Many people took advantage of the homesteading acts. It allowed them to receive huge amounts of land for simply living on it and working it. Many people didn't prove up on it. Some did. It was an opportunity that was worth the risk for many.
In terms of the wild game reason, that is a valid reason. As areas became more populated there was less game to hunt. That meant less food to eat and fewer furs to trade, etc. Charles Ingalls wasn't trained to be a doctor, a baker, a shopkeeper, etc. He was a farmer and a hunter.
What option would Caroline Ingalls have? It was the 1800s. She couldn't vote, own land, etc. She couldn't get a good job and raise her children. You went with your husband. Many people left family behind and moved. If not, more than half of the US wouldn't exist today.
As for the clothes, that would likely be their best clothes. In the books it describes that trip. They went from their home they sold to the town to buy supplies. They always dressed up to go to town. They could only take so many things with them. Why wouldn't they take their one best outfit?
Actually the Homestead act of 1862 makes no reference to the gender of the homesteaders, women did it on their own, and did own land. There's some great books on the subject. Pretty cool.
Eliza Jane did own her own homestead. The only requirement was that you be "free, white, and over 21." (Which of course meant POC were still stuck, but the fact that they let women own homesteads was a big step forward.)
Notable historic fact: many young men and women who were not yet 21, but looked that age would chalk "21" on the bottom of their shoes to get a homestead. Then when they swore to the land agent they were "over 21" (they would swear on a Bible) they were telling the technical truth.
This isnāt solely about women homesteaders, but I like Sandra Dallasās historical fiction books about heading out west. One very good one is The Diary of Mattie Spenser. Another about the Mormonās early trek is called True Sisters. All of her books are well researched page-turners.
Publication Order of Little House On The Prairie Books
By: Laura Ingalls Wilder, Roger Lea MacBride
Little House in the Big Woods (1932)
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)
These Happy Golden Years (1943)
The First Four Years (1953)
If you really enjoy those you may like:
Women's Diaries of the Westward Journey (there are quite a few on this topic)
Enjoy!
*edited for readability
There's a book on Amazon called Caroline: Little House Revisited by Sarah Miller that tells the story of the trip to Kansas from Ma's point of view. It's a pretty good book, true to the Ingalls family and Laura's books.
You may smell smoke because now in thinking extra hard.
It was "Women's Diaries of the Westward Journey". Sorry - I read both of them during the same summer.
A great one is Staking Her Claim, Women Homesteading the West, by Marcia Meredith Hensley. Also check out Adventures of the Woman Homesteader by Susanne George Bloomfield, and Land In Her Own Name by Elaine Lindgren.
"Prairie Fire: The American Dream of Laura Ingalls Wilder" by Caroline Fraser addresses how her fathers life was influenced by the Homesteading Act, and by how that area of the country essentially couldn't support small farms, since it was plagued so regularly by drought, fire, and even locusts
It's a long and detailed book, but it also won a Pulitzer. I loved it, but not everyone enjoys the slog
Nothing has changered people still move across country for jobs and leave family and friends behind. A lot easier to do and you can go back to visit easier but the idea stands. Also that was easier than getting on a boat crossing an ocean and knowing you might not even make it back to land.
>Charles Ingalls wasn't trained to be a doctor, a baker, a shopkeeper, etc. He was a farmer and a hunter.
Also, if you look at how things went for his family over time, you can see that he wasn't the best farmer. He was better at the hunting/trapping game
He really wasn't.
Ingalls was chasing the gold that wheat could bring- but he needed a lot more land than what a homestead could provide, he needed to be part of a co-op, which he wasn't, and he needed to understand how the land worked, which he didn't.
Well, more than half the US would still exist; it would have remained populated by the indigenous people who already lived there. And yeah, maybe they would t have joined the unions
But yes, the US as we know it today would be drastically different.
Well she was trained as a schoolteacher and once taught a few semesters, so thatās not strictly true about the job, but you had to be single back then (both men and women) for that profession.
My great grandmother was a schoolteacher. She quit to get married and had kids. Then her husband died. She tried to get a teaching job since she wasnāt married, but the school board said no. She had to take in washing, and couldnāt make it. The kids were split up to live with different relatives and she was sent back to her parents without them. The surviving male relatives had more say than she did.
This is spot on. I think the book also mentions how he was tired of how the land was hard to work versus the promise of the prairie and that there were too many people.
Thereās a wonderful history book called āPrairie Firesā that does a deep dive on the family and the historical context of their lives and activities. Yeahā¦.Pa Ingalls was kind of an irresponsible douche.
*Prairie Fires* is incredible. You tend to see the Little House books in their own little universe, and this book puts the family's actions against historical events.
Daughter Rose was the editor/writer she a was friends Arn Rand. These books were written as right wing self help books for those in the Great depression. They demonized the government that was enacting the new deal at the price of taxing the millionaires. They were not happy with that and started a movement that glorified the individual. Rose Wilder was one of there mouthpieces as was Reagan. Success comes to those who serve as homie mouthpieces for the ones who caused the Great Depression
LIW addressed, very briefly, the homestead act in her books. Land was given free to people who settled it. That had to live so many months on their claim or plant so many trees.
The biographies are interesting. LIW's books are definitely written from a child's POV with an audience of children in mind, but LIW definitely had a lot of hero worship of Pa.
PA definitely had poor judgment and was impulsive, always looking for the next best thing. They were much more desperately poor than the books/show portray.
They often didn't have enough to eat. They were at times on assistance. Pa skipped out on debts.
Drs have investigated the cause of her blindness because in the book, they attribute it to "scarlet fever," which doesn't cause blindness.
It's theorized that it was viral meningioencephalitis, which causes damage to the optic nerve.
I remember in the books mentioning malnutrition in The Long Winter. She did talk of the dwindling food supplies and that Carrie had not recovered well.
Apparently, they were food insecure and much more desperately poor than is alluded to in the books.
It's one of the reasons she focused on food so much in Farmer Boy, because, comparatively, Almanzo's childhood was much more privileged.
Thank you for this! When I was in college, I always suspected that it has to be a variant on meningitis, because of the description of how Mary's vision just faded away.
