Introduction
Laura Elizabeth Ingalls Wilder, an American writer, journalist, and diarist, was born on February 7, 1867 to Charles Philip Ingalls and Caroline Lake Quiner Ingalls, in Pepin County, Wisconsin. She passed away at the age of 90, on February 10, 1957, in Mansfield, Missouri. She was married to Almanzo James Wilder (1857-1949), and were parents to Rose Wilder Lane and a baby boy who died in infancy. Her Little House series became popular with children and was developed into a television series titled “Little House on the Prairie” which was based on the series.
Birth and Ancestry
Born in the Big Woods
of Pepin, County, Wisconsin on February 7, 1867, Wilder was the second child of Charles Philip Ingalls and Caroline Lake Quiner Ingalls. Wilder has four siblings: older sister, Mary Amelia Ingalls, and her younger siblings, Caroline Celestia “Carrie” Ingalls Swanzey, Charles Frederick Ingalls (who died in infancy), and Grace Pearl Ingalls Dow.Family on the Move
The Ingalls family moved to Kansas, which was Indian territory, where Charles got a claim, when Wilder was barely two years of age. Her sister Carrie, was born during this time (August 1870). But they would soon move again as Charles was told by the government that it was Indian territory and had no right to be there.
After departing Kansas in 1971, the Ingalls family moved back to Wisconsin, where they lived for the next four years. (The fictional chronology doesn’t match fact due to a letter from her daughter Rose Wilder Lane, due to the publisher who had Wilder change her age because he didn’t think it was realistic for a 3-year-old to have memories of her life in Kansas.)
The Ingalls family moved to Walnut Grove, Minnesota in 1874 when Wilder was 7 years old. Later that same year, the family moved to Lake City, Minnesota and shortly to a preemption claim near relatives in South Troy, Minnesota, where her brother, Charles Fredrick “Freddie” Ingalls was born on November 1, 1875. He died 9 months later on August 27, 1876.
After the death of Freddie, the Ingalls family moved to Burr Oak, Iowa where they ran a hotel. It was here that Wilder’s youngest sister Grace Pearl Ingalls Dow was born on May 23, 1877. But the Ingalls family would move back to Walnut Grove, where Charles worked as a butcher and justice of the peace. When Charles accepted a railroad job in the Spring of 1879 and the family moved to Dakota Territory in a town called DeSmet, where Charles and Caroline, as well as Wilder’s older sister, Mary, lived the remainder of their lives.
DeSmet, Dakota Territory
Wilder’s father filed a homestead claim during the winter of 1879-1880, where they lived in the surveyor’s house, watching the town of DeSmet rise up from the prairie in 1880. Following the winter of 1880-1881, recorded as the most severe in South Dakota, the Ingalls family finally settled there, and gave Wilder was finally able to get schooling, work several part-time jobs and make friends, among them, her future spouse, Almanzo James Wilder, a bachelor and homesteader.
Young Teacher
Just 2 months shy of her 16th birthday, on December 10, 1882, Wilder received her first teaching job, teaching three terms in one-room schools when she wasn’t attending school herself. Later, Wilder would admit she didn’t enjoy teaching, but felt a responsibility to help the family out financially, though wage-earning opportunities for women were limited. Between 1883 – 1885, Wilder taught three terms of school, worked for a local dressmaker, as well as attend high school, despite having never graduated.
Marriage
After marrying Almanzo Wilder on August 25, 1885, Wilder’s teaching and studies ended. She referred to her husband as “Manly” and he gave Wilder the nickname based on her middle name, Elizabeth, “Bess”, as Almanzo also had an older sister named Laura. Wilder was 18 and Almanzo, 28 when they married and settled on their own homestead claim north of DeSmet when Almanzo achieved a degree of prosperity making their future appear bright.
Children
The Wilders had two children, a daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, born on December 5, 1886, and a son, born in 1889, who only lived for 12 days, in Kingsbury, County, DeSmet. A grave marker marks the site as Baby Son of A. J. Wilder.
Early Marriage
The first few years of married life proved difficult for the Wilders. Almanzo suffered a bout with diphtheria, that left him paralyzed, but eventually regained the full use of his legs, but required a cane to walk the rest of his life. Other hardships, including the death of their infant son, the loss of their barn from a mysterious fire, the loss of their home that was accidentally set by Rose, and several years of drought, left the Wilders in financial debt, physically ill, and unable to earn a living on their 320 acres of land.
