:03:00.400 Then, how we're going to deal with the racist issues 0:03:00.400 --> 0:03:02.400 who are grappling with today. 0:03:02.919 --> 0:03:06.200 When we first envision this podcast, this was the question 0:03:06.240 --> 0:03:09.600 I was asking myself, how should I feel about Laura 0:03:09.760 --> 0:03:14.080 Ingalls Wilder. I'm obviously not a kid anymore. I'm a 0:03:14.080 --> 0:03:17.880 grown up, educated woman. I recognize all the problems with 0:03:17.919 --> 0:03:20.720 the books, So what should I be doing with my 0:03:20.840 --> 0:03:21.519 love of Laura? 0:03:21.600 --> 0:03:22.799 Now? 0:03:22.880 --> 0:03:25.400 This question is really just a niche version of what 0:03:25.480 --> 0:03:29.680 the country has been asking itself about itself for a 0:03:29.720 --> 0:03:34.320 while now, what some citizens have been pointing out for centuries, 0:03:35.120 --> 0:03:38.680 and it's a question that finally went mainstream after twenty sixteen. 0:03:40.280 --> 0:03:43.400 We've all been asked to consider what we love and 0:03:43.440 --> 0:03:46.680 how we love it, and often whether we should be 0:03:46.720 --> 0:03:50.720 letting it go. From historical statues to entire systems of 0:03:50.760 --> 0:03:55.800 government to deeply beloved children's books. Letting go of Laura 0:03:55.920 --> 0:03:59.640 is an impossibility for me. She was woven in too deeply, 0:04:00.320 --> 0:04:04.120 too early, So it seemed to me the next question 0:04:04.240 --> 0:04:07.720 to ask was, what is the responsibility that comes with 0:04:07.760 --> 0:04:13.840 this kind of love? In this episode, we're going to 0:04:13.840 --> 0:04:16.080 take a deep look at the hardest parts of Laura 0:04:16.240 --> 0:04:20.560 Ingalls Wilder. There are a lot of hard parts, more 0:04:20.600 --> 0:04:24.200 than you might think. Even I, a person who thought 0:04:24.240 --> 0:04:27.880 they knew Laura all the way through, was surprised and 0:04:27.920 --> 0:05:04.000 sometimes shocked. I'm Glennis McNicol, and this is Wilder. In 0:05:04.120 --> 0:05:07.560 nineteen fifty two, nearly twenty years after the first Little 0:05:07.560 --> 0:05:12.000 House Book was published, legendary children's book editor Ursula Nordstrom 0:05:12.279 --> 0:05:14.719 received a letter from the parent of a young Little 0:05:14.720 --> 0:05:18.800 House reader. Laura was in her eighties by now, and 0:05:18.880 --> 0:05:21.680 all her fan mail, and there was a lot, went 0:05:21.680 --> 0:05:26.400 through Nordstrom's office. The parent had written to Laura to 0:05:26.440 --> 0:05:28.839 say that their child had been upset by a line 0:05:28.880 --> 0:05:31.480 on page two of the Little House on the Prairie book. 0:05:32.120 --> 0:05:35.520 The line was describing the territory the Ingles were relocating to, 0:05:36.080 --> 0:05:41.240 and it read there were no people, Only Indians lived there. 0:05:43.000 --> 0:05:45.120 Here's how Nordstrom responded. 0:05:45.760 --> 0:05:49.520 We were indeed disturbed by your letter. We knew that 0:05:49.640 --> 0:05:53.320 missus Wilder had not meant to imply that Indians were 0:05:53.360 --> 0:05:57.799 not people. I must admit that no one here realized 0:05:57.800 --> 0:06:01.320 the words read as they did reading them now. It 0:06:01.400 --> 0:06:05.040 seems unbelievable to me that you are the only person 0:06:05.080 --> 0:06:07.880 who has picked them up and written to us about 0:06:07.920 --> 0:06:10.480 them in the twenty years since the book was published. 