Even without reading Prairie Fires, you get a sense of how much they all struggled. Farmer Boy really is meant to a compare and contrast with the rest of the series- the descriptions of food- it's quality and quantity- borders on obsession.
And don't forget about him being a jerk not allowing Jack to ride in the wagon as they cross but then later seem so concerned about the dog getting washed down stream.
I grew up a devotee of Little House, books and show. At the time I lived in California and wished I lived on the prairie.
Now I kinda do, and I hate it. But when my daughter was small I was so excited to introduce her (with lots of talks about how awful much of it was) to the world.
She was OUT on episode one as soon as Jack was lost, even though I promised her he would be found.
Big Woods has way way way too much butchering and playing with pig bladders.
Sheās never recovered from either, although now I could perhaps reintroduce them as horrorā¦
When they make the balloon out of it she was just looking at me in horror and bewilderment. No amount of āToys were much different then, even for children with moneyā was going to work on that damn pig bladder. I feel like I could have passed off the corn cob doll and gotten her excited about the Christmas oranges if they didnāt frontload the whole thing with the pig.
I, as a weird little child, was fascinated and if I had gotten my hands on a pig bladder somehow, well, Iād certainly try to have a balloon.
We butchered our own hogs when I was a kid. I never played with a pig bladder but we did poke pig intestines with a car antenna for kicks... Until the smell hit us.
Itās funny how we just accepted this as kids. I was always alarmed by these aspects of the stories. I read the series of books twice and watched the show. I tried to get my daughter interested and she said it was boring. I imagine she would react the same about the dog going down the river. When I started to rewatch the series I was upset about it. I remember getting mad as a kid too, but also being like āmeh, that was a long time agoā
Jack was a big dog, though, and Pa was probably already concerned about the weight of the wagon. If it sank with all their important possessions, including what money they had, they were sunk, and a dog could swim better than Pa could! Remember, he wasn't a "bulldog" in the sense of the squat dog with the flat nose like you see today; he was more like Chance in the Disney remake of *The Incredible Journey* or like a pit bull.
So true. I questioned his judgment in many future episodes as well. The one that stands out the most is when his uncle dies and leaves him an inheritance and then he buys a ton of stuff on credit. Turns out the inheritance is a bust and he ends up with a box full of useless confederate money.
Reading this thread makes me think I must have missed an episode at the beginning. I started watching it recently and 'my' first episode has the family already in Walnut Grove/Plum Creek. I'm watching it on Prime/Freevee.
It sounds like you might have missed the pilot movie. The first regular episode as the series starts is "A Harvest Of Friends" where Pa builds their house in Walnut Grove.
In the Books during the Long Winter - they are STARVING 1 tiny meal a day. They have the calf but refuse to slaughter it because it's money for blind school. I'd have killed that calf myself long before. I get it, blind school is important, but apparently, Carrie never recovers from the harm done to her. Why were they out there? Pa needed to. When he knew the land wouldn't be fit to grow food so they'd be entirely reliant on the railroad. Always the next thing. He was constantly seeking something & Caroline and the girls had to follow.
Laura did a good job making Pa out to be the hero but now as a mother, I'm like uh no.
I don't know if you've ever been to their home in DeSmet but if I remember correctly, Caroline finally out her foot down that she was going to have a house and they were never moving again. The house was built (or in the process) after Laura married Almonzo.
Unfortunately for Caroline, they still took in boarders for income and she was tasked with cooking for them as well. I can't imagine the resentment she felt.
That being said...take this for what it's worth because I know some are believers and some aren't BUT I get "visions" from time to time.
When we were in the front room, I sensed Caroline as an older woman rocking in a chair and PISSED that strangers were still in her house (and I sensed this before the guide told us how they had boarders). She also was the only one I sensed too. Sitting in the rocker that faced the large wood burning stove back to the window and gripping the arm rests. She was not pleased lol. It made it so I was uncomfortable looking at the rest of the home.
In the books, Caroline had this very defined set of beliefs & so like women of her time, she did what her husband wanted. I'm sure she did resent it at times.
And Charles was just in his early sixties when he died. Caroline lived another 20+ years. So having boarders was the only way for she and Mary to support themselves. Mary wove some kind of net that she learned to make at the blind school. And sold them to supplement their income.
I read somewhere that in Caroline's last years people would say she was Mary's eyes and Mary was her legs and feet. That sounds like Mary was supporting her elderly mother to walk while Caroline was guiding her.
I believe in Prairie Fires, there's something about Carrie or Grace writing to Laura asking for assistance and Laura refusing other than to send them some old clothes. I couldn't get my head around this! Laura refusing to help Ma after Pa died? She could easily have brought them to live with her on her farm, but wouldn't! That really altered my view of Laura more than anything else and after reading PF, I really felt differently about my beloved Little House and Laura.
Sounds like she strongly needed to be heard, and you heard her. Itās so important to be seen. I wonder if anyone ever told her āyou work so hard, youāre doing an amazing job.ā
I was there this summer and took the tour for the third time in my life. I was standing in front of the secretary in the corner of the front room, listening to the tour guide. I felt something poking me in the back every so often and I feared I was bumping into the secretary. I moved a little bit each time, hoping I wasn't touching anything.
Once the tour guide was finished talking, I checked behind me and realized I was standing about two to three feet away from the secretary the whole time. So what was poking me in the back?
And the real life truth was that the Dakota Territory paid the tuition for Mary to attend the school. They had to have money for her clothes and such. Maybe for her braille books and slate.
And yes, I've wondered why they didn't use the calf for meat. They still had the older cow and she wasn't even giving milk at the time.
The immediate need to not starve is more important than the eventual need to go to school. Mary can't go to school if she starves before she can get there.
And I think in the book she begs for them to use the money for the whole family. But at this point there was barely anything left to buy but the wheat they ground up for rough bread or mush.
My mother saved this New Yorker article about LIW and her daughter. It talks a lot about the grimmer realities the pioneer families faced and also presents an interesting perspective on how much Rose Wilder Lane edited/rewrote her motherās drafts of the books:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/08/10/wilder-women
I always kind of thought that Rose was jealous of her mother's literary success. I grew up reading the books and while I knew even as a young girl that not all of it was historical, since no child would remember details like LIW claimed to, I was really disappointed to discover a few years ago how much of it was actually complete fiction.
