Laura Ingalls Wilder - a Perspective
(Portions of this blog have been published in earlier blog posts). Updated January 7, 2020.
Laura Ingalls Wilder - Birthday February 7
Keep in mind who she was - and the times she lived. All was not perfect but I celebrate her because she was a strong woman, a thoughtful writer who wrote what she felt in her times.
 | ||
| Laura Ingalls Wilder |
Wilder's books are definitely fiction -- but do share some very important glimpses of pioneer life.
On Laura's birthday I will celebrate her strength of character with her own favorite cake -- gingerbread. In her later years she often greeted guests with her well-known gingerbread with a glaze of chocolate frosting and lemonade.
Here's her recipe for the gingerbread --
 |
Laura Ingalls Wilder's gingerbread was most often served with a thin glaze of chocolate and a glass of freshly made lemonade. But I will serve it with tea in a cup and saucer in the pattern of the dishes Rose Wilder Lane gave her parents.  |
| 1 cup brown sugar blended with 1/2 cup lard or other shortening. 1 cup molasses mixed well with this. 2 teaspoons baking soda in 1 cup boiling water (Be sure cup is full of water after foam is run off into cake mixture). Mix all well. To 3 cups of flour have added one teaspoon each of the following spices: ginger, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, cloves and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Sift all into cake mixture and mix well. Add lastly 2 well-beaten eggs. The mixture should be quite thin. Bake in a moderate oven for thirty minutes. Raisins and, or, candied fruit may be added and a chocolate frosting adds to the goodness. |
February 7th (2020) is the 154th anniversary of Laura Ingalls Wilder's birthday in 1867. She died three days after reaching 90 years of age (Feb. 10, 1957). Anyone who "teaches" these books or reads them with children should be aware of some of the concerns about the depiction of American Indians in these books. Please check out Debbie Reese's blog and search for "Laura Ingalls Wilder" -- I think you will uncover some very thought provoking ideas. And another essay about Wilder that must be read is Laura June's Parent Rap "No Offense to Laura Ingalls Wilder" -- you will see that the stories are no better to African Americans either (although less frequent in the text). See page ninety-eight of Little House on the Prairie. But better than being a writer, she was a strong independent woman at the turn of the century and beyond. She cared for her husband, wrote a column for a newspaper, and became a nationally recognized writer -- all because she was the strong woman that she was. I'll celebrate that, and to honor her I will eat gingerbread...
I did not read the books until I was an adult and I read them from another perspective. I realized that Wilder wrote with memories of her childhood and with the stereotypical perspective of a 65-year-old woman who had the ingrained attitude toward many people that had developed over a life-time. Just as she described the prairie lands surrounding her Dakota home with flowers that did not exist there when she was growing up. The memories of some of the flowers she describes came most likely from visions she gathered during one of her adult visits back home to see her family. Her books are indeed a look into the pioneering spirit but they also are reflective of the prejudices and attitudes Wilder developed as she matured into adulthood. The value in her books is a look at the attitude and prejudices that exist during the 1930s when she and her daughter Rose Wilder Lane wrote them.
The books were written at a time when it seemed acceptable to have a cigar store Indian in front of your store. And the genocide of 100,000 Native American children was supported by the citizenry of the USA. http://www.underamericasrug.com/native-american-genocide.html -- Certainly these attitudes toward Native Americans provided enhancement to any childhood memories and created situations with a lot of hyperbole.
HarperCollins, her long time publisher has put up a list of 10 things one can learn from reading the books by Laura Ingalls Wilder at http://harpercollinschildrens.tumblr.com/post/110280954597/10-life-lessons-from-laura-ingalls-wilder. Sadly there are other things one can learn from the books as well. She does not treat Native Americans very well in her writings and that is a product not so much of her childhood but of the time in which she lived and wrote.
Consider the following:
Try the Birchhouse Series by Louise Ehrlich -- or I can suggest others such as Laurie Lawlor's Addie series. http://www.laurielawlor.com/books/addie.html
And you may also be interested in this post about LIW's days in Iowa -- http://iowahistory.blogspot.com/2013/09/laura-ingalls-wilder-at-home-in-iowa.html
============================= And for Google's take on the legacy of LIW - check out the links on this page http://bit.ly/LIW_google Carolyn Fraser the author of “Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder” and editor of the Library of America edition of the Little House series wrote an interesting essay regarding the change of the name of the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award to one celebrating the lifetime achievement of an author of children's literature - The Children's Literature Legacy Award. Read the Washington Post article at https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/yes-little-house-on-the-prairie-is-racially-insensitive--but-we-should-still-read-it/2018/03/12/8e021422-1e40-11e8-9de1-147dd2df3829_story.html Sharron |
No comments:
Post a Comment