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Little House series: book vs reality


YPestis

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In reality, lots of pioneer outposts were wiped out by disease and death. It is a story written all over the American West. Yes, the government gave you land, but you were on your own in terms of survival. Totally different rules and mindsets back then. The reality is that so much snow fell during the long winter that trains could not run and you would have definitely killed anyone trying to get supplies in by covered wagon. They were at the mercy of both the weather and the technology.

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It's nice when you never have to worry about the people locked out of the secret picking up a history book.

LOL!

They are finally publishing her journals next year and I am very excited to get a less-sanitized version of her life. I suspect her unedited prose will contain occasional moments of the 19th century pioneer version of snark.

I hope so - that could be some good reading.

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I always think about how they said Carrie didn't get over the Long Winter very well and was always small and spindly. She married in later life, as did Grace, but neither of them had children of their own. I wonder if their bodies had to deal with the starvation at a very critical stage in their development.

Also, conversely, apparently both Ma and Mary became quite obese and diabetic as they got older. I can just imagine their metabolisms were permanently screwed up.

I believe Laura, Carrie and Grace all died from complications due to diabetes. Carrie didn't marry until she was in her forties if I recall correctly. She was quite the interesting person. Grace got married in her late 20s so I'm surprised she didn't have any.

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They are finally publishing her journals next year and I am very excited to get a less-sanitized version of her life. I suspect her unedited prose will contain occasional moments of the 19th century pioneer version of snark.

I had no idea! I can't wait to read this! :dance:

Also, I have been sucked into a youtube little house television show vortex and I cannot escape from all the feathered hair and Pa's ceaseless meddling. This show is so incredibly fucked up, I had no idea. I could snark for hours about how saccharine and traumatizing Michael Landon's (and his 40 pounds of hair) favorite plot devices were. So many orphans! So many people going blind! Death by fire! Rape by mime! (WTF??) Pa is alternately psychotherapist, physiotherapist, substitute preacher and all-around town scold. It's delightful and I can't stop watching.

I was so excited as a young teen when I first heard they were going to turn Little House into a TV series. And the first few episodes were okay. But then...it turned into your description and I couldn't take it anymore. I admire your fortitude in watching it. :lol:

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Actually, Pa's attitude was virulently racist, even for that time and place. It wasn't unusual, but it wasn't the only possible viewpoint - our History Center is doing a big thing on the 1862 Dakota Wars, and one of the things that happened then is that there were so many English- and French-speaking white people who had tight ties with Dakota people, many of them were advocating for change in the way the Indian agents behaved right up to the federal level, gave food to their native neighbors, and were warned by Dakota people when the war started.

(the German immigrants were mostly more recent, and didn't speak any of the languages - Dakota, French, or English - common in the area, so didn't have those kinds of ties. That's part of why New Ulm was hit so hard.)

It was actually more common when the books were written, in the 1930s after decades of allotment/assimilation policy directed at destroying tribal culture.

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I read and enjoyed: "Laura Ingalls Wilder, Farm Journalist: Writings from the Ozarks". This compilation of Missouri Ruralist pieces gave me a glimpse of the "real" Laura. A fascinating read and a look at a way of life that no longer exists.

http://www.amazon.com/Laura-Ingalls-Wil ... 0826217710

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One interesting fact about LIW: Her parents were married in 1860, but Mary, the oldest child, wasn't born until 1865. What was going on in those 5 years? I recall a line in one of the books where Ma praises Pa for being such a good provider. Even as a child, I thought that was a gross exaggeration.

Answer: The Civil War, although I've never actually heard if Charles served in the war or not

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One interesting fact about LIW: Her parents were married in 1860, but Mary, the oldest child, wasn't born until 1865. What was going on in those 5 years? I recall a line in one of the books where Ma praises Pa for being such a good provider. Even as a child, I thought that was a gross exaggeration.

Was Pa a Union veteran by any chance? The period is right for service in the Civil War.