0:06:12.240 --> 0:06:15.359 Nordstrom then relayed that when Laura had been alerted to 0:06:15.400 --> 0:06:19.240 the line, she'd called it a quote stupid blunder. 0:06:20.240 --> 0:06:21.839 Of course Indians are people. 0:06:22.320 --> 0:06:26.440 I did not intend to imply they were not. Nordstrom 0:06:26.480 --> 0:06:28.919 went on to assure the reader the line would be 0:06:29.040 --> 0:06:33.320 changed for all future editions. If you buy the book today, 0:06:33.360 --> 0:06:38.000 the line now reads, there were no settlers, only Indians 0:06:38.000 --> 0:06:38.640 lived there. 0:06:44.960 --> 0:06:45.560 Half a while. 0:06:45.800 --> 0:06:48.039 Used the right lade to take the US seventy five 0:06:48.120 --> 0:06:48.440 rant too. 0:06:48.480 --> 0:06:49.120 Independence. 0:06:49.560 --> 0:06:52.159 It's late September and our producer, Emily and I are 0:06:52.240 --> 0:06:56.040 driving to the Little House in the Prairie Museum outside Independence, Kansas. 0:06:56.839 --> 0:06:59.240 We are a three hour drive from Kansas City and 0:06:59.279 --> 0:07:01.239 another three hours from Oklahoma City. 0:07:01.640 --> 0:07:04.360 We're really, for real in the middle of the country. 0:07:05.080 --> 0:07:09.760 Yeah, Kansas, baby, Like, there's something about Wyoming that feels. 0:07:09.480 --> 0:07:11.720 Seventy five south for four miles. 0:07:11.600 --> 0:07:14.720 Wild and west. But this just feels very, I don't know, 0:07:16.440 --> 0:07:17.320 middle of nowhere. 0:07:19.000 --> 0:07:21.480 In the opening chapter of Little House on the Prairie, 0:07:21.600 --> 0:07:27.160 when the Ingles set out from peppin Wisconsin, pa asked Laura, quote, do. 0:07:27.120 --> 0:07:28.840 You like going out where the Indians live? 0:07:30.080 --> 0:07:32.600 Laura said she liked it, and then asked if they 0:07:32.600 --> 0:07:36.480 were in Indian country now, but they were not. It 0:07:36.520 --> 0:07:42.160 was a long long way to Indian territory. The little 0:07:42.160 --> 0:07:44.680 house Emily and I are driving toward is the one 0:07:44.720 --> 0:07:47.720 pa illegally built when the Ingles arrived at their destination, 0:07:48.400 --> 0:07:53.280 the Osage Diminished Reserve, what is now southeastern Kansas. The 0:07:53.320 --> 0:07:55.840 site of this museum is the presumed location of the 0:07:55.880 --> 0:07:58.600 Little House in the book Little House on the Prairie, 0:07:59.320 --> 0:08:02.280 and it's not easy to find. It's down a whole 0:08:02.280 --> 0:08:05.560 bunch of side roads, and even Google Map struggles. 0:08:05.120 --> 0:08:05.960 To point the location. 0:08:07.080 --> 0:08:10.920 We arrived shortly before closing hours wow after hours admission. 0:08:11.840 --> 0:08:13.880 But just as we're about to wander the site, a 0:08:13.920 --> 0:08:15.360 woman named Ronda appears. 0:08:15.680 --> 0:08:17.160 I decided to know I. 0:08:17.240 --> 0:08:20.240 Close up everything aside that you can walk the rounds 0:08:20.400 --> 0:08:21.200 as long as. 0:08:21.240 --> 0:08:23.560 Oh, well, thank you, We're going to commit before them. 0:08:23.800 --> 0:08:26.000 Ronda is the person in charge of the museum today, 0:08:26.640 --> 0:08:30.520 and she is dressed in full prairie garb, complete with bonnet. 