The Wilders moved in 1890 to Almanzo’s parents farm in Spring Valley, Minnesota where he recuperated from ill health. The Wilder’s eventually moved to Westville, Florida searching for a climate to better Almanzo’s health, but the humidity along with a feeling of “feeling out of place” in Florida, the Wilder’s moved back to DeSmet where they bought a small home in 1892.
Rocky Ridge Farm, Mansfield, Missouri
In 1894, the Wilders made the final move to Mansfield, Missouri, where they purchased undeveloped property with money they had saved and moved into a ramshackle log cabin, they named Rocky Ridge Farm. The first income for the farm was wagon loads of firewood they sold for 50 cents. Despite a slow financial security, the apple trees in their orchard didn’t bear fruit for 7 years. But the Wilders got the economic boost they needed when, during Almanzo’s parents visit to the farm, they gave them the deed to the farm. After selling their house in town, they moved into the farmhouse and added almost 200 acres to the farm. A thickly-wooded stoneside hillside with a windowless log cabin became a prosperous dairy, poultry, and fruit farm that included a 10-room farmhouse.
With the knowledge of cultivating wheat back in DeSmet, the Wilders brought to their farm in Missouri. In addition, Wilder was active in several clubs and an advocate for regional farm associations. Wilder would be recognized as an authority for poultry farming and rural living gaining speaking citations to groups around the region.
Writing Career
Wilder’s writing career took off when she submitted an article to Missouri Ruralist in 1911 that led to a permanent position as columnist and editor that she held until the mid-1920s, in addition to taking a position with local Farm Loan Association, where she dispensed farm loans to small loans to local farmers.
Wilder’s Missouri Ruralist column “As A Farm Woman Thinks” garnered her the attention of loyal audience of rural Ozarkians who enjoyed her articles, including the 1915-trip to San Francisco to visit her daughter, Rose Wilder Lane. The Pan-Pacific events of World War I and other world events, plus the fascinating travels of her daughter, offered interesting options for women of this era. the income from the column and the Farm Loan Associated afforded the Wilders a comfortable living until the popularity of the Little House books.
By 1924, according to Professor John E. Miller, writing for nearly a decade for farm magazines gave Wilder the discipline she needed to write thought-provoking prose for a general audience. Even with the help of her daughter, Lane, Wilder was able to write two articles describing the interior of a farmhouse for Country Gentleman Farmhouse.
With the help of Lane, Wilder was extensively encourage to improve her writing skills to become a successful writer. A famous and successful writer herself, Lane, helped her parents with annual writing subsidies they had come to depend on. They both decided that in order to improve the Wilder’s retirement income, Wilder needed to hone her writing skills, despite the project never being achieved very far.
In 1928, Lane remodeled and took over a English-style stone cottage adjacent to her parents’ farmhouse they had acquired and still inhabited.
Little House Books
With the Stock Market Crash of 1929 having wiped out both the Wilders and Lane’s investments, they still owned the 200-acre farm, but their savings they had invested with Lane’s broker was gone. Wilder asked for Lane’s opinion about writing an autobiographical manuscript of Wilder’s childhood experiences. With the looming Great Depression and the deaths of her mother in 1924 and her older sister in 1928, Wilder felt a great need to preserve her family history in a story she titled, Pioneer Girl, not to mention generate some income. The original title When Grandma Was a Little Girl, Lane and her publisher helped Wilder expand the story that led to the story being published in 1932 as Little House in the Big Woods by Harpers & Brothers. The success of the book allowed Wilder to continue writing, despite a close and often rocky collaboration between Wilder and Lane until 1935, when Lane permanently left Rocky Ridge Farm, she did collaboration by correspondence.
Written around the same time as Wilder’s Little House in the Big Woods, Lane wrote two novels Let the Hurricane Roar (1932) and Free Land (1938) that retold the Ingalls and Wilder tales in adult format.
