Little House series: book vs reality

[roddma]

I havent read all these comment set but read a similar book. It amazes me how Fundies and their ilk think living in the past is a cure for the present. I guess they like it because there were no food stamps or birth control. When people mention large families were common in the past I bring up how maternal and infant death rates were much higher and kids sometimes never reached puberty.If you lived to see your kids in adulthood, you considered yourself lucky. Quiverful/Fundies people think living on a shoestring existence humbles you but they fail to think these pioneer families would have given anything for decent food and clothes. I used to adore this time period too Not that yo don't admire the people for their strength but why relive it?

[hoipolloi]

Thanks for all the links, guys, & book suggestions.

One other thing that really got me about Pa Ingalls, 40+ years ago and now, is the chapter in The Long Winter where Pa goes over to the Wilder brothers' place to get wheat, and ends up sitting down to eat a huge pancakes-and-ham breakfast while his family is at home starving, with Ma figuring out how to stretch their last few potatoes.

[roddma]

No problem with him; we battled for the role of Laura, but he always ended up being Carrie./quote]

Carrie never had any real story lines and I thought they portrayed as stupid or naive.

[Fun-Dee]

The tv show episodes that I couldn't handle were the almost word for word recycled Bonanza episodes. There were at least two of them. There may have been more, since I haven't seen every Bonanza episode. One was the episode where Laura teaches a deaf boy sign language. The other had to do with a little couple from the circus.

As far as the books, I remember being a little surprised in 'The First Four Years' where Laura is suffering from morning sickness, and says something like 'If you dance you have to pay the fiddler.'

[jenny_islander]

I read and reread the series as a child. Bits and pieces of the reality of Laura's life began to filter in fairly early; I remember reading the passage about everybody sitting in the one room that had a fire, twisting together hanks of straw to feed the stove, and feeling a sympathetic chill because I grew up with campfires and wood stoves, so I knew how much labor they expended for how brief a flicker of heat. And then there was the part about the girls having to sleep in an attic so badly finished that there was snow on the covers when they woke up in the morning. And it really hit me hard, probably because I had strep as a child, that the diseases that attacked the Ingallses and people they knew had become so rare that I didn't know anybody my age who had ever had measles, mumps, or scarlet fever. Somebody also explained later in my childhood that the Ingallses had "empty" territory to move into because the people who used to live there had all died of smallpox or having their food supply shot out by whites or both. Remember the buffalo wallow that was full of violets because the buffalo weren't around to wallow in it anymore?

My late MIL was a little girl on an Oregon farm during the Depression. They always had enough to eat and plenty of water. But she warned me very bluntly against romanticizing those times. They ate the same damn thing day in day out; even in her sixties she crowed about being able to pick and choose at the store and plant only her favorites at home, instead of eating beets and carrots and potatoes every fricking day. They crapped in an outhouse pit and got all of their water by cranking the handpump in the yard, and you only had hot water on bath night, and washing your hands several times a day was not optional because typhoid was always lurking--so you learned early how the cold could sink into your hands, especially when you were using crappy soap that never seemed to lather. When it was dark you went to bed. When it was light you stooped, scrubbed, pumped, chopped, hoed, dug, scraped, tended, canned, herded, hammered, slaughtered, scrubbed some more, ate whatever was on hand, then did it again until bedtime. They used coal and she wouldn't allow even a lump of it in the house as a joke gift at Christmastime later in her life because she did not want to have to smell it ever again. She remembered the day her mother got a kerosene-powered washing machine, left the tub and the washboard in the back yard and let them rust away, because hallelujah, she would never EVER have to touch them again!

As for the fundamentalists who don't let their kids read the Little House books because Laura isn't constantly under somebody's umbrella of authority: If you pretend to be living like your valiant red-blooded pioneer ancestors but you don't like what those ancestors themselves had to say about their own lives, you're just playacting. Quit it.

[Queen of Serpents]

As far as the books, I remember being a little surprised in 'The First Four Years' where Laura is suffering from morning sickness, and says something like 'If you dance you have to pay the fiddler.'

I love that part now as an adult. While I don't have kids yet, I just love reading her bitchy attitude. "Those that dance, pay the fiddler- thanks Ma! How are we going to pay for this?" and her nausea when she views the newspaper lining the walls "Words! Words! Words!.. she had to read all the words pasted on the walls..."

My personal favorite is Almanzo's silliness in the first year or two,

"Manly, I really think we're going into debt, you should really keep me up to date on the finances--"

"BESS!! I BOUGHT YOU A PONY!!"