I don't remember whether the Wilder women helped save the crops when they had the unseasonable cold snap or not (they likely did), but I recall the frost happened on the Fourth of July. I haven't read Caddie Woodlawn in years. There may have been a cold snap in that one too.

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Actually, Pa's attitude was virulently racist, even for that time and place. It wasn't unusual, but it wasn't the only possible viewpoint - our History Center is doing a big thing on the 1862 Dakota Wars, and one of the things that happened then is that there were so many English- and French-speaking white people who had tight ties with Dakota people, many of them were advocating for change in the way the Indian agents behaved right up to the federal level, gave food to their native neighbors, and were warned by Dakota people when the war started.

(the German immigrants were mostly more recent, and didn't speak any of the languages - Dakota, French, or English - common in the area, so didn't have those kinds of ties. That's part of why New Ulm was hit so hard.)

It was actually more common when the books were written, in the 1930s after decades of allotment/assimilation policy directed at destroying tribal culture.

Not sure I agree. I don't think Pa's attitude towards Indians was out of the ordinary. He was born in a part of western NY that was in the center of violent conflict between allied tribes during the French & Indian and revolutionary wars. I would think he would have absorbed some local prejudice there. Also, while there was some sympathy for Indians prior to the end of the civil war, particularly from Eastern whites; once the wars started in the 1860's and 70's it was very rare to see a positive newspaper story or editorial. This was the era of Colonial Chivington, the one who justified the Sand Creek Massacre with "nits make lice".

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Not sure I agree. I don't think Pa's attitude towards Indians was out of the ordinary. He was born in a part of western NY that was in the center of violent conflict between allied tribes during the French & Indian and revolutionary wars. I would think he would have absorbed some local prejudice there. Also, while there was some sympathy for Indians prior to the end of the civil war, particularly from Eastern whites; once the wars started in the 1860's and 70's it was very rare to see a positive newspaper story or editorial. This was the era of Colonial Chivington, the one who justified the Sand Creek Massacre with "nits make lice".

This thread makes me wonder how accurate it was, btu was there not a part in LHOTP where they had to fight off an Indian attack?

That's why I give them a bit of a pass on racism against Indians. There were, literally, at war.

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This thread makes me wonder how accurate it was, btu was there not a part in LHOTP where they had to fight off an Indian attack?

That's why I give them a bit of a pass on racism against Indians. There were, literally, at war.

There was a part in LHOTP that sort of went over my head as a child but which gives me chills as an adult. Pa goes off hunting, leaving Ma home with three small children and no gun. A couple of Indians (male) show up. She gives them some bread and tobacco and they go away. But when I think about what they could have done to her... She had no way to defend herself.

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like i said, it wasn't uncommon - or i guess out of the ordinary - it's just that it wasn't the only common opinion at the time. The choice to put those words in his mouth was just as likely Laura/Rose's as because those were his actual words. There can be hatred for enemies without that racist disdain. (And the racism in the scene comes from the narrator, too, if I remember right - the Indian man smells bad, right?)

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There was a part in LHOTP that sort of went over my head as a child but which gives me chills as an adult. Pa goes off hunting, leaving Ma home with three small children and no gun. A couple of Indians (male) show up. She gives them some bread and tobacco and they go away. But when I think about what they could have done to her... She had no way to defend herself.

I do not even remember that. :shock:

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There can be hatred for enemies without that racist disdain.

It's been my observation that hatred and racism go together hand in hand. I have honestly never met anyone who truly hated someone from another culture where there wasn't an element of racism. One that particular part of human affairs, we are still very much in the good old days.

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I think you would have to be pretty enlightened to be a white settler in the 1860's who didn't feel racial distain. It was kind of a defining characteristic of the age. Manifest Destiny anyone?

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Was Pa a Union veteran by any chance? The period is right for service in the Civil War.