Authorship Controversy
Some, like Wilder Lane’s biographer, Professor William Holtz, believe that Rose Wilder Lane was the ghostwriter to the Little House books. Others, like Timothy Abreu of Gush Publishing, think Wilder was an untutored genius who relied on Wilder Lane for encouragement and her daughter’s connections to publishers and literary agents. Some say Wilder Lane turned Wilder’s unpolished manuscripts and turned them into the successful books they are today, despite the evidence of hand written notations on the manuscripts shows that mother and daughter had an ongoing collaboration.
Miller’s critique left the impression that Little House in the Big Woods (1932) and These Happy Golden Years (1943) showed varying degrees of involvement by Wilder Lane. While the volumes clearly show the genius of Wilder’s narrative description, there is evidence of Lane’s heavy involvement with the books. The First Four Year (1971) however, shows an exclusive Wilder work. Miller concludes his critique that Wilder possessed substance; Lane, style.
The Enduring Appeal
The Little House series was based on the Ingalls family pioneering experiences on the American frontier and written for elementary school age children. The First Four Years, discovered after Lane’s death in 1968, was about the early years of the Wilder’s marriage. Since the publication of the Little House series, the books have been in print continuously and written in nearly 40 languages. Wilder’s first – and smallest – royalty check by Harper
was for $500 – equivalent to $8,780 in 2016. The royalties from Wilder’s Little House books brought in substantial income for the first time in the Wilder’s 50-year marriage as well as the mother-daughter collaboration abled the Wilders to recoup the loss of their investment in the stock market crash, not to mention the various awards and fan mail that were bestowed upon Wilder.Autobiography: Pioneer Girl
Already in her 60s in 1929-1930, Wilder began working on her autobiography Pioneer Girl, it was rejected by publishers and never released. At the urging of her daughter, Lane, was when Wilder rewrote her stories for children that became the Little House books. In 2014, the South Dakota State Historical Society published an annotated version of Wilder’s Pioneer Girl giving the new title, Pioneer Girl, An Annotated Autobiography.
Pioneer Girl includes many stories, some of which Wilder considered inappropriate for children. Some of them being, a man accidentally immolating himself while drunk, an incident of violence of a shopkeeper against his wife that ended with the man setting his house on fire, and unknown sides of her father’s character. One thing is certain, Wilder’s fiction, autobiography and real childhood are closely intertwined with the aim to explore the conflicting or non-existing accounts from sources.
Later Life and Death
After Lane permanently left Rocky Ridge Farm, the Wilders moved back to the farmhouse they built that was previously occupied by friends. After 1935, the Wilders were alone on the farm, they had sold most of their property, including the stone cottage Lane had bought for them. They still kept some farm animals and tended their flower beds. The Wilders were greeted by fans of Wilder’s Little House books eager to meet Laura of the Little House books.
The Wilders lived financially independent of financial worries at Rocky Ridge Farm until the death of Almanzo at the age of 92 in 1949. Wilder lived the next 8 years alone at Rocky Ridge Farm but was looked on by friends and neighbors, but was in constant correspondence with editors, fans and neighbors.
By autumn 1956, 89-year-old Wilder was hospitalized with un-diagnosed diabetes and cardiac issues by Lane, who arrived for Thanksgiving. Despite declining health, Wilder was released from the hospital the day after Christmas and returned home, where she died in her sleep on February 10, 1957, just three days after her 90th birthday.
Wilder was buried next to her husband in Mansfield Cemetery in Mansfield, Missouri. Wilder Lane I was buried next to her parents upon her death in 1968.
Estate
Upon Wilder’s death, possession of Rocky Ridge Farm passed from a local farmer who bought the property under a life lease arrangement when the local population raised funds to purchase the property for use as museum. After some thought, Lane believed turning Rocky Ridge Farm into a museum would garner attention toward Wilder’s Little House books, Lane donated the money needed to purchase the house to turn it into a museum. Lane agreed to annual contributions necessary for its upkeep as well as many of her parents’ belongings.
In accordance with Wilder’s will, Lane inherited ownership to the rights of Little House within Lane’s lifetime with ownership transferring to the Mansfield Library upon Lane’s death. Roger MacBride, an informal grandson and business agent/lawyer, gained control of the books’ copyrights upon Lane’s death in 1968. His actions were approved at Lane’s request, the copyrights to Wilder’s Little House books and Lane’s literary works were renewed in MacBride’s name when the original copyrights expired during the time between Wilder’s death and Lane’s death.