0:08:31.480 --> 0:08:33.880 On the museum grounds is a recreation of the little 0:08:33.880 --> 0:08:36.920 log cabin that Pap build for his family, and they 0:08:36.920 --> 0:08:39.319 believe the well out back is the actual one. Laura 0:08:39.320 --> 0:08:42.600 writes about Pap building in the book farm house was. 0:08:42.600 --> 0:08:45.559 Here around eighteen eighty and the post left around eighteen 0:08:45.679 --> 0:08:46.400 seventy one. 0:08:46.960 --> 0:08:50.080 Based on the eighteen seventy census in the well and back, 0:08:50.160 --> 0:08:52.480 they're pretty sure that this is the area where the 0:08:52.480 --> 0:08:55.760 Eagles were illegally squatting in Indian Territory for about a 0:08:55.840 --> 0:08:56.400 year and a half. 0:08:56.600 --> 0:08:59.640 H Emily and I had wondered on the way here 0:09:00.200 --> 0:09:02.680 how the museum would describe the Engle's time on the 0:09:02.720 --> 0:09:06.360 Osage Diminished Reserve. I asked Rhonda if squatting was the 0:09:06.400 --> 0:09:09.480 word she used with visitors. It is not a word 0:09:09.559 --> 0:09:10.199 used in the book. 0:09:11.040 --> 0:09:14.120 They were squatting, there's no ens abs or bits about it. 0:09:14.160 --> 0:09:15.160 They didn't pay for the land. 0:09:15.160 --> 0:09:17.920 They were here illegally. So you can't take away something 0:09:17.920 --> 0:09:22.680 that happened. Let's talk about what actually happens in this book. 0:09:24.040 --> 0:09:26.280 Little House on the Prairie is by far the most 0:09:26.320 --> 0:09:29.480 controversial book in the Little House series. This is the 0:09:29.480 --> 0:09:32.320 book that adults are shocked by when they returned to 0:09:32.360 --> 0:09:35.840 it to read to their own children. It's the book 0:09:35.840 --> 0:09:39.880 that often requires them to either skip entire passages or 0:09:39.920 --> 0:09:42.520 stop and do a lot of explaining. 0:09:43.920 --> 0:09:45.600 Here's writer Rebecca Taster. 0:09:46.360 --> 0:09:48.520 I would say, you know, at the first mention of 0:09:48.679 --> 0:09:51.480 Indians or whatever, would I would say, okay, so let 0:09:51.559 --> 0:09:54.440 me explain what's going on here. The house that they 0:09:54.600 --> 0:09:57.320 moved to or they're building is actually on land that 0:09:57.920 --> 0:10:00.839 belongs to people who've been there forever, and it's being 0:10:00.880 --> 0:10:03.960 stolen by Laura and Mary and mon Pa, right like 0:10:03.960 --> 0:10:06.319 I would sort of just the most rudimentary, sort of 0:10:06.440 --> 0:10:09.080 version of they are building a house on land that 0:10:09.080 --> 0:10:12.000 belongs to other people, and this is something that happened 0:10:12.040 --> 0:10:14.119 and it's part of how this country was built. 0:10:15.000 --> 0:10:17.400 The closest the book gets to implying that the Ingles 0:10:17.400 --> 0:10:20.160 are building on land that doesn't belong to them is 0:10:20.160 --> 0:10:25.240 that they are in a place called Indian territory. But 0:10:25.280 --> 0:10:27.200 there are plenty of other parts in the book that 0:10:27.280 --> 0:10:32.000 are not subtle at all. They are unequivocally racist. The 0:10:32.040 --> 0:10:35.520 most violent line from the book comes from the Ingles neighbors, 0:10:35.600 --> 0:10:39.280 the Scots, who say more than once quote the only 0:10:39.320 --> 0:10:45.120 good Indian is a dead Indian end quote. Laura also 0:10:45.200 --> 0:10:49.160 tells us quote Jack hated Indians, and Ma said she 0:10:49.200 --> 0:10:50.080 didn't blame him. 0:10:50.679 --> 0:10:50.760 End. 0:10:50.840 --> 0:10:51.240 Quote. 