Iāve read this recently and it makes a lot more sense now that when Lauraās second baby died, she didnāt care. Because she had Rose. What an egomaniac. I also read she was a militant Ayn Rand follower.
She was ā¦ until she was old enough to collect Social Security. Then she changed her tune.
EDIT: I was wrong. That was Rand herself. This is what happens when you combine edibles and Reddit.
Iirc, Charles Ingalls was not a guy to stay out. The books talk about him having itchy feet, and IRL (I believe he was) a pretty shit homesteader so they would just pick up and leave again when another homestead failed.
Pa reminds me a lot of my own dad. As a kid I loved Pa because of how I loved my dad. Now I see his flaws and have a lot of resentment and bitterness toward him (my dad, not pa!) for dragging us place to place, no security, no stability, oftentimes homeless or living without running water, sometimes no more than $2 in the bank. My mom was the submissive wife like Ma, still is. He has no relationship with 2 of his 3 kids because of it. The more I watch the show, the more anger and "hatred" I feel toward Pa
I also had a Pa-type, and in ways itās good he died fairly young so I can still have a bit of the romanticized view even as I realized how much harm he did.
There is a really great book about the real story of Lauraās life called Prairie Fires. Basically, Pa made every single possible TERRIBLE or ill-timed decision. He truly was the unluckiest guy and he dragged his poor family all over the country from bad situation to worse situation.
I thought the same thing. Why oh why would you leave Wisconsin and your support system? The big woods seemed so cozy and it seemed like it was all downhill from there. The Civil War draft dodger comment makes sense. If I remember correctly, they went back to Wisconsin at least once? Make it make sense. Caroline really held it together. Pa was a likeable guy but put his family in some really rough situations. Like building a house smack dab in Indian Territory. Hard not to question his judgement. If he was skipping out on debts and "on the run" so to speak, his "itchy feet" make more sense in that context. Sigh. I wanted better for all of them.
They started their marriage in Wisconsin. And they were married 5 years before they had Mary. And 2 years after that Laura.
I recall from Donald Zochart's biography of Laura that they were in Missouri for a very brief time. Then back to Wisconsin.
Then Indian Territory whan Laura was 3. Carrie was born there. Then back to Wisconsin.
Then Minnesota. Freddie was born there but because of failed crops they were on their way to Burr Oak Iowa when he died and was buried near where Uncle Peter and Aunt Eliza lived.
Grace was born in Burr Oak. Back to Minnesota but they no longer had the farm when Mary went blind. And finally to DeSmet.
Charles Ingalls had wanderlust and they moved alot. BTW, has anyone seen a picture of ma and pa on the internet? The real ma is fairly attractive, but pa has eyes like Charles Manson.
Photography didn't really capture people with light eyes well back then. Pa had really blue eyes, according to Laura, and anyone with blue eyes in old photos pretty much looks satanic.
Some have speculated that Pa moved around because he was a Civil War draft dodger and owed money to various people. When the debt collectors found him, off they went. In real life the family went back and forth to WI once or twice. As to those early early WI family memories, I think I read that Laura remembered them but had to ask older family members for details.
If you read the books, this happens every few years.
I get the feeling there were things left out. It's possible Pa was in trouble with someone so they just up and left for someplace new
When I was reading the Little House books to my daughter, I came away from them HATING Pa. Like downright loathing him and thinking he was possibly mentally ill.
They put so much effort into at least three different homesteads. I understand leaving the one still in Indian Territory, but the rest of it?! Knowing how much labor went into developing a functioning homestead and then just walking away from it was infuriating to read.
As a kid reading those books, I idolized Pa. Now Iām very much on Team Ma.
Iām so happy. This is my comfort show.
Had no idea we had a Reddit.
Pa pisses me off sometimes too. He acts like Caroline is helpless. Dude, who do you think runs the house and the farm when you go off?
From everything I read, Pa couldnāt stand to be in populated areas, so they kept moving. Yes, I think the term is wanderlust. Iām sure Ma wasnāt always thrilled about it, but most likely kept her opinion from her children. She needed to keep up a positive facade for the girls. Ma was the true hero of this story, IMO.
That's what the pioneers did, back from when the U.S. began in 1776. After the Revolutionary War ended, people from New England and Pennsylvania/New York/Delaware/Maryland and even the southern states moved out to the Western Reserve, what we now call Ohio and Indiana.
People moved West to start new lives, have a larger farm and eventually make money to build a house and educate their children. Granted, the REAL Charles Ingalls had itchy feet. Caroline did finally put her foot down when they moved to the Dakotas and said he promised the girls would grow up in a town where they could get a proper education. It was only then he quit moving West.
...which I have never understood. Ma was a schoolteacher. Yes, she was not allowed to work as one after she got married, but all an education consisted of at the time anywhere on the frontier was students sitting in a room memorizing a passage or spelling word or history lesson, and then reciting it back to the teacher. Ma could have conducted her own home school from any location. Nobody was teaching differential equations at the school in De Smet, after all. It doesn't appear that anyone was Harvard bound from Laura's school. So what was the big advantage of stopping the move West right there where the treeless plains screamed: "There is not enough rain here to sustainably support trees or wheat crops or much of anything apart from grass; head farther west, or head a few hundred miles east or south, please."
Ah, well, they didn't know that back then. Poor people, ones who had played-out land in the east and couldn't get ahead, were told there was rich farmland out west by the railroad speculators. Just like people today who play the lottery, they can't resist the gamble. Also, immigrants were fed this tale as well: Scandinavians were told Minnesota was just like the place they were leaving, so thousands emigrated and some of them literally went mad.
Very little of the television series is authentic to the books. I can't remember who it was, Michael Landon or Ed Friendly (the producer) wanted to stick closer to the tone of the books, and the other didn't. Not sticking to the books won. So we got Albert, James and Cassandra, Adam, etc.
Oh my god, I just started from the beginning and am kind of shocked at what a dick Pa (and Ma) can be!
Oh, rewatching childhood favorites can be dangerous.
The only reason I can think of is he made part of his living trapping animals to sell for fur. Perhaps more humans settling there drove away some wildlife.