"OMG PONY- no seriously, are you sure this will be a bumper crop?"

"ANNIVERSARY PRESENT."

"Manly, I'm pregnant."

"YAAAAAAAAAAY."

"We are in serious debt, Manly."

"YAY BABY- oh shit diphtheria."

There's an entire Pinterest devoted to the subject:

http://pinterest.com/corsetra/maternity ... h-history/

Alas, most of the examples are distinctly later-period, 1880 forward, many in the S-line of the early 20th century. I'm looking for evidence from earlier, around the time Caroline would have been pregnant with her older girls. It's entirely plausible that she'd have simply gone without; would the family have had the means during Caroline's childbearing years? And Laura might not have bothered for comfort purposes. In terms of Ingalls women indulging in maternity corsetry, we may be SOL, but the garment did exist and was used regularly enough to merit a number of ads.

Hope this helps.

Hmmm, I wonder if they would let the dresses out at the waist and hips and maybe leave the dress unbuttoned a bit while pregnant. Given the rates of infant and maternal death, I figure Laura and Ma were put on best rest for periods of time and limited to lighter domestic work. Pa may be an ass, but I can see him shouldering more of the burden while Ma was pregnant. Same with Almanzo, he appeared to be more in tune with Laura's needs in the series.

Edited to add section on corset discussion

[RandomTrivia]

Pa was such a fuck-up!

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.

Have you seen the TWOP discussion on Little House? I don't post there, but I do read, and some of it is hilarious.

http://forums.televisionwithoutpity.com/index.php?showtopic=1870765

Loads of snarking, and sometimes songs. Fair warning, it's a massive thread, up over 3,000 pages now, and be careful if you decide to eat/drink while reading there.

(And I'm behind on reading there - off to catch up)

Edited to fix linkage

[HOTW]

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.

The Civil War was going on I don't know if CI served or not but chances are he probably did.

[Aeryn406]

I'm pretty sure my love for LHOTP is the reason that I'm a reenactor today. I always devoured anything related to history, but having the opportunity to actually dress in the clothes and recreate a 150-year old household to demo for visitors is something that I'm excited to do, every time. One of my favorite scenes is the dance at Gramma's in the Big Woods. One day, I'm going to have a dress just like Ma's, with blackberry-shaped buttons - I swear it!

Re: Maternity wear - I'm not sure how much of this Ma would have been able to do with always moving and being in remote areas at times, but women in the 8th & 9th month tried to stay home as much as they could. There was a "home dress" called a wrapper which could be worn with a corset or without. It was made the same way as a regular dress, but it buttoned all the way from the neck to the floor. When their stomachs were too big to be comfortable, they'd just unbuttoned the skirt buttons to the waist & let their petticoats show. And, of course, those wrapper petticoats were embroidered with white work, pin-tucked and had lace inserts because people were seeing them. And, even families that had very little would have tried to imitate this fashion, as much as they could, because it was the social standard - says the woman with quite a few $20 knock-off designer purses. (See, we still do it today. ;) )

Re: corsets - Once you get the right one, they're very comfortable. I have back problems from scoliosis and I wish I could wear one all the time! They do keep you more upright because the boning doesn't let you slouch and you have to stoop at the knees to pick things up, but those are things you're supposed to do anyway!

[Avalondaughter]

I'll speak up for the Ingalls' racial attitudes in the books....I actually thought what made the books so appealing was that Laura in the books had a positive view of the Indians, which contrasted sharply with her mother's. It was mentioned a few times Ma Ingalls hated Indians, yet Laura did not share that attitude and she hinted Pa respected them for their knowledge. I think the book translate well because it doesn't take a virulent racist attitude. The only place kids may be confused at is the black ministry show, which I don't think was maliciously done but may confuse kids as it is associated with negative caricatures in this country (Ted Danson not withstanding...). Otherwise, I don't feel too poorly about the racial treatment in the book, especially given it's time period. It's the same with its treatment of women; for it's time, the Ingalls females were wonderful examples of smart, hardworking women who tried to make a living. It's good to remind children reading the book of the time period, but I don't think kids would pick up negative racist or sexist attitudes from it.

I have a book of Laura's newspaper columns. She addresses attitudes of race in one column. She talks of her trip to San Francisco where she hears other white people complain about the abundance of different peoples in the city. Laura defends them to a point but treats their presence almost as if they are some exotic species. She seems almost surprised that blacks and Asians can have beautiful children.

