Wilder, Laura Ingalls (1867-1957)

One of the best-known children's authors, Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote the popular, autobiographical "Little House" novels about her late-nineteenth-century childhood on the American frontier. Published in the 1930s and 1940s, these eight books were considered classics of children's literature by the 1950s and have appealed to every succeeding generation of readers who thirsted for nostalgia.

The second of four daughters of Charles and Caroline Ingalls, a post-Civil War American pioneering family, Wilder began writing in childhood. Laura and her sisters penned poetry and compositions in the many homes the Ingalls family built in the wilderness. Her writing permitted her to have a voice, public and private, denied to many nineteenth-century women and provided a way to release her frustrations, disappointments, and enthusiasms during her life as pioneer, teacher, wife, mother, farmer, businesswoman, and author. Wilder continued her writing after she married her husband Almanzo in 1885. Keeping a travel diary of their 1894 trip to Mansfield, Missouri, Wilder submitted it for publication to the De Smet News, where both of her younger sisters worked as journalists. Distracted by farm duties and volunteer work in her community, Wilder did not write seriously until 1911 when she began preparing essays about farm life for the Missouri Ruralist.

The fictional Laura was adventurous and inquisitive yet compliant to the culture she lived in, obediently silencing herself and being still to please her Pa. She was predictable, providing steadiness to her readers. The real Laura craved such stability. Accustomed to economic and physical hardships, Wilder persevered despite her son's death, her husband's disability from disease, conflicts with her strong-willed daughter, crop failures and debt, and the misogyny and anti-intellectualism of her patriarchal community. Ambitious and intelligent, she ensured that the couple's farm, Rocky Ridge, survived while asserting her individuality. Known as Bessie to her family, she became Laura Ingalls Wilder only in the last part of her life. This pen name represented a professional woman whom few people actually knew. The author Laura Ingalls Wilder answered fan mail, received awards, and signed books, while Bessie Wilder was an ordinary woman who performed her daily chores, read her Bible, attended club meetings, supported the local library, visited with friends, and cared for her ailing husband.

Wilder's daughter, Rose, an accomplished writer, encouraged her to write about her family's adventures on the frontier. Wilder completed her first attempt, Pioneer Girl, in 1930. In this novel, Laura narrated her story from childhood to marriage, but no publisher was interested. With Rose's help, Wilder rewrote her manuscript to meet literary expectations, dividing the novel into eight stories and presenting it in third person. Her publisher suggested that she make her characters two years older than they really were to appeal to adolescent readers. Although the books were presented as what Laura remembered, the early stories about events during her infancy were actually her parents' memories. Originally titled When Grandma Was a Little Girl, Wilder's first book, Little House in the Big Woods, was published in 1932 and was followed by Farmer Boy (1933), Little House on the Prairie (1935), On the Banks of Plum Creek (1937), By the Shores of Silver Lake (1939), The Long Winter (1940), Little Town on the Prairie (1941), and These Happy Golden Years (1943). (A manuscript for a story of Wilder's early years of marriage was found after her death. Edited by Roger Lea MacBride, The First Four Years was published in 1971.) Critics and readers immediately accepted her books, and the volumes sold well despite the Depression. The values of home, love, and personal courage formed an image of rural serenity that fulfilled readers' need for comfort and a connection to a past that they believed was simpler and happier than contemporary times.

Scholars noted the books' archetypes: Pa was the dreamer and provider, while Ma was the civilizer and stabilizer. Laura was a blend of her parents. The Ingalls were praised for being spiritual, hard working, and resourceful, enduring tragedy while constantly moving in their covered wagon and homesteading virgin land. Aspects of nineteenth-century American culture were provided through the songs Pa sang, the items they purchased in stores, and the books and magazines the women read. Scholars have criticized the patriarchal, domestic, and materialistic messages of Wilder's books and denounced the characters' racism toward Native Americans and minorities. The women were often isolated and confined to homes, while men were active participants with the outside world. Laura faced conflicts between her need for individual freedom and expression, and self-sacrifice and obedience for the good of her family.

Wilder stressed that she wrote her stories to provide history lessons for new generations of children who no longer could experience the frontier and disappearing prairie that metaphorically offered hope, prosperity, and renewal. In so doing, she sparked a cultural phenomenon. Fans have dressed as Little House characters, collected memorabilia, and visited Laura Ingalls Wilder heritage sites. The Laura Ingalls Wilder-Rose Wilder Lane Home and Museum in Mansfield, Missouri, houses many items, such as Pa's fiddle, which are featured in the books. Bookstores sell adaptations of Wilder's stories, including series about Ma's and Roses's childhoods. The commercialization of Laura Ingalls Wilder has meant that fans can buy Little House dolls, T-shirts, cookbooks, videos, diaries, and calendars. Wilder's books never have been out of print, and edited versions of her periodical writing and letters are also available. Foreign readers have also identified with Wilder's universal themes; her books have been published in 40 languages, and Internet sites connect Wilder fans around the globe.

The American Library Association initiated the Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal for accomplishments in children's literature in 1954. A television series, Little House on the Prairie (1974-1983), unrealistically portrayed Wilder's life but was popular during an era when the Bicentennial and Alex Haley's book Roots revived Americans' interest in the past. A Broadway musical, Prairie, ran in 1982, and a Little House movie was in production in 1998.

—Elizabeth D. Schafer

Further Reading:

Anderson, William T. Laura Ingalls Wilder: A Biography. New York, Harper Trophy, 1995.

Miller, John E. Becoming Laura Ingalls Wilder: The Woman behind the Legend. Columbia and London, University of Missouri Press, 1998.

——. Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little Town: Where History and Literature Meet. Lawrence, University Press of Kansas, 1994.

Romines, Ann. Constructing the Little House: Gender, Culture, and Laura Ingalls Wilder. Amherst, University of Massachusetts Press, 1997.

Trosky, Susan M. and Donna Olendorf, editors. Contemporary Authors. Vol. 137. Detroit, Gale Research, 1992.