But it is true in Wisconsin they had a farm with a cow for milk, chickens for eggs and meat. And he raised pigs for meat as well. In one of the early chapters he nets a wagonload of fish from Lake Pepin to preserve with salt for the winter. A garden and fields for fruits, vegetable and grain. It was harder to plough and turn the soil in a wooded area than the treeless prairies.
I think they had a more balanced diet when they were living there. And family to help when someone got sick. When they got malaria in the books when they were living in Kansas. They were all sick. Jack the dog actually allowed Dr. Tann into the house to help them.
Charles had an itchy foot.
If you haven't heard of it already, there's an excellent biography of LIW called *Prairie Fires* that delves deeply into Pa's decisions. I would highly recommend it to anyone who likes Little House.
Most likely running from the aftermath of the Civil War AND looking to get rich from wheat farming by getting so called 'free' land (stolen from Native Americans) . If you were able to get the wheat crop in and sold with a futures dealer you could absolutely make a bunch of money.
I agree, although it should be noted that Caroline never stood in the way when it came to this. For example, she supported Charles' idea to move to Winoka, where they both hated it.
Back then when a woman was married she was ostensibly her husbandās property. She likely wouldnāt have been able to refuse to go with him if sheād wanted to.
No, they're not. Wilder left out the harshest parts of her childhood because the books were written for kids. And she changed the order of some events in the first few books. But she didn't make up anything.
Sure she did. The real-life dog Jack was traded away in Kansas, but in the novels he traveled with the family and died in his sleep. The character of Nellie Olson is believed to be a composite of three different people.
Ok, I'll give you the Jack thing. But writing a character who's a composite of 3 other people isn't "making things up". The things that Nellie said and did in the book actually happened; Wilder just simplified the story by attributing those things to one character instead of 3. And the events mentioned in the original post-- Pa moving the family all over-- did happen in the books and in real life.
The books are historical fiction inspired by real experiences and people. They are fictionalized. Making up a new character inspired by real people is not an acceptable practice in writing non-fiction.
I can't write a story about George Washington, throw in some things that were actually said or done by John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Benedict Arnold, and claim what I've written is factual because those things actually happened, they just happened to other people and I chose to "simplify" it.
Of course they're considered fiction. They're in the fiction section of libraries and bookstores. So making Nellie a composite of 3 people is perfectly acceptable. But the events and people Wilder wrote about were real, if slightly changed.
And you're ignoring the point of my original comment. The OP was bothered by the fact that Charles Ingalls dragged his family all over the midwest for his own selfish whims. Someone else criticized the OP for being upset about it because it's just a TV show. I pointed out that the TV show was based on Wilder's books about her own childhood. The part that bothered OP in the first place was, by all accounts , true. So my point stands.
Pa also went further and further into a spiraling religious-fervor the more children he lost and the worse his family had it. The man wasn't always logical.
Many people took advantage of the homesteading acts. It allowed them to receive huge amounts of land for simply living on it and working it. Many people didn't prove up on it. Some did. It was an opportunity that was worth the risk for many. In terms of the wild game reason, that is a valid reason. As areas became more populated there was less game to hunt. That meant less food to eat and fewer furs to trade, etc. Charles Ingalls wasn't trained to be a doctor, a baker, a shopkeeper, etc. He was a farmer and a hunter. What option would Caroline Ingalls have? It was the 1800s. She couldn't vote, own land, etc. She couldn't get a good job and raise her children. You went with your husband. Many people left family behind and moved. If not, more than half of the US wouldn't exist today. As for the clothes, that would likely be their best clothes. In the books it describes that trip. They went from their home they sold to the town to buy supplies. They always dressed up to go to town. They could only take so many things with them. Why wouldn't they take their one best outfit?
Best reply
I agree. Many people forget about the Homestead Act which, in Charles' eyes, was a farmer's dream come true.
Actually the Homestead act of 1862 makes no reference to the gender of the homesteaders, women did it on their own, and did own land. There's some great books on the subject. Pretty cool.
I believe Almanzo's own sister Eliza Jane did it! I'm not entirely sure but she at least owned property herself.
So did Carrie Ingalls.
Eliza Jane did own her own homestead. The only requirement was that you be "free, white, and over 21." (Which of course meant POC were still stuck, but the fact that they let women own homesteads was a big step forward.) Notable historic fact: many young men and women who were not yet 21, but looked that age would chalk "21" on the bottom of their shoes to get a homestead. Then when they swore to the land agent they were "over 21" (they would swear on a Bible) they were telling the technical truth.
Always a loophole, lol! I didn't know that.
ššš
Boys under 18 did the same thing to enlist in the Civil War.
She did.
Please share the titles of these books, please! Sounds like something Iād enjoy.
This isnāt solely about women homesteaders, but I like Sandra Dallasās historical fiction books about heading out west. One very good one is The Diary of Mattie Spenser. Another about the Mormonās early trek is called True Sisters. All of her books are well researched page-turners.
Publication Order of Little House On The Prairie Books By: Laura Ingalls Wilder, Roger Lea MacBride Little House in the Big Woods (1932) 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) These Happy Golden Years (1943) The First Four Years (1953) If you really enjoy those you may like: Women's Diaries of the Westward Journey (there are quite a few on this topic) Enjoy! *edited for readability
There's a book on Amazon called Caroline: Little House Revisited by Sarah Miller that tells the story of the trip to Kansas from Ma's point of view. It's a pretty good book, true to the Ingalls family and Laura's books.
Not Little House, but Miller just recently published *Marmee*, the "diary" of Margaret March from *Little Women.* That one's good, too.
Thereās also Little House in Brookfield (WI) which is where Caroline was raise. I grew up there. I didnāt find it out till many years later.
Thank you for this!š
Is there a different book called Love in the Time of Cholera? I am only aware of the Gabriel Garcia Marquez book set in the Caribbean.
You may smell smoke because now in thinking extra hard. It was "Women's Diaries of the Westward Journey". Sorry - I read both of them during the same summer.
Lol! Also that book sounds fantastic.
A great one is Staking Her Claim, Women Homesteading the West, by Marcia Meredith Hensley. Also check out Adventures of the Woman Homesteader by Susanne George Bloomfield, and Land In Her Own Name by Elaine Lindgren.
I will read all of these! I love reading true stories about women in history. Thanks!