0:10:53.280 --> 0:10:57.200 In the book, Laura describes Native Americans entering the ingles 0:10:57.280 --> 0:11:02.319 illegally constructed house. First time it happens Ma's home alone, 0:11:02.840 --> 0:11:05.440 and the Native Americans eat all the food she is cooking. 0:11:05.920 --> 0:11:06.719 Quote. 0:11:06.960 --> 0:11:10.800 The naked wild men stood by the fireplace. Their faces 0:11:10.840 --> 0:11:15.320 were bold, fierce, and terrible. These wild men had no hair. 0:11:17.040 --> 0:11:20.200 Another time, two Native Americans come into the house who 0:11:20.280 --> 0:11:25.160 are quote dirty, scowling, and meat. They take all the 0:11:25.200 --> 0:11:29.880 corn bread, all the fur, all paws tobacco, but then 0:11:29.960 --> 0:11:32.720 drop the fur on the way out. At the end 0:11:32.720 --> 0:11:36.840 of the chapter, Laura asked Pa, quote, will the government 0:11:36.920 --> 0:11:39.160 make these Indians go west? 0:11:39.760 --> 0:11:42.720 Paw tells her yes. Quote. 0:11:43.000 --> 0:11:46.199 When white settlers come into a country, the Indians have 0:11:46.280 --> 0:11:49.760 to move on. The government is going to move these 0:11:49.800 --> 0:11:51.880 Indians farther west any time. 0:11:52.000 --> 0:11:52.240 Now. 0:11:53.200 --> 0:11:54.520 That's why we're here, Laura. 0:11:55.280 --> 0:11:58.520 White people are going to settle all this country, and 0:11:58.640 --> 0:12:01.880 we get the best land because we get here first 0:12:02.120 --> 0:12:07.319 and take our pick. Laura does not leave a lot 0:12:07.320 --> 0:12:10.119 of room for interpretation when it comes to the opinions 0:12:10.120 --> 0:12:13.000 that the people around her express, but she doesn't pass 0:12:13.080 --> 0:12:17.040 judgment on them either. A lot of people, even those 0:12:17.040 --> 0:12:19.880 who are not Laura apologists, will tell you that in 0:12:19.920 --> 0:12:22.320 Little House on the Prairie, Laura was merely relaying what 0:12:22.400 --> 0:12:23.400 she heard others. 0:12:23.120 --> 0:12:31.120 Say their childhood memories, and the child's interpretation of the 0:12:31.200 --> 0:12:36.640 situation not necessarily filtered through an adult lens. 0:12:36.880 --> 0:12:38.959 That kind of memoir approach. 0:12:39.080 --> 0:12:41.559 This is how I remember it, this is how I 0:12:41.640 --> 0:12:46.199 saw it at this time, and I know my childhood 0:12:46.240 --> 0:12:48.679 memories are not always accurate. 0:12:49.520 --> 0:12:53.080 Gwen Westerman is a professor at Minnesota State University, man 0:12:53.120 --> 0:12:57.199 Cato and the director of the Native American Literature Symposium. 0:12:58.400 --> 0:13:04.480 Trying to view her stories through her childhood memories is 0:13:05.080 --> 0:13:09.760 a much different experience as a reader than coming in 0:13:10.200 --> 0:13:13.320 and say, here are all the terrible things that are 0:13:13.320 --> 0:13:17.559 said about Indians, and from what I've found, none of 0:13:17.640 --> 0:13:22.280 those things are Laura's thoughts. Those are the words that 0:13:22.320 --> 0:13:23.640 she remembers hearing. 0:13:25.000 --> 0:13:28.440 Adult Laura the writer does through her fictional child self, 0:13:28.800 --> 0:13:32.600 provides some necessary pushback to these views. Early on in 0:13:32.600 --> 0:13:35.360 the book, not long after the Ingles arrive in what 0:13:35.400 --> 0:13:40.160 they call Indian Territory, Laura asks her mother, quote, why 0:13:40.160 --> 0:13:44.439 don't you like Indians, Ma, to which mav replies, quote, 0:13:45.040 --> 0:13:48.559 I just don't like them, and don't lick your fingers. 