Controversy arose when the Laura Ingalls Wilder Library Branch of Wright County Library in Mansfield, Missouri, founded in part by Wilder, decided to retain ownership of the copyrights upon MacBride’s death in 1995. The case being settled in an undisclosed manner, MacBride’s heirs retained the copyrights to Wilder’s Little House books with the library receiving enough from the settlement to start work on a new building.
Popularity of Wilder’s Little House books spanned increasingly after Wilder’s death that included a multi-million dollar franchise in mass merchandising that resulted in a series of spinoffs in books written by MacBride and his daughter, Abigail MacBride Allen. A long-running television series based on Wilder’s Little House books also came out that starred Melissa Gilbert as Laura Ingalls Wilder and Michael Landon as her father, Charles Ingalls.
Wilder’s Works
Because Wilder died in 1957, Wilder’s works are now public domain in countries where the term, copyright, is meant to last 50 years after the author’s death. Her work published before 1923 were not renewed and her newspaper columns are now also public domain in the United States.
Little House Books
Little House in the Big Woods (1932) – named to the inaugural Lewis Carroll Shelf Award
Farmer Boy (1933) – about Almanzo’s childhood in New York
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)
Other Works
On the Way Home (1962) – published posthumously, diary of the Wilders’ move from DeSmet, South Dakota to Mansfield, Missouri, edited/supplemented by Rose Wilder Lane
The First Four Years (1971) – published posthumously by Harper & Row, illustrated by Garth Williams
West From Home (1974) – published posthumously ed. Roger MacBride, Wilder’s letters to her husband while visiting their daughter in San Francisco
Little House in the Ozark: The Rediscovered Writings (1991) – collection of pre-1932 articles
The Road Back Home, Part 3 (the only part previously unpublished of) A Little House Traveler: Writings of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Journey Across America (2006) – Wilder’s record of a 1931 trip with her husband back to DeSmet , South Dakota and the Black Hills
A Little House Sampler (1988 or 1989) – with Rose Wilder Lane, ed. William Anderson
Writings to Young Women – Volume One: On Wisdom and Virtues; Volume Two: On Life of a Pioneer Woman; Volume Three: As Told By Her Family, Friends, and Neighbors
A Little House Reader: A Collection of Writings (1988)
Laura Ingalls Wilder & Rose Wilder Lane 1937 – 1939 (1992) – letters exchanged between Wilder and her daughter with family photographs
Laura’s Album: A Remembrance Scrapbook of Laura Ingalls Wilder (1998)
Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography (2014)
Before the Prairie Books: The Writings of Laura Ingalls Wilder 1911 – 1916 The Small Farm
Before the Prairie Books: The Writing of Laura Ingalls Wilder 1917 – 1918 The War Years
Before the Prairie Books: The Writing of Laura Ingalls Wilder 1919 – 1920 The Farm Home
Before the Prairie Books: The Writing of Laura Ingalls Wilder 1921 – 1924 A Farm Woman
Laura Ingalls Wilders Most Inspired Writings
Laura Ingalls Wilder: A Pioneer Girl’s World View: Selected Newspaper Columns (Little House on the Prairie Series)
The Selected Letters of Laura Ingalls Wilder
Laura Ingalls Wilder Farm Journalist: Writings from the Ozarks
Historical Sites and Museums
Laura Ingalls Wilder Home and Museum, Mansfield, Missouri
Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum, Pepin, Wisconsin
Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum, Walnut Grove, Minnesota
Laura Ingalls Wilder Pageant and Museum, DeSmet, South Dakota
Laura Ingalls Wilder Park and Museum, Burr Oak, Iowa
Little House on the Prairie Museum, Independence, Kansas
Wilder Homestead, Malone, New York
Wilder Medal
Wilder was five-time winner of the Newbury Medal, the American Library Association (ALA) book award for children’s fiction. In 1954, the ALA began the lifetime achievement award in children’s literature, named for Wilder and first awarded to her. This award, the Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal, recognizes a living author or illustrator’s books published in the United States that have made a lasting impact on children’s literature.
Source
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_Ingalls_Wilder