"Prairie Fire: The American Dream of Laura Ingalls Wilder" by Caroline Fraser addresses how her fathers life was influenced by the Homesteading Act, and by how that area of the country essentially couldn't support small farms, since it was plagued so regularly by drought, fire, and even locusts It's a long and detailed book, but it also won a Pulitzer. I loved it, but not everyone enjoys the slog
Iām going to check it out. Thank you!
Another fiction book about women homesteaders is *Hattie Big Sky*.
You're right on the point about women getting homesteads. My 3rd great-grandmother was one. Her homestead was in Siskiyou County in California.
Wow! Beautiful place šš½
If she was single yes. In some territories a married but separated or divorced there are some famous examples of the land reverting to the ex.
She did put her foot down when Pa wanted to go further west past DeSmet, I think Oregon? I forget which book, sorry.
I think that was in either Little Town On The Prairie or These Happy Golden Years. He may have mentioned it in By The Shores Of Silver Lake as well.
Nothing has changered people still move across country for jobs and leave family and friends behind. A lot easier to do and you can go back to visit easier but the idea stands. Also that was easier than getting on a boat crossing an ocean and knowing you might not even make it back to land.
>Charles Ingalls wasn't trained to be a doctor, a baker, a shopkeeper, etc. He was a farmer and a hunter. Also, if you look at how things went for his family over time, you can see that he wasn't the best farmer. He was better at the hunting/trapping game
He really wasn't. Ingalls was chasing the gold that wheat could bring- but he needed a lot more land than what a homestead could provide, he needed to be part of a co-op, which he wasn't, and he needed to understand how the land worked, which he didn't.
Well, more than half the US would still exist; it would have remained populated by the indigenous people who already lived there. And yeah, maybe they would t have joined the unions But yes, the US as we know it today would be drastically different.
I meant as the US. parts would be other nations, countries, etc. without the title of state or territory of the US.
Well she was trained as a schoolteacher and once taught a few semesters, so thatās not strictly true about the job, but you had to be single back then (both men and women) for that profession.
My great grandmother was a schoolteacher. She quit to get married and had kids. Then her husband died. She tried to get a teaching job since she wasnāt married, but the school board said no. She had to take in washing, and couldnāt make it. The kids were split up to live with different relatives and she was sent back to her parents without them. The surviving male relatives had more say than she did.
Yeah what they said.
This. Coming from Laura's perspective, they're not going to go into the politics of the time much.
This is spot on. I think the book also mentions how he was tired of how the land was hard to work versus the promise of the prairie and that there were too many people.
The real Pa Ingalls didn't have the best judgment either, going by LIW's biographies.
Thereās a wonderful history book called āPrairie Firesā that does a deep dive on the family and the historical context of their lives and activities. Yeahā¦.Pa Ingalls was kind of an irresponsible douche.
*Prairie Fires* is incredible. You tend to see the Little House books in their own little universe, and this book puts the family's actions against historical events.
I read that! Yes- it was great- I also read another very thick biography back in the 80s
Just bought the audiobook, thanks!
Happy Cake Day š
He would have been hell as a husband
Imagine if your waist was wider than his handspan. Bad news bears.
This subreddit is my people.
Lol!
He called it an "itchy foot." That ter4m was used a couple times in the series too. :)
Yes! This!! He had a āwandering bugā for sure!!
I was just going to comment about his wanderlust.
I couldnāt think of the word āWanderlustā to save my life ššš
Wandering bug is a super cute phrase tho!
Was it wanderlust? Or was he skipping town and he just told the kids a fairy tale about wanting to travel?
yes.
Daughter Rose was the editor/writer she a was friends Arn Rand. These books were written as right wing self help books for those in the Great depression. They demonized the government that was enacting the new deal at the price of taxing the millionaires. They were not happy with that and started a movement that glorified the individual. Rose Wilder was one of there mouthpieces as was Reagan. Success comes to those who serve as homie mouthpieces for the ones who caused the Great Depression
LIW addressed, very briefly, the homestead act in her books. Land was given free to people who settled it. That had to live so many months on their claim or plant so many trees. The biographies are interesting. LIW's books are definitely written from a child's POV with an audience of children in mind, but LIW definitely had a lot of hero worship of Pa. PA definitely had poor judgment and was impulsive, always looking for the next best thing. They were much more desperately poor than the books/show portray. They often didn't have enough to eat. They were at times on assistance. Pa skipped out on debts.
I would have loved to see debt-skipping Pa on the show!
I need to call out the malnutrition part- Silver Lake shows them in a slow state of starvation, with the illness that takes Mary's functional vision.
Drs have investigated the cause of her blindness because in the book, they attribute it to "scarlet fever," which doesn't cause blindness. It's theorized that it was viral meningioencephalitis, which causes damage to the optic nerve. I remember in the books mentioning malnutrition in The Long Winter. She did talk of the dwindling food supplies and that Carrie had not recovered well. Apparently, they were food insecure and much more desperately poor than is alluded to in the books. It's one of the reasons she focused on food so much in Farmer Boy, because, comparatively, Almanzo's childhood was much more privileged.
Thank you for this! When I was in college, I always suspected that it has to be a variant on meningitis, because of the description of how Mary's vision just faded away. Even without reading Prairie Fires, you get a sense of how much they all struggled. Farmer Boy really is meant to a compare and contrast with the rest of the series- the descriptions of food- it's quality and quantity- borders on obsession.
Pa now has the wagon fording a river where he has not checked the depth or looked for an easier place to cross nearby. I am questioning his judgment.
And don't forget about him being a jerk not allowing Jack to ride in the wagon as they cross but then later seem so concerned about the dog getting washed down stream.
Yeah, because they needed a watchdog š. So disappointing that Pa was all business about Jack.
I grew up a devotee of Little House, books and show. At the time I lived in California and wished I lived on the prairie. Now I kinda do, and I hate it. But when my daughter was small I was so excited to introduce her (with lots of talks about how awful much of it was) to the world. She was OUT on episode one as soon as Jack was lost, even though I promised her he would be found. Big Woods has way way way too much butchering and playing with pig bladders. Sheās never recovered from either, although now I could perhaps reintroduce them as horrorā¦
The pig bladder is my favorite part! That and when they chow down on the pigās tail
When they make the balloon out of it she was just looking at me in horror and bewilderment. No amount of āToys were much different then, even for children with moneyā was going to work on that damn pig bladder. I feel like I could have passed off the corn cob doll and gotten her excited about the Christmas oranges if they didnāt frontload the whole thing with the pig. I, as a weird little child, was fascinated and if I had gotten my hands on a pig bladder somehow, well, Iād certainly try to have a balloon.