0:13:49.600 --> 0:13:54.800 But Laura persists, this is Indian country, isn't it. She says, 0:13:55.720 --> 0:13:57.920 what did we come to their country for if you 0:13:57.960 --> 0:14:02.280 don't like them. Ma tells her she's not sure where 0:14:02.280 --> 0:14:05.280 they are exactly, but that PA has been assured the 0:14:05.400 --> 0:14:07.560 territory will be open to settlements soon. 0:14:08.360 --> 0:14:10.560 This is the extent of the questioning that happens. 0:14:13.160 --> 0:14:15.480 The defense that Laura is offering a child's view of 0:14:15.480 --> 0:14:20.280 this experience is valid, and that Ma personally is terrified 0:14:20.680 --> 0:14:26.760 is understandable. She's alone miles from other settlers, with three 0:14:26.840 --> 0:14:31.840 young girls and a husband who, while charming, behaves erradically. 0:14:36.120 --> 0:14:38.560 We talked in the last episode how the angles time 0:14:38.680 --> 0:14:42.200 squatting on the Osage Diminished Reserve happened in the aftermath 0:14:42.240 --> 0:14:45.040 of the US Dakota War of eighteen sixty two, and 0:14:45.080 --> 0:14:48.040 how the narratives that came out of that war about quote, 0:14:48.360 --> 0:14:54.800 bloodthirsty Indians and vulnerable heroic pioneers dominated the press and 0:14:54.880 --> 0:14:59.120 have shaped our understanding of that history ever since. Absent 0:14:59.160 --> 0:15:03.520 from that narrative and the books is any understanding that 0:15:03.560 --> 0:15:05.800 one of the reasons Native Americans might have been in 0:15:05.840 --> 0:15:09.640 the house was that they were starving and that the 0:15:09.640 --> 0:15:13.680 treaties that promised to feed them had been betrayed. Settlers 0:15:13.680 --> 0:15:17.120 were illegally on their land, and they often viewed food 0:15:17.160 --> 0:15:20.360 as rent. That's likely the reason they came into the 0:15:20.480 --> 0:15:24.080 Ingles home to begin with. One of the more complicated 0:15:24.080 --> 0:15:27.000 things Laura the writer pulls off time and again in 0:15:27.040 --> 0:15:30.600 the Little House series is letting us know Ma's views 0:15:30.600 --> 0:15:35.280 are wrong, but also that Laura loves her, which is 0:15:35.320 --> 0:15:38.480 a definition of family I certainly related to even as 0:15:38.520 --> 0:15:42.120 a young child. But Laura was also writing the books 0:15:42.120 --> 0:15:45.880 in the nineteen thirties, and while she seems able to 0:15:45.960 --> 0:15:49.880 insert some awareness of conflicting views around the Ingle's presence 0:15:49.920 --> 0:15:53.480 on Native American land, this awareness is limited. 0:15:58.360 --> 0:16:03.120 I wouldn't exaggerate how much she may have known about 0:16:03.160 --> 0:16:03.720 the history. 0:16:04.920 --> 0:16:08.800 Laura's biographer, Caroline Fraser, thinks there were limits to Laura's knowledge. 