If you ever read FREE LAND by Rose Wilder Lane (this came before Laura’s books—it’s about a homesteader in Dakota Territory who lives through the same Long Winter that you see in the Little House Books, and contains some similar anecdotes) it’s trying so hard to be libertarian. - ThreadSky

courtneymilan.com • 28 days ago

If you ever read FREE LAND by Rose Wilder Lane (this came before Laura’s books—it’s about a homesteader in Dakota Territory who lives through the same Long Winter that you see in the Little House Books, and contains some similar anecdotes) it’s trying so hard to be libertarian.

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courtneymilan.com•28 days ago

The main characters struggle. They get frost bite so bad they nearly die. They start off with like $1500 and end up $900 in debt, and that’s with multiple lucky breaks like “being able to sell the wheat” and “randomly planting turnips when there’s a shortage back East.”

courtneymilan.com•28 days ago

The ending is that they’re able to start staying afloatbecause someone comes through with a flock of sheep and the husband dies of malaria and the wife is like “shit, I can’t keep all these sheep, I need to go back home” and then the guy’s dad gives him a few thousand bucks to pay off his loans.

courtneymilan.com•28 days ago

You can see HOW MUCH the Little House books softened what happened in FREE LAND, but also, it’s so obvious that FREE LAND was also softened.

ljndawson.bsky.social•28 days ago

My grandma was a Sooner - not great. Snatching land.

ljndawson.bsky.social•28 days ago

Great-grandma, I should say.

joycereynoldsward.bsky.social•28 days ago

Ivan Doig's Scotch Heaven books touch on some of this as well--especially about the impact of accident and illness on their lives. DANCING AT THE RASCAL FAIR is also a nice Little House antidote.

debbieli.bsky.social•28 days ago

Suddenly not regretting never reading the little house on the prairie books…

enee.bsky.social•28 days ago

Laura’s draft of “The First Four Years” is heartbreaking and basically this story (because Rose stole it), but also softened.

joycereynoldsward.bsky.social•28 days ago

Yeah. Read a few recent studies of Wilder and...it really was softened. Almanzo getting diphtheria was a huge impact.

madamehardy.bsky.social•28 days ago

Yup. That, then no children healthy enough to help with the farm.

baronvr.bsky.social•28 days ago

There's also a year missing in the Little House series where Pa loses all of his crops (and goes on government assistance) and the family lives above a saloon.

courtneymilan.com•28 days ago

They also don’t mention the parts where they have to move because Pa is skipping out on his debts.

finnanhaddie.bsky.social•28 days ago

At one point they were so poor after moving yet again that they were literally living in a hole dug into a hillside but yeah, let’s all homestead. Who has a shovel? 🫠

baronvr.bsky.social•28 days ago

Are you kidding? Have you seen the cost of hillsides these days? I can't afford that.

sjgochenour.bsky.social•28 days ago

This is why I never read those books. my mom tried to sell me on them but they just sounded so stressful.

finnanhaddie.bsky.social•28 days ago

I confess that I *loved* those books, because being a pioneer sounded exciting to a city kid.

baronvr.bsky.social•28 days ago

I read them all to my daughter when she was little in the 90's, and we even did the Big Woods/Plum Creek/De Smet road trip when she was 7 or so.

It was only as I was reading them aloud that I realized "oh, these are problematic". I loved the TV show as a kid in the 70's.

joycereynoldsward.bsky.social•28 days ago

I loved them as a kid but it was more about Laura being strong-willed and not necessarily conforming than anything else.

sjgochenour.bsky.social•28 days ago

I liked Farmer Boy because it was a big farm filled with food and they had money to buy in MORE FOOD.

joycereynoldsward.bsky.social•28 days ago

It's really a bad book, too, because of the ideology. Very heavy-handed .

chukg.bsky.social•28 days ago

Politico has a great article on RWL's politics and the Freedom School. https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/09/little-house-on-the-prairie-conservatism-214237

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