In this issue:
The following comment came in from reader Shanti over the weekend, on Laura Welser’s post of May 6, 2009: “Should Little House Be Banned?”
this is a late comment – I came here by way of a Google search on racism in the Little House books. I grew up on these books, but just re-read them in preparation for giving the books to my niece for her 7th birthday. (Her mom is my step-sister and has never read the books.) I was convinced I was going to give them to her, but now I’m not so sure.
My issues are not as deeply with the portrayal of Native Americans, because Pa in particular always provides a thoughtful, reasoned response to Ma’s dislike. They concern me, but my larger issue is with the songs about “darkies,” or those sung in an obviously parody of Southern black language and the minstrel show later in the series. There is no balancing argument as there is about Native Americans. If it were my own child, I’d use it as a learning opportunity, but giving it to someone else’s child, even my sister’s child, makes me pause to consider.
I suspect that I will send two birthday gifts – the first book separately with a note for her mom to read it herself and decide if she wants her daughter to read the rest of the series.
I admit, while firmly convinced that Laura’s portrayal of Native Americans is not destructively racist, I don’t know quite what to think about the “darkies” of Little Town on the Prairie. My daughter hasn’t gotten to this book yet — we’ve been derailed by a summer reading contest where her progress is measured by the book rather than by the page, so single long chapter books are being passed over in favor of dozens of short ones. But Shanti’s comment has gotten me thinking that maybe I ought to prepare my daughter for this portrayal.
But if I’m going to prepare