Charles Ingalls certainly did make some attempts to settle down. He had (I believe) a butcher shop and was the town JOP. I wonder how happy he was when they seemed permanently settled in DeSmet. It seems by LTOP they had finally started to make a decent living.

It's funny reading this thread and suddenly looking at the books as a libertarian manifesto showing pure self reliance in the state of tragedy and yet downplaying the hardship. I am realizing just now the power of the idea that they had to "win the bet with Uncle Sam".

If the state paid for Mary's education, why did Laura have to work so hard? She spent all of those hours sewing and teaching and often being miserable and overworked. It was mostly assumed she did so to help pay for Mary's education. Did Laura ever get to keep any of her earnings?

[formergothardite]

Oh yes, do read "Confessions of a Prairie Bitch", if you are a fan of the show. I fell in love with its author.

Super excited about the journals coming out. I used to play "putting up food for The Long Winter" in my back yard. My mother did not appreciate the salad I tried to feed my brother, as it was hemlock. Oops. WTF was there hemlock in our yard is what I wonder!

The show did get a little preachy, and occasionally improbable, and Michael Landon's hair and oily, shirtless chest still gives me the creeps. I did, recently, see my all time favorite episode: the one where Caroline is at home alone and cuts her leg. It is very strange and "arty". Of course, the detoxing of Albert 2-parter, with Pa helping him kick "The Morphine" is also a classic.

I've learned a lot on this thread, and I am a fan of the books and show, and have even visited a few of the major sites, having grown up in the midwest. Thanks to the FJ braintrust!

I spent my childhood imagining times when I would have to do something like this and wondering if I could really do it. :lol:

[HOTW]

The state may have paid Mary's tuition at the Blind school but it did not pay for her transportation costs or her clothing and what was acceptable at home on the prairie was not what was acceptable in polite society. Do you recall the outfit they made mary for school and the description Laura gave of its making> I don;t think Luara ever stated they were paying for her schooling but that they needed the money so Mary COULD go to school! I think it was mentioned in one book how they were saving the money so Mary could come home for the summer and she instead went to a frind's which made Laura so disappointed? I don't thinl Laura had many friends that lived close to the homestead so summers must have been very lonely especially when your younger sister was just not into the same things as you whereas your other sister could understand what you were talking about.

[formergothardite]

I remember being horrified in one of the books where Carrie(?) was at school doing her work and swaying back and forth making the desk move a little and the teacher like flipped out and went all crazy on her. And Laura came to her rescue because the teacher was a mean bitch.

[FaustianSlip]

I spent my childhood imagining times when I would have to do something like this and wondering if I could really do it. :lol:

Have you ever seen the movie The River? It's about a farming family that falls on hard times during the recession in the 1980s, and features (pre-cray cray) Mel Gibson and Sissy Spacek. There's a scene where Sissy Spacek is working on the farm entirely alone and gets her sleeve (and, progressively, her arm) caught up in a tractor or a thresher or something. It about scarred me for life and killed any romanticized thoughts of farm life that might have been lingering. Yeesh.

[formergothardite]

I have not seen that movie but stuff like that give me nightmares. Slowly being pulled into machinery is just an awful thought.

[thekate]

Here is a (slightly rose-colored) summary of the family's life through 1877ish. Charles Ingalls did NOT serve in the Civil War.

http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/m/miller-wilder.html

This thread inspired me to reread Little House in the Big Woods last night and all I could think about was how scandalized fundies must be at the dancing scene!

[Loveday]

Well, as I predicted, I was up half the night reading the feminist review that Queen of Serpents posted the link to. Had to force myself to stop reading around two am. It's a lot longer than I thought, it's going to take some time to finish it. And then I'll have to read it again to catch everything I missed. One thing's for sure, between the feminist review and all the great comments on this thread, next time I read the Little House books it will seem almost like I've never read them before. :shock:

If the state paid for Mary's education, why did Laura have to work so hard? She spent all of those hours sewing and teaching and often being miserable and overworked. It was mostly assumed she did so to help pay for Mary's education. Did Laura ever get to keep any of her earnings?

Yes, I believe some of the earnings from her last couple of teaching jobs were hers to keep. IIRC, she used the money to buy some things for her trousseau, and to make a couple of dresses, one of which became her wedding dress.

One other thing that really got me about Pa Ingalls, 40+ years ago and now, is the chapter in The Long Winter where Pa goes over to the Wilder brothers' place to get wheat, and ends up sitting down to eat a huge pancakes-and-ham breakfast while his family is at home starving, with Ma figuring out how to stretch their last few potatoes.