I don't remember it ever being mentioned, and they do mention the uncle who seems to have a touch of PTSD.

I always got the feeling that Pa envied the Native Americans because in his eyes, they weren't tied down.

I think you would have to be pretty enlightened to be a white settler in the 1860's who didn't feel racial distain. It was kind of a defining characteristic of the age. Manifest Destiny anyone?

This.

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It's been my observation that hatred and racism go together hand in hand. I have honestly never met anyone who truly hated someone from another culture where there wasn't an element of racism. One that particular part of human affairs, we are still very much in the good old days.

I think that it's more complex in the Ingalls case. It's very gray.

Sure they were there on the NA lands, but I read it more as PTSD when they say things like "The only dead Indian is a good Indian."

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well, there were an awful lot of mixed marriages and metis families, and settlers who had been around a while who had native and metis business partners & neighbors. The Ingalls were part of a wave of settlers who had less personal contact with the people they were displacing, but especially as he traveled around for work/trade Pa would have had more than his wife and daughters did. That "the only good Indian is a dead Indian" attitude was a minority one, even in the Territories - it got the upper hand after the Civil War, even in national politics, but just barely.

I'm not arguing that Pa Ingalls probably wasn't racist, just that there was a whole range of attitudes and Laura chose to depict nearly the most extreme. It's not fair to paint the whole era with that brush - it's like if a Tea Party kid grows up and writes about her parents, and future readers say "well back then everyone felt that way."

Minor point: there wasn't a war going on at the time Little House on the Prairie happened. The removal war in Kansas only lasted about year, ended before the Ingalls got there, and mostly featured massacres by the US Army (or the dregs left over for the western wars during the Civil War, at least.) Which doesn't mean Caroline wouldn't have been terrified.

The danger the Ingalls really were in was removal by American troops trying to make sure the peace stayed peaceful even though idiot settlers kept moving out into illegal territory.

(My mom freaking loves Little House and i have all her hardbacks of the books, which she read to me and the 6th grade classes she taught, multiple times. All 13 or 14 or however many. I think I read them 2 or 3 times on my own, too. And then lots of critiques of them)

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Sure they were there on the NA lands, but I read it more as PTSD when they say things like "The only dead Indian is a good Indian."

I think Caroline was more bothered by it, because she seemed like she was more aware of how many bad things could happen to them. I also wonder if she might have been more influenced by accounts of bad things that had happened previously.

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I always got the feeling that Pa envied the Native Americans because in his eyes, they weren't tied down.

I definitely got this impression when the family stood outside their cabin on the Kansas prairie and watched the long line of Native Americans slowly pass by. I think if he could have, he'd have wandered the American West all his life.

I think you would have to be pretty enlightened to be a white settler in the 1860's who didn't feel racial distain. It was kind of a defining characteristic of the age. Manifest Destiny anyone?

This.

This x 2.

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I was such an avid fan of the books as a kid. I practically had them all memorized. "These Happy Golden Years" was the first love story I ever read, and the first book I ever read that had the protagonists kiss. I remember thinking at the time how funny it was that Laura gave permission for Almanzo to kiss her after she had accepted his marriage proposal. She wouldn't even let him put his around her in the buggy when he tried. I never knew a fundie might find a book so innocent so scandalous.

Reading up in actual bios is both fascinating and disappointing. I am glad I didn't learn what the real Ingalls family was like until I was an adult. I would not have been able to handle it. I would have been angry that the TV series was actually correct when they gave Laura a dead baby brother also had the family running a hotel for a while.

I hated the TV series because its deviance from the books but I watched it religiously for one reason and one reason only - Almanzo. Dean Butler was my first husband!

If you ever read Alison Arngrim's "Confessions of a Prairie Bitch" (and I highly recomend it as it's a great memoir by a very funny and honest lady) she talks about why the show deviates so much from the books. For one thing the simplistic chapters of children's books don't make for good TV. Wilder devoted entire chapters to things like milking cows. You can't make a show out of that. Also, Michael Landon lost the rights to the story of Wilder's life past a certain point, so he had to make stuff up.

