SC - OT/OP-Canning??????
Rayne and Richard
PRIDEelectric at centuryinter.net
Thu Jul 29 10:51:02 PDT 1999
>From: Mary_HallSheahan at ademco.com
>
><<a very good politically correct and inaccurate show >>
>Hi Ras--
>Yes, most television is sloppy--but have you read the books the show was
>based on? They're a wonderful resource for anyone who is at all interested
>in 19th century frontier life. The books are first-hand
autobiography.
>Not much on plot perhaps but who cares when you get instructions on maple
>syruping, cheesemaking, chip-carving, sewing bedsheets, etc.
>
>Mmmmm, primary sources! Wish we had one of these for 14th century
>Windsor...
>Emme
The usefulness as references on cheesemaking etc is limited, after all it's
her memories from childhood, not exact instructions. Laura's writings for
local newspapers re: chicken raising and other farmwoman tasks are probably
more useful for these purposes, though of course they reflect the turn of
the century research from the land-grant Universities and a secondary source
to the works published and I'm sure still available through those same
Universities.
As for being non-political: The books were published 1931-43 and Laura was
greatly instructed and edited by her daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, who also
served as her agent. The books clearly reflect Rose's politics and there is
evidence in their letters of Laura objecting to this but losing the battles.
For instance, the books give the impression that Laura studied hard to
become a teacher in order to help her parent's pay for Mary's special
training at the school for the blind. Not so, at that time in the Dakota
territories and later after statehood, blind students were entitled to free
training, didn't cost her parents, or Laura, a penny. Rose retired to her
farm in 1938 and refused to do any work which generated money that she would
have to pay income taxes on which would support state socialism such as
Roosevelt's New Deal.
(Of course, this does not eliminate the possibility of elminating personal
bitterness. On re-reading the book as an adult, I get the impression that
ensuring Mary could keep up appearances (so to speak) by dressing fasionably
and affording trinkets etc as could other girls was important. It may be
that Laura was paying for THAT, and herself or Rose was resenting it all
those years later.)
Rose and Laura's correspondence and papers relating to the writing of the
series are collected at the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library:
http://www.hoover.nara.gov/research/wilder/index.html
Also, read: "The Ghost in the Little House, A Life of Rose Wilder Lane";
William Holtz; Missouri Biography Series, William E. Foley, Editor 1995. 448
pp. 6 1/8 x 9 1/4. Index. Appendix. Illus. ISBN 0-8262-1015-5. $18.95t
paper.
Other Works by William Holtz: Dorothy Thompson and Rose Wilder Lane: Forty
Years of Friendship, Letters, 1921-1960
Bonne
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