- Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote about fairies and fairy tales at various times in her career, and her first book reads like a fairy tale.
- The first illustrator of the Wilder books, Helen Sewell, also illustrated Cinderella.
- Rose Wilder Lane had an FBI file.
Cinderella written and illustrated by Helen Sewell, 1934
- When Lane left Missouri in 1937, she did not return until her father’s death in 1949.
- Wilder’s Pioneer Girl was rejected many times, not only in the 1930s but also in the 1980s.
- Wilder never supported the passage of woman suffrage and, after it became law, only urged women to vote so that politics would not become unbalanced.
- Lane was a yellow journalist.
- She taught her mother how to be one, too.
- Nobody died in the Little Houses.
- Wilder ended most of her books with song.
- The Benders of Kansas were most likely never caught.
- Wilder spent significant portions of her childhood working outside of the Little Houses in order to help support her family.
- Caroline Ingalls also worked outside the home at times to increase family income.
- The Little House narrative is one of interdependence.
- Lane had visions of writing a multi-volume novel based on United States history.
- After 1938, Lane wrote almost no fiction.
- Lane’s best-known book is probably The Woman’s Day Book of American Needlework.
- After Almanzo died, Wilder kept a gun close-by for protection in her farmhouse, where she lived alone.
- Lane went to Vietnam in 1965 as a war correspondent.
- Wilder spent most of her life in southern Missouri, but she immortalized the landscape and values of the upper Midwest (Wisconsin, Minnesota, South Dakota).
- We can always return to the Little Houses where everyone is eternally young and adults behave as they are supposed to.
Nancy Tystad Koupal
What are some examples of Yellow Journalism by Wilder or is it in the book?
Thanks
You will find the answer to your question in “Pioneer Girl Perspectives,” and potentially in a future blog post.
Nancy, I am chuckling at your final comment about adults behaving as they are supposed to. Most appropriate in light of the goings on over the past two weeks. Well said!
The yellow journalism in Laura’s writing will open a debate. No debate about Rose and the yellow taint. She was a master.
Well, because Rose did, Laura had to follow…or else…you know how Rose was!
Thanks Nancy.
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