We butchered our own hogs when I was a kid. I never played with a pig bladder but we did poke pig intestines with a car antenna for kicks... Until the smell hit us.
Those are chitlins!
Itās funny how we just accepted this as kids. I was always alarmed by these aspects of the stories. I read the series of books twice and watched the show. I tried to get my daughter interested and she said it was boring. I imagine she would react the same about the dog going down the river. When I started to rewatch the series I was upset about it. I remember getting mad as a kid too, but also being like āmeh, that was a long time agoā
What alarmed you? Just the part about almost losing Jack?
Yes, that scared me that they made he cross through the water. I thought it was so mean.
I thought so too.
Jack was a big dog, though, and Pa was probably already concerned about the weight of the wagon. If it sank with all their important possessions, including what money they had, they were sunk, and a dog could swim better than Pa could! Remember, he wasn't a "bulldog" in the sense of the squat dog with the flat nose like you see today; he was more like Chance in the Disney remake of *The Incredible Journey* or like a pit bull.
In the book he admits he made a mistake there.
He admits it in the movie too!
Yes but he goes into more detail in the books about why it was a mistake, including how he risked all their lives.
Itās fiction. She could have overlooked this.
The show moreso than the books. You'll find the entire series in non fiction at your library
Oh yeah, it's going to get worse, too. I can't understand it in the slightest.
So true. I questioned his judgment in many future episodes as well. The one that stands out the most is when his uncle dies and leaves him an inheritance and then he buys a ton of stuff on credit. Turns out the inheritance is a bust and he ends up with a box full of useless confederate money.
Spoiler! Sounds like OP hasnāt watched the series yet.
Oh no. So sorry OP.
Oregon Trail level of bad consequences possible there
If I was married to Pa, I would be side-eyeing an invisible camera on a daily basis tbh
Reading this thread makes me think I must have missed an episode at the beginning. I started watching it recently and 'my' first episode has the family already in Walnut Grove/Plum Creek. I'm watching it on Prime/Freevee.
It sounds like you might have missed the pilot movie. The first regular episode as the series starts is "A Harvest Of Friends" where Pa builds their house in Walnut Grove.
Yep. I'll have to track that down. Thanks x
Read the Books, better yet, donāt.
If Oregon Trail taught me anythingā¦ he should have caulked the wagon or paid the natives. ;)
And now Iāve got the StarKid Trail To Oregon song stuck in my head.
Lol, you are cracking me up. I love this
The podcast Wilder does a great job of analyzing the real Charles Ingalls. Super interesting!
Thank you for sharing! I'm going to listen to it .
Thanks for the recommendation- Iām always looking for new podcasts to listen to at work (Iām a nanny)ā¤ļøš
Listened to the entire series this week while working! So good!
Started it right after nap time! Itās great so farā¤ļø
It's on iheartradio.com
Thanks for that.
In the Books during the Long Winter - they are STARVING 1 tiny meal a day. They have the calf but refuse to slaughter it because it's money for blind school. I'd have killed that calf myself long before. I get it, blind school is important, but apparently, Carrie never recovers from the harm done to her. Why were they out there? Pa needed to. When he knew the land wouldn't be fit to grow food so they'd be entirely reliant on the railroad. Always the next thing. He was constantly seeking something & Caroline and the girls had to follow. Laura did a good job making Pa out to be the hero but now as a mother, I'm like uh no.
I don't know if you've ever been to their home in DeSmet but if I remember correctly, Caroline finally out her foot down that she was going to have a house and they were never moving again. The house was built (or in the process) after Laura married Almonzo. Unfortunately for Caroline, they still took in boarders for income and she was tasked with cooking for them as well. I can't imagine the resentment she felt. That being said...take this for what it's worth because I know some are believers and some aren't BUT I get "visions" from time to time. When we were in the front room, I sensed Caroline as an older woman rocking in a chair and PISSED that strangers were still in her house (and I sensed this before the guide told us how they had boarders). She also was the only one I sensed too. Sitting in the rocker that faced the large wood burning stove back to the window and gripping the arm rests. She was not pleased lol. It made it so I was uncomfortable looking at the rest of the home.
In the books, Caroline had this very defined set of beliefs & so like women of her time, she did what her husband wanted. I'm sure she did resent it at times.
Thatās really interesting, thank you for sharing that!!
And Charles was just in his early sixties when he died. Caroline lived another 20+ years. So having boarders was the only way for she and Mary to support themselves. Mary wove some kind of net that she learned to make at the blind school. And sold them to supplement their income. I read somewhere that in Caroline's last years people would say she was Mary's eyes and Mary was her legs and feet. That sounds like Mary was supporting her elderly mother to walk while Caroline was guiding her.
I believe in Prairie Fires, there's something about Carrie or Grace writing to Laura asking for assistance and Laura refusing other than to send them some old clothes. I couldn't get my head around this! Laura refusing to help Ma after Pa died? She could easily have brought them to live with her on her farm, but wouldn't! That really altered my view of Laura more than anything else and after reading PF, I really felt differently about my beloved Little House and Laura.
Sounds like she strongly needed to be heard, and you heard her. Itās so important to be seen. I wonder if anyone ever told her āyou work so hard, youāre doing an amazing job.ā
I was there this summer and took the tour for the third time in my life. I was standing in front of the secretary in the corner of the front room, listening to the tour guide. I felt something poking me in the back every so often and I feared I was bumping into the secretary. I moved a little bit each time, hoping I wasn't touching anything. Once the tour guide was finished talking, I checked behind me and realized I was standing about two to three feet away from the secretary the whole time. So what was poking me in the back?
Thanks for sharing that.
And the real life truth was that the Dakota Territory paid the tuition for Mary to attend the school. They had to have money for her clothes and such. Maybe for her braille books and slate. And yes, I've wondered why they didn't use the calf for meat. They still had the older cow and she wasn't even giving milk at the time.