0:16:09.400 --> 0:16:13.080 She tried to find out the name of the chief 0:16:13.600 --> 0:16:18.920 who her father may have encountered, but she didn't do 0:16:19.160 --> 0:16:23.640 very much in the way of reading history that we 0:16:23.760 --> 0:16:28.400 know of, and so I don't really know how much 0:16:28.560 --> 0:16:32.160 she knew. She did know that the land that her 0:16:32.200 --> 0:16:35.800 father had built on did not belong to ho much. 0:16:36.280 --> 0:16:39.200 She knew that, she knew he was a squatter, But 0:16:39.320 --> 0:16:42.640 I don't know that she had any kind of modern 0:16:42.720 --> 0:16:47.680 conceptions about the fairness or the ways in which her 0:16:47.720 --> 0:16:52.000 family was illegally appropriating things that didn't belong to them. 0:16:53.040 --> 0:16:55.840 That conception of fairness is, I think at the heart 0:16:56.000 --> 0:16:59.920 of what's most troubling in this book. Laura seems unable 0:17:00.240 --> 0:17:04.360 or unwilling to fully understand Native Americans as human beings. 0:17:05.720 --> 0:17:07.879 I want to turn to a specific scene in the 0:17:07.880 --> 0:17:11.440 final chapters of Little House on the Prairie. If you're 0:17:11.440 --> 0:17:14.480 familiar with the books, you've probably been wondering why we 0:17:14.560 --> 0:17:19.719 haven't mentioned it yet. It's so strange and disturbing. When 0:17:19.760 --> 0:17:22.680 the Ingles first set out for what they call Indian Territory, 0:17:23.400 --> 0:17:27.360 Pa promises Laura that when they quote came to the west, 0:17:27.960 --> 0:17:31.560 Laura would see a papoose, which Paw tells her is 0:17:31.600 --> 0:17:36.680 a quote little brown Indian baby. Near the end of 0:17:36.720 --> 0:17:40.679 the book, in a chapter titled Indians Ride Away, the 0:17:40.720 --> 0:17:44.600 Osage tribe who have been conducting what Pa understands to 0:17:44.640 --> 0:17:45.800 be war chants in the. 0:17:45.840 --> 0:17:48.560 River Valley every night for a week leave. 0:17:49.920 --> 0:17:52.000 The Ingles stand in front of their home as the 0:17:52.040 --> 0:17:56.440 osage foul by the house on their horses. Laura has 0:17:56.480 --> 0:17:59.800 a quote naughty wished to be a little Indian girl. 0:18:00.760 --> 0:18:04.000 Of course, she did not really mean it. She only 0:18:04.040 --> 0:18:07.280 wanted to be naked in the wind and the sunshine 0:18:07.320 --> 0:18:09.600 and riding one of those gay little ponies. 0:18:10.400 --> 0:18:12.159 End quote. 0:18:12.280 --> 0:18:16.160 Then Laura spots a Native American baby with hair quote 0:18:16.800 --> 0:18:17.919 as black as a crow. 0:18:19.000 --> 0:18:21.160 Those quote black. 0:18:20.880 --> 0:18:24.720 Eyes looked deep into Laura's eyes, and she looked deep 0:18:24.840 --> 0:18:28.280 down into the blackness of that little baby's eyes, and 0:18:28.320 --> 0:18:29.919 she wanted that one little baby. 0:18:30.600 --> 0:18:35.439 End quote. Laura says to Paw, quote, Paw, get me 0:18:35.520 --> 0:18:39.120 that little Indian baby. I want it. I want it, 0:18:39.240 --> 0:18:41.520 she begged. End quote. 0:18:42.119 --> 0:18:46.920 Paw, to his credit or to Laura's, decades later, tells 0:18:46.960 --> 0:18:49.800 Laura quote sternly to hush. 0:18:50.480 --> 0:18:52.840 It's one of the few moments in the series. Pa 0:18:53.000 --> 0:18:54.840 gets stern with Laura. 