Laura Ingalls Wilder (1867-1957) is one of the most popular children’s book authors of all time. Her books about adventure on the American plains weren’t just fiction – they told her own life story.
Laura Ingalls Wilder (1867-1957) is one of the most popular children’s book authors of all time. Her books about adventure on the American plains weren’t just fiction – they told her own life story.
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Every weekday, listeners explore the trials, tragedies, and triumphs of groundbreaking women throughout history who have dramatically shaped the world around us. In each 5 minute episode, we’ll dive into the story behind one woman listeners may or may not know–but definitely should. These diverse women from across space and time are grouped into easily accessible and engaging monthly themes like Educators, Villains, Indigenous Storytellers, Activists, and many more. Womanica is hosted by WMN co-founder and award-winning journalist Jenny Kaplan. The bite-sized episodes pack painstakingly researched content into fun, entertaining, and addictive daily adventures.
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Hello! From Wonder Media Network, I’m Jenny Kaplan. This is Womanica.
This month, we're highlighting women who've led dynamic lives. Ones that have shifted, evolved and bloomed, often later in life.
Today’s dynamo is one of the most popular children’s book authors of all time. And her books about adventure on the American plains weren’t just fiction – they told her own life story.
Let’s talk about Laura Ingalls Wilder.
Laura Ingalls really was born in a little house in the big woods, in 1867. Her family had a farm in Pepin, Wisconsin, and Laura was their second child. Laura’s parents, Charles and Caroline, were extremely self-sufficient. They made butter and cheese from their milk cows, grew their own vegetables, kept pigs for meat, made sugar from maple syrup, and gathered wild honey. Charles even molded his own bullets for hunting.
When Laura was two years old, her family moved, illegally, to the Osage Indian Reservation, in Kansas. For the next few years, they bounced around, heading back to Wisconsin, and then Minnesota, and Iowa, before settling in DeSmet, South Dakota.
Laura was now older, and life had gotten a lot more complicated since the little house in the big woods. She had three more little siblings. One, a brother, had died as a baby. Her older sister, Mary, had caught a fever and gone blind. Laura had to be her eyes, guiding her through the world.
The second winter in South Dakota, a series of blizzards buried all of DeSmet. Nothing could get in, or out, of the town – including supplies. Laura’s family ran out of food – and wood.
Every morning, Laura’s dad followed a rope he’d strung up between the house and barn, so he wouldn’t get lost in the blinding snow. Every afternoon, Laura and her parents and her siblings took turns grinding up wheat in a coffee grinder. They huddled in their cabin, burning bales of hay for a little heat.
It seemed like they might not make it. But two local boys made it across the prairie, and back, with a shipment of wheat, and saved the town. Years later, Laura would marry one of those boys, Almanzo Wilder.
Though she loved going to school, Laura never got her high school diploma. Instead, when she was 15, she got her first job – teaching! Every week, Almanzo Wilder gave her a buggy ride to school. Their friendship turned to love, and they married when Laura was 18.
Married life, for Laura and Almanzo, ushered in a series of devastating losses. But first, before their crops froze, and their barns burned, and Almanzo caught diphtheria, Laura and Almanzo welcomed a baby girl, named Rose.
After losing another round of crops to drought, and then a newborn son, Laura and Almanzo’s house caught on fire. So for a little while, they left South Dakota.
In 1894, Laura and Almanzo saw an advertisement for the state of Missouri. “The Land of the Big Red Apples,” read the ad. Laura and Almanzo decided to try their luck, and moved. They spent the rest of their lives in Mansfield, Missouri.
In Mansfield, Laura and Almanzo became known for their farming skills. That’s actually how Laura got her start in publishing – in 1911, she started writing articles for the Missouri Ruralist.
But bad luck eventually found Laura and Almanzo again. In 1929, they lost most of their savings when the stock market crashed.
Their daughter, Rose, had moved away from the family farm years ago, and had grown into a professional writer. She helped support her parents, and started spending more time back in Missouri.
Laura was now in her 60s. Her life had been hard – but full of adventure, and resilience. She started writing an autobiography, but the publishers she sent it to had a different angle: what if she made it … fiction?
In 1932, when she was 65 years old, Laura published her first book: Little House in the Big Woods. It was a smash hit. Laura had so many stories, she kept writing books. By the time her 8th Little House book was finished, in 1943, Laura had become a national celebrity. Kids across the country were drawn to her vivid stories about Ma, Pa, Mary and Little Laura, their little house in the big woods and their covered wagon, heading out west.
But her stories, unsurprisingly, centered one narrative, during a time when white settlers were violently displacing indigeous people. Natives were often figures of fear, in Laura’s world. Because of the way she wrote about indigenous people, Laura’s name was removed from an American Library Association award, in 2018.
Despite their problems, Laura’s books remain on the shelves of libraries and school classrooms across the country. They’ve sold around 60 million copies. And the television adaption, Little House on the Prairie, can still be found on air today.
Laura died three days after her 90th birthday, in 1957. Today, you can trace her family’s move across the country through historical landmarks, from the big woods in Wisconsin, to her farm, in the land of the big red apples.