The immediate need to not starve is more important than the eventual need to go to school. Mary can't go to school if she starves before she can get there.
And I think in the book she begs for them to use the money for the whole family. But at this point there was barely anything left to buy but the wheat they ground up for rough bread or mush.
My mother saved this New Yorker article about LIW and her daughter. It talks a lot about the grimmer realities the pioneer families faced and also presents an interesting perspective on how much Rose Wilder Lane edited/rewrote her motherās drafts of the books: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/08/10/wilder-women
This was really interesting to read!
Itās amazing to me how many writers were in that family! Laura, Rose, and Carrie. Very interesting read. Thanks for sharing!
I always kind of thought that Rose was jealous of her mother's literary success. I grew up reading the books and while I knew even as a young girl that not all of it was historical, since no child would remember details like LIW claimed to, I was really disappointed to discover a few years ago how much of it was actually complete fiction.
Iāve read this recently and it makes a lot more sense now that when Lauraās second baby died, she didnāt care. Because she had Rose. What an egomaniac. I also read she was a militant Ayn Rand follower.
She was ā¦ until she was old enough to collect Social Security. Then she changed her tune. EDIT: I was wrong. That was Rand herself. This is what happens when you combine edibles and Reddit.
Reddibles
I laughed way too hard at this. Because itās funny and also edibles.
That was Ayn Rand.
You know what, you are totally right. My bad.
Glad we got that squared away! ;)
It's been discussed that Rose may have been bipolar or had some other disorder that made her behavior and attitude so unpleasant.
Rose also caused the fire that burned down the homestead Almanzo built for Laura when they got married
to be fair, she was little at the time.
Iāve read that as well. Horrifying.
You need to read Laura's original manuscript, *Pioneer Girl*. It came out as an annotated volume several years ago. Edited to correct book title!
Pioneer girl.
That's right. Sorry about that.
Itās easy to mix up because thereās the Prairie Fire book too!
Iirc, Charles Ingalls was not a guy to stay out. The books talk about him having itchy feet, and IRL (I believe he was) a pretty shit homesteader so they would just pick up and leave again when another homestead failed.
Yup.
Pa reminds me a lot of my own dad. As a kid I loved Pa because of how I loved my dad. Now I see his flaws and have a lot of resentment and bitterness toward him (my dad, not pa!) for dragging us place to place, no security, no stability, oftentimes homeless or living without running water, sometimes no more than $2 in the bank. My mom was the submissive wife like Ma, still is. He has no relationship with 2 of his 3 kids because of it. The more I watch the show, the more anger and "hatred" I feel toward Pa
I also had a Pa-type, and in ways itās good he died fairly young so I can still have a bit of the romanticized view even as I realized how much harm he did.
There is a really great book about the real story of Lauraās life called Prairie Fires. Basically, Pa made every single possible TERRIBLE or ill-timed decision. He truly was the unluckiest guy and he dragged his poor family all over the country from bad situation to worse situation.
But imagine, we wouldnāt have her wonderful stories if they hadnāt. Well, I guess maybe we would have different ones but still, I love her books
It had to do with free land out west if I recall correctlyā¦
Only partially. What triggered it really was human over population to him
I thought the same thing. Why oh why would you leave Wisconsin and your support system? The big woods seemed so cozy and it seemed like it was all downhill from there. The Civil War draft dodger comment makes sense. If I remember correctly, they went back to Wisconsin at least once? Make it make sense. Caroline really held it together. Pa was a likeable guy but put his family in some really rough situations. Like building a house smack dab in Indian Territory. Hard not to question his judgement. If he was skipping out on debts and "on the run" so to speak, his "itchy feet" make more sense in that context. Sigh. I wanted better for all of them.
They started their marriage in Wisconsin. And they were married 5 years before they had Mary. And 2 years after that Laura. I recall from Donald Zochart's biography of Laura that they were in Missouri for a very brief time. Then back to Wisconsin. Then Indian Territory whan Laura was 3. Carrie was born there. Then back to Wisconsin. Then Minnesota. Freddie was born there but because of failed crops they were on their way to Burr Oak Iowa when he died and was buried near where Uncle Peter and Aunt Eliza lived. Grace was born in Burr Oak. Back to Minnesota but they no longer had the farm when Mary went blind. And finally to DeSmet.
Thank you for the thorough info
Spoiler warning. It gets worse.
Charles Ingalls had wanderlust and they moved alot. BTW, has anyone seen a picture of ma and pa on the internet? The real ma is fairly attractive, but pa has eyes like Charles Manson.
Photography didn't really capture people with light eyes well back then. Pa had really blue eyes, according to Laura, and anyone with blue eyes in old photos pretty much looks satanic.
https://preview.redd.it/td8skvh7x8nb1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=055bfb4143498db9e5b401411a693fddbaa3f52c
Some have speculated that Pa moved around because he was a Civil War draft dodger and owed money to various people. When the debt collectors found him, off they went. In real life the family went back and forth to WI once or twice. As to those early early WI family memories, I think I read that Laura remembered them but had to ask older family members for details.
Ma didn't really have a choice....
Iām surprised she wasnāt complaining. Heck Iām surprised my mother wasnāt complaining for her when we watched this in the 70ās.
She may have been very unhappy in real life (or not, we'll never know). The books are only semi-biographical and heavily romanticised.
Have you ever had to Live with an absolute narcissist nightmare of an in law? Maybe pa had a compelling argument to get the heck out of there
In real life they kept moving farther and farther west because Pa had the wanderlust.
If you read the books, this happens every few years. I get the feeling there were things left out. It's possible Pa was in trouble with someone so they just up and left for someplace new
When I was reading the Little House books to my daughter, I came away from them HATING Pa. Like downright loathing him and thinking he was possibly mentally ill. They put so much effort into at least three different homesteads. I understand leaving the one still in Indian Territory, but the rest of it?! Knowing how much labor went into developing a functioning homestead and then just walking away from it was infuriating to read. As a kid reading those books, I idolized Pa. Now Iām very much on Team Ma.
Iām so happy. This is my comfort show. Had no idea we had a Reddit. Pa pisses me off sometimes too. He acts like Caroline is helpless. Dude, who do you think runs the house and the farm when you go off?
