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Book Review |
The Women's Freedom Network Newsletter
May/June, 1999, Vol. 6, Number 3.
Becoming Laura Ingalls Wilder: (Columbia, MO, London: University of Missouri Press, 1998) 306 pp.
Reviewed by John Moser |
T here are few American authors as well-known and beloved as Laura Ingalls Wilder, whose series of eight semi-autobiographical children's novels have been delighting readers of all ages ever since their original publication in the 1930s and 1940s. The television series, Little House on the Prairie, based loosely on her books, increased Wilder's fame in the 1970s, and her works remain staples of young people's literature to this day.
In this biography, John E. Miller, a professor of history at South Dakota State University, seeks to explain the process by which young Laura (a.k.a., "half-pint" and "flutterbudget"), frontier girl, evolved into Laura Ingalls Wilder, the best-selling author. He paints a vivid portrait of both, and of the life that connected the two.
Laura's early years were marked by almost constant movement. Her family relocated often during her childhood, spending time in frontie regions of Wisconsin, Kansas, Iowa, the Dakota Territory, and Minnesota, (and even a brief stay in Florida), before putting down roots in small-town Missouri in the 1890s. Fans of the television series will be surprised to learn how little time the Ingalls family actually lived in the fabled town of Walnut Grove, Minnesota-only two brief stays, one in 1874-5, and the other from 1879-80. Of course, such frequent relocations were common features of life on the frontier, as uncertain conditions (droughts, snow-storms, grasshopper infestations, etc.) and rumors of cheap, fertile land led many a family to pick up and seek new opportunities elsewhere.
But though Wilder frequently took liberties with actual events in drafting her famous stories-making adjustments she deemed necessary for the story's sake, or to make the narrative more appropriate for a young audience-the same themes loom large in both: the importance of family, community, hard work, and religious faith. Wilder's books, from first (Little House in the Big Woods, published in 1932), to last (These Happy Golden Years, published in 1943) were all very personal statements, espousing the values which frontier life instilled within her and her husband Almanzo.
Miller pays particular attention to the relationship between Wilder and her daughter, the writer and political commentator Rose Wilder Lane. This is in part a function of the available source materials; very few of Laura's personal papers remain, so the author draws heavily on Rose's copious collection of diaries, journals, and letters to fill in the gaps. But there is no denying that the mother-daughter relationship-- generally loving, occasionally mutually frustrating, always turbulent--was crucial to Wilder's development as an author. Lane, who spent much of her young adulthood living in San Francisco and New York and traveling in Europe, frequently found herself at odds with her parents' frugal and homespun frontier ways. Nevertheless she had been encouraging her mother for years to record her childhood memories, and she played an active role in the writing of all eight novels.
Indeed, other authors have gone so far as to claim that Lane was the virtual "ghostwriter" of the series. Miller challenges this characterization through a careful examination of the original manuscripts. While it is clear that Lane was closely involved, giving encouragement and advice, and handling much of the editing process, the books were principally the product of Ingalls' handiwork; there were often disagreements-- sometimes heated ones-- over issues of character and plot development, but in the end the words belonged to Laura. Significantly, Miller points out that Rose spent less than a week working on the first book.
B ut Becoming Laura Ingalls Wilder is about more than merely one woman's transition from pioneer girl to best-selling author; Wilder's life in many ways parallels the development of the United States itself in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Her childhood offers a graphic account of frontier life, but her later years in the modern industrial world of the 20th century are no less interesting. Her dalliances in politics--first as a populist Democrat, later as a fierce critic of the New Deal, and intervention in World War I--reflected the evolving attitudes of many who experienced the hardships of the frontier and who came to resent the intrusion of the federal government into their daily lives. And the passages dealing with Laura and Almanzo's efforts to adjust themselves to the changing cultural landscape, driving an automobile for the first time, going to the movies, and traveling to San Francisco, for example, are some of the most entertaining of the book.
Miller offers readers a solidly researched and competently written biography of one of America's most important literary figures. Although the work occasionally suffers from an excess of minor detail--for example, readers could probably do without the list of commodity prices in Wright County, Missouri--it succeeds admirably in conveying the story of the woman who did so much to dramatize frontier life for generations of young people. Fans of Wilder's novels will find this book well worth the read.