0:18:55.720 --> 0:18:58.879 Caroline Fraser believes this scene is a direct memory of 0:18:58.960 --> 0:19:02.920 Laura's who, as we talked about in an earlier episode, 0:19:03.160 --> 0:19:05.399 would have been just three years old at this time. 0:19:07.920 --> 0:19:10.600 When I said earlier that nothing had stood out to 0:19:10.640 --> 0:19:13.679 me as strange in the Little House Books, this scene 0:19:13.720 --> 0:19:17.080 is the exception. Even as a child, I found Laura's 0:19:17.119 --> 0:19:22.879 desire to acquire a Native American infant absolutely bizarre. I 0:19:22.960 --> 0:19:26.760 wasn't the only one. It stuck out to journalist Mariene O'Connor, 0:19:27.480 --> 0:19:29.240 who also loved the books growing up. 0:19:30.160 --> 0:19:33.120 And that moment also is like kind of horrifying because 0:19:33.119 --> 0:19:34.679 she wants this like just like, PA, go get me. 0:19:34.680 --> 0:19:36.320 That is my toy. I want it more than you know. 0:19:36.359 --> 0:19:38.760 And she didn't even beg for dolls that hard. But 0:19:38.840 --> 0:19:41.639 then she also in that same passage, I believe, describes 0:19:41.640 --> 0:19:43.720 how she also wishes that she was one of those 0:19:43.800 --> 0:19:47.240 children or she wants to own, and that sort of bizarre. 0:19:48.000 --> 0:19:52.840 The way that she sort of processes those feelings is layered, 0:19:52.920 --> 0:19:54.879 maybe I don't know, and horrified. 0:19:55.359 --> 0:19:58.560 It was emblazoned on my childhood brain also, And what 0:19:58.640 --> 0:20:02.960 I clearly remember is that I desperately wanted to know 0:20:03.359 --> 0:20:06.760 what the Native American baby was seeing. I wanted to 0:20:06.800 --> 0:20:11.040 know what the infant traveling with their mother alongside a 0:20:11.040 --> 0:20:15.439 pony into the unknown saw when they looked at Laura. 0:20:16.960 --> 0:20:19.720 But we are never given that. There's no mention of 0:20:19.760 --> 0:20:22.760 where the osage tribe is going, or any sense of 0:20:22.760 --> 0:20:25.159 what the future might hold for the Native American children 0:20:25.240 --> 0:20:28.800 Laura is so mesmerized by in this scene, including the 0:20:28.880 --> 0:20:31.879 violence of the government funded residential school systems. 0:20:32.520 --> 0:20:33.720 We've included links. 0:20:33.440 --> 0:20:35.760 With more information on these histories in our show notes, 0:20:36.240 --> 0:20:38.320 and we encourage you to learn more about these stories. 0:20:39.720 --> 0:20:42.639 We do know that while Laura did some research, she 0:20:42.680 --> 0:20:45.280 didn't seem too interested in finding out that much more. 0:20:45.920 --> 0:20:50.120 Here's Lizzie Skurnick, writer and professor of children's literature at NYU. 0:20:51.320 --> 0:20:57.040 What we do know is that she personally, as a 0:20:57.119 --> 0:21:01.880 human was not very interested in getting the larger story 0:21:02.119 --> 0:21:07.200 and never went beyond the context she was personally taught, 0:21:07.520 --> 0:21:10.880 which is just not true of everybody that's her age. 0:21:11.160 --> 0:21:14.840 Not once does Laura ever attempt to imagine someone else's 0:21:14.840 --> 0:21:18.399 impression of her. Never once does she wonder how she 0:21:18.560 --> 0:21:22.840 might appear and by extension, offer the same fullness of 0:21:22.920 --> 0:21:26.520 experience to anyone else that she gives to her own family. 0:21:27.880 --> 0:21:29.800 Books like Little House in the Prairie that have these 0:21:29.840 --> 0:21:32.880 like naked Indians who can't speak English, then we come 0:21:32.880 --> 0:21:37.320 to think of Native peoples as savage, primitive people. We 0:21:37.320 --> 0:21:39.639 were miseducated. That's not the truth. 0:21:40.640 --> 0:21:43.840 Here's doctor de wie Reese. Doctor Rees runs a website 0:21:43.880 --> 0:21:46.160 called American Indians and Children's Literature. 