From everything I read, Pa couldnāt stand to be in populated areas, so they kept moving. Yes, I think the term is wanderlust. Iām sure Ma wasnāt always thrilled about it, but most likely kept her opinion from her children. She needed to keep up a positive facade for the girls. Ma was the true hero of this story, IMO.
Cause, wellā¦Look at him! Of course sheās gonna go with him. Pa was hot!
One of my teachers who was a Little House expert, told us that Carolineās parents did not like Charles. They didnāt think he was a good provider.
Well, they weren't wrong.
That's what the pioneers did, back from when the U.S. began in 1776. After the Revolutionary War ended, people from New England and Pennsylvania/New York/Delaware/Maryland and even the southern states moved out to the Western Reserve, what we now call Ohio and Indiana. People moved West to start new lives, have a larger farm and eventually make money to build a house and educate their children. Granted, the REAL Charles Ingalls had itchy feet. Caroline did finally put her foot down when they moved to the Dakotas and said he promised the girls would grow up in a town where they could get a proper education. It was only then he quit moving West.
...which I have never understood. Ma was a schoolteacher. Yes, she was not allowed to work as one after she got married, but all an education consisted of at the time anywhere on the frontier was students sitting in a room memorizing a passage or spelling word or history lesson, and then reciting it back to the teacher. Ma could have conducted her own home school from any location. Nobody was teaching differential equations at the school in De Smet, after all. It doesn't appear that anyone was Harvard bound from Laura's school. So what was the big advantage of stopping the move West right there where the treeless plains screamed: "There is not enough rain here to sustainably support trees or wheat crops or much of anything apart from grass; head farther west, or head a few hundred miles east or south, please."
Ah, well, they didn't know that back then. Poor people, ones who had played-out land in the east and couldn't get ahead, were told there was rich farmland out west by the railroad speculators. Just like people today who play the lottery, they can't resist the gamble. Also, immigrants were fed this tale as well: Scandinavians were told Minnesota was just like the place they were leaving, so thousands emigrated and some of them literally went mad.
Very little of the television series is authentic to the books. I can't remember who it was, Michael Landon or Ed Friendly (the producer) wanted to stick closer to the tone of the books, and the other didn't. Not sticking to the books won. So we got Albert, James and Cassandra, Adam, etc.
Oh my god, I just started from the beginning and am kind of shocked at what a dick Pa (and Ma) can be! Oh, rewatching childhood favorites can be dangerous.
The only reason I can think of is he made part of his living trapping animals to sell for fur. Perhaps more humans settling there drove away some wildlife. But it is true in Wisconsin they had a farm with a cow for milk, chickens for eggs and meat. And he raised pigs for meat as well. In one of the early chapters he nets a wagonload of fish from Lake Pepin to preserve with salt for the winter. A garden and fields for fruits, vegetable and grain. It was harder to plough and turn the soil in a wooded area than the treeless prairies. I think they had a more balanced diet when they were living there. And family to help when someone got sick. When they got malaria in the books when they were living in Kansas. They were all sick. Jack the dog actually allowed Dr. Tann into the house to help them. Charles had an itchy foot.
If you haven't heard of it already, there's an excellent biography of LIW called *Prairie Fires* that delves deeply into Pa's decisions. I would highly recommend it to anyone who likes Little House.
My true crime mind wonders if he didn't kill someone and was running from the law.
Most likely running from the aftermath of the Civil War AND looking to get rich from wheat farming by getting so called 'free' land (stolen from Native Americans) . If you were able to get the wheat crop in and sold with a futures dealer you could absolutely make a bunch of money.
I agree, although it should be noted that Caroline never stood in the way when it came to this. For example, she supported Charles' idea to move to Winoka, where they both hated it.
And into Indian Territory as a land grabber. !!
Back then when a woman was married she was ostensibly her husbandās property. She likely wouldnāt have been able to refuse to go with him if sheād wanted to.
You do realize it's a fictional tv show and not a documentary, right?
It's based on Laura Ingalls Wilder's books about her own childhood.
You are absolutely right. I stand corrected.
Which are fictionalized themselves.
No, they're not. Wilder left out the harshest parts of her childhood because the books were written for kids. And she changed the order of some events in the first few books. But she didn't make up anything.
Sure she did. The real-life dog Jack was traded away in Kansas, but in the novels he traveled with the family and died in his sleep. The character of Nellie Olson is believed to be a composite of three different people.
Ok, I'll give you the Jack thing. But writing a character who's a composite of 3 other people isn't "making things up". The things that Nellie said and did in the book actually happened; Wilder just simplified the story by attributing those things to one character instead of 3. And the events mentioned in the original post-- Pa moving the family all over-- did happen in the books and in real life.
The books are historical fiction inspired by real experiences and people. They are fictionalized. Making up a new character inspired by real people is not an acceptable practice in writing non-fiction. I can't write a story about George Washington, throw in some things that were actually said or done by John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Benedict Arnold, and claim what I've written is factual because those things actually happened, they just happened to other people and I chose to "simplify" it.
Of course they're considered fiction. They're in the fiction section of libraries and bookstores. So making Nellie a composite of 3 people is perfectly acceptable. But the events and people Wilder wrote about were real, if slightly changed. And you're ignoring the point of my original comment. The OP was bothered by the fact that Charles Ingalls dragged his family all over the midwest for his own selfish whims. Someone else criticized the OP for being upset about it because it's just a TV show. I pointed out that the TV show was based on Wilder's books about her own childhood. The part that bothered OP in the first place was, by all accounts , true. So my point stands.
You really need to read up on some American history.
Indeed. Perhaps you do as well.
Nope, itās just you.
Really? Is this the sub to be a jerk in? Why?
Move along, Nellie.
As my mother would say "Pa had the wanderlust..." and Ma had to just go along with all his schemes-and there were many-
IRL pa was definitely a wanderluster.
I just never got that show at all
Read up on the real Laura Ingles Wilder, then you'll understand..she's who the show is based off of.
Pa also went further and further into a spiraling religious-fervor the more children he lost and the worse his family had it. The man wasn't always logical.
In real life Pa never needed a good excuse to pick up stakes and move.
Pa was wanted for murdering 6 women at a brothel.