This. I always wondered how he had the nerve to go home and face his family after eating that huge meal.

As far as the books, I remember being a little surprised in 'The First Four Years' where Laura is suffering from morning sickness, and says something like 'If you dance you have to pay the fiddler.'

I know, right? :lol: I never caught that when I was a kid reading the books (I was EXTREMELY naive, even through high school), but I re-read the book for the first time in decades not long ago, and laughed out loud when I read that line. :lol:

[Wolfie]

Oh yes, a few years back now I researched the real Ingalls family and for sure I felt a bit forlorn realizing things were not like the Landon TV series! Which of course I should have realize beforehand!

Anyone who glosses over this era without proper realization of what hardships these families had to endure, are truly deluded!

Even people who think the 40's/50's were 'the good ole days' to me are just ignoring much of what really went on!

I never liked the TV series because it wasn't enough like the books.

I adore history, the real stuff, even with all the horrible stuff mixed in. It makes me so glad I am alive now, and not even 50 years ago. But I will play in the past.

I know now, even with getting up early to take care of the critters, bringing in firewood and getting up at night to keep the fire going, worrying about predators with my critters, occcasionally living without power after a storm for up to a week, that I still have it easy- I don't have to bring in water, I have a propane stove that can be used when the power is out and so on.

[Wolfie]

That tells me that they must had suffered significant food deprivation.

They didn't have the transport systems or food storage that we have now, even some of the more wealthy people in town could have issues with access to proper nutrition in that time as well, they also didn't understand nutrients and vitamins yet. (though they were starting to understand that some foods seemed to keep people more healthy than others)

[Wolfie]

I'll second (or third?) the suggestion for Letters of a Woman Homesteader and throw A Pioneer's Search for an Ideal Home in to the mix, too.

I will throw in Prairie Women too, At least I think that is the title, my mom stole my copy. It's about women living on the Kansas frontier, and it's based on actual writings. There is a play based on the book too.

[Wolfie]

The Little House books were the first things I bought when I got my first job back in the 70s. I still have them; if I ever have to evacuate for a hurricane they'll go with me, along with my important papers file and my family photo albums.

I figure it's easier to replace the books- but some family stuff that was brought to California in the 1850's and 1860's will go with me. (if I'm home to be able to grab stuff.) (one came out in a wagon, then the next came around the horn to meet the first)

[Wolfie]

I always got the impression she often had lovers and didn't really care what people thought of her for that, in a time when being single and having sex was quite an eyebrow-raiser. Never thought about the lesbian possibility. :think:

Rose always reminded me of my grandpa's cousin (who would have been born around 1900), who lived in SF, never married, and had her share of lovers. She died when I was 11 or 12, but was fascinating to me.

[Rosa]

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.

These Happy Golden Years is my favorite. And, yeah - Farmer Boy is full of food porn.

West from Home made me think Rose was kind of a bully, but it's been years since I read it.

[Wolfie]

I think a lot of them don't, because they buy into the weird setup of the books that encourages the reader to think that the family's experience was "normal" for the time.

I think it was one of many normals at the time. My family's experience was pretty isolated at that time, even if they didn't move around a lot. Cousins still own the property that my family lived on starting in 1863. It's not isolated at all anymore, but was then. My great-great grandmother was one of the first "white" children born in that county. (I say "white" as there were some Cherokee intermarriages in the 1600's on the east coast) The US is a big country and even now there isn't one "normal."

I live on a rural one acre lot, there are one acre lots in cities that aren't as rural as my lot. I drive an hour to get to work, my brother lives on a 1/8 or smaller lot in a big city and bikes a couple miles to work. Are either of our experiences not "normal" for now?

[Wolfie]

Okay, slightly off topic- did the women have specific corsets or maternity dresses while pregnant in that time period?

I just remember how detailed Laura's clothing descriptions were, the joys of having a new dress, and writing about reusing fabrics, I wish TFFY featured more on clothing and wasn't just a rough draft.

I know she hated her corset and I think maternity corsets existed, but I'm not sure how that would work with the style of dress. Derailing, but I read Gone With the Wind and with the descriptions of sex and pregnancy I was hoping maternity wear would be mentioned as Scarlett is so fashion obsessed but there wasn't much.

This has been bothering me for a while, so I hope there's nerds out there to answer that.

Yes, they had both. The corsets generally had lacing on the sides of the bottom so they could be loosened up, and the dresses either had higher waistlines, or were "wrappers" which is a looser fitting robe, that they also might wear as a robe.

Otherwise dresses tended to be very fitted.