It's interesting to realize how Laura's food deprivation throughout her life affected her and her life and her writing. Se describes food in detail whenever anyone gets enough to eat in her books. She truly never did get over it. Has anyone read "West From Home"? It is the letters Laura wrote to Almanzo when she went to visit Rose in San Francisco for the World's Fair. At one point there is a letter that Rose wrote to Almanzo expressing her concern that Laura was getting fat. Apparently the abundance of food at the fair was tempting Laura from every corner and she couldn't pass anything up. Rose describes Laura looking at a case full of fish as if she were planning to break the glass and eat it all then and there even while she has a bag of chips in her hand and she just ate lunch. Laura does seem to compile some international recipes from the trip as well.

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It's interesting to realize how Laura's food deprivation throughout her life affected her and her life and her writing. Se describes food in detail whenever anyone gets enough to eat in her books. She truly never did get over it. Has anyone read "West From Home"? It is the letters Laura wrote to Almanzo when she went to visit Rose in San Francisco for the World's Fair. At one point there is a letter that Rose wrote to Almanzo expressing her concern that Laura was getting fat. Apparently the abundance of food at the fair was tempting Laura from every corner and she couldn't pass anything up. Rose describes Laura looking at a case full of fish as if she were planning to break the glass and eat it all then and there even while she has a bag of chips in her hand and she just ate lunch. Laura does seem to compile some international recipes from the trip as well.

And even when they didn't get enough to eat. All those interminable meals of beans, bread, and nothing else in The Long Winter. :?

Every time I re-read Farmer Boy, I feel a little like I'm reading food pron.

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well, there were an awful lot of mixed marriages and metis families, and settlers who had been around a while who had native and metis business partners & neighbors. The Ingalls were part of a wave of settlers who had less personal contact with the people they were displacing, but especially as he traveled around for work/trade Pa would have had more than his wife and daughters did. That "the only good Indian is a dead Indian" attitude was a minority one, even in the Territories - it got the upper hand after the Civil War, even in national politics, but just barely.

I'm not arguing that Pa Ingalls probably wasn't racist, just that there was a whole range of attitudes and Laura chose to depict nearly the most extreme. It's not fair to paint the whole era with that brush - it's like if a Tea Party kid grows up and writes about her parents, and future readers say "well back then everyone felt that way."

Minor point: there wasn't a war going on at the time Little House on the Prairie happened. The removal war in Kansas only lasted about year, ended before the Ingalls got there, and mostly featured massacres by the US Army (or the dregs left over for the western wars during the Civil War, at least.) Which doesn't mean Caroline wouldn't have been terrified.

The danger the Ingalls really were in was removal by American troops trying to make sure the peace stayed peaceful even though idiot settlers kept moving out into illegal territory.

(My mom freaking loves Little House and i have all her hardbacks of the books, which she read to me and the 6th grade classes she taught, multiple times. All 13 or 14 or however many. I think I read them 2 or 3 times on my own, too. And then lots of critiques of them)

Ok, I don't want to harp on this, but yes, there was a war going on. There were many small wars going on west of the Mississippi, even during the Civil war and before. There were settlers and soldiers taking land everywhere. The fact that there were mixed race families does not negate the prevailing belief that white people were better and deserving of the land. Many of those mixed race families were intermarried with eastern tribes like Cherokee, Huron and Cree who were pushed west, not the tribes that originated in the west, plus they were often white male, Indian wife relationships, which was a much more acceptable power dynamic.

As an Indian, I get really touchy about this, becaus there is such a push to whitewash the actions and attitudes of settlers. Just because some whites traded and interacted with indians, and maybe felt pity for some Indians once they were here'd onto reservations, doesn't mean they were not racist, and it doesn't mean that blatant racism was not the majority view.

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