First, thanks to everyone who listened to my first official radio interview. It was an interesting experience, and I appreciated an interviewer who’d obviously read the book first! Thanks to Sandra, too, for posting the link to the recording of the show.
The interviewer made me think about Laura again, in the context of her work as a farm activist and a farm woman. Many of you reading probably know that Laura was well into her sixties before she began writing the Little House books, but she also wrote for numerous farming publications in the years preceding that work, most notably Missouri Ruralist. She started out by contributing to the newspaper as other farm women did, sending in notes and letters about her own farm work and expertise, particularly with poultry. As her audience grew, so did her role at the paper, and eventually, Laura wrote a regular column called “As a Farm Woman Thinks.”
Statistics of the period show us that farm women were as literate as city women, and that they were more literate than the male farmers with whom they were partnered. It’s apparent from all of their writing at this time that farm women truly knew their businesses, and as part of their roles, kept up with farming politics, methods and progress. The image that appears over and over again in all their writings is that of man and woman, partnered, sitting over the kitchen table to read and discuss the news, or of the farm woman reading out loud after dinner. Mass media was essential to successful farming, as was literacy.
Laura raised a number of issues in her columns, in a variety of contexts, but always advocating for farm living and farm life. She advocated investing in education for farm youth; actively participating in farming organizations; and investing in maternal health in numerous fashions. Laura also discussed methods of earning additional income on the farm, and offered a solid voice of reason, from the feminine perspective, for other farming women in the area.
Of course, her wisdom shines on in her works of fiction, also. Ma’s relentless pursuit of education for her daughters, the family’s participation in community activities when they were able, and the pursuit of additional work–sewing, teaching, boarding–by the women in the family to contribute to the family’s circumstances all underscore the centrality and importance of women in the community, family, and nation.
Is it any wonder we respect her so much?
Amy, I was so pleased to get to listen to your interview on the ‘streamed’ radio. Well done! Some of your experiences and observations of your grandmother are parallel to mine of my maternal Texas grandma and great-grandma, both farm women through and through. The homestead farm of the late 1800s is now sold and the farmhouse is still standing – although very close to imploding. As a child I would go with my mom and grandma on the 3 hour drive down to “the farm” to see Great Grandma Houston and the eldest daughter “Auntie” who had returned to care for her. Emma Holley Houston lived to be 92. The only way that I knew her was without her legs (after falling out of bed in her 70s and breaking both legs, they had been amputated). “Auntie” – Nevada Houston ____? had come back to the farm to care for her invalid mother. My first experiences of gathering eggs, bottle-feeding baby kids, and going after the cows were all at that central Texas farm near Waco in the rocky limestone hills. Thanks for bringing back those memories with your book and little talk on the radio.