0:21:47.359 --> 0:21:51.560 We looked different, we lived different, but we're not less human. 0:21:51.960 --> 0:21:57.360 We had and have societies, and ordered societies, have leaders, 0:21:57.440 --> 0:21:59.640 and that's what we need to know about who we 0:21:59.680 --> 0:22:02.919 were before Europeans came to our homelands. 0:22:04.480 --> 0:22:09.400 Any awareness of that complexity or history is completely absent 0:22:09.440 --> 0:22:13.520 from the Little House books. As I said, Little House 0:22:13.520 --> 0:22:15.640 on the Prairie of the book didn't shock me when 0:22:15.640 --> 0:22:17.560 I went back to reread it for this podcast. 0:22:18.080 --> 0:22:19.200 I knew what was there. 0:22:19.760 --> 0:22:22.600 I was familiar with the arguments for and against it. 0:22:23.240 --> 0:22:25.879 What did surprise me was the extent to which the 0:22:25.920 --> 0:22:29.639 problems of Laura are not limited to just this one book. 0:22:30.200 --> 0:22:31.800 We're going to get to that after the break. 0:22:39.520 --> 0:22:41.679 Let's stick with the book Little House on the Prairie 0:22:42.119 --> 0:22:45.199 for just a little while longer. In addition to the 0:22:45.200 --> 0:22:48.760 ways Native Americans were depicted, there's also the issue of 0:22:48.840 --> 0:22:50.960 who was left out almost entirely. 0:22:51.880 --> 0:22:53.280 This is our dedication to doctor Oh. 0:22:53.280 --> 0:22:56.439 He's on the census in there, He's right above the ingles, 0:22:56.440 --> 0:22:57.719 So that's really cool. 0:22:58.560 --> 0:23:01.920 He is buried in Independence in the White Cemetery, which 0:23:01.960 --> 0:23:03.000 was a big deal back there. 0:23:04.800 --> 0:23:08.640 That's Ronda again from the Little House Museum outside of Independence, Kansas, 0:23:09.240 --> 0:23:11.560 and she's showing us a display at the museum about 0:23:11.560 --> 0:23:15.040 a man called doctor Tan. Three quarters of the way 0:23:15.040 --> 0:23:18.080 through the book, the Ingles family comes down with malaria, 0:23:18.840 --> 0:23:22.760 then called agu In the midst of their illness, a 0:23:22.800 --> 0:23:27.040 black doctor arrives. Quote Laura could not take her eyes 0:23:27.080 --> 0:23:30.760 off Doc Tan. He was so very black. She would 0:23:30.800 --> 0:23:33.240 have been afraid of him if she hadn't liked him 0:23:33.240 --> 0:23:37.560 so much. Doc Tan had a quote rolling jolly laugh, 0:23:38.600 --> 0:23:41.240 and we're told the Ingles all wanted him to stay longer. 0:23:42.400 --> 0:23:46.400 Laura's very clear that Doc Tan saves their lives. We're 0:23:46.400 --> 0:23:49.960 also told he's a quote doctor with the Indians, but 0:23:50.080 --> 0:23:56.199 nothing else. In real life, Doctor George A. Tan was 0:23:56.240 --> 0:23:59.919 a well known doctor on the prairie. Of course he 0:24:00.000 --> 0:24:00.840 he's a real person. 0:24:01.000 --> 0:24:03.679 And by the way, what's fascinating is in the books 0:24:03.720 --> 0:24:05.399 he just sort of appears for a second. 0:24:05.960 --> 0:24:07.200 This is Lizzie Skarnick again. 0:24:07.680 --> 0:24:08.960 He delivered Carrie. 0:24:09.200 --> 0:24:11.280 He was the person who delivered carry He was their 0:24:11.320 --> 0:24:14.520 family doctor. And also he was in Oklahoma Territory. I 0:24:14.560 --> 0:24:17.760 think he finally settled in Oklahoma Territory and that's where 0:24:17.800 --> 0:24:18.439 his house was. 0:24:19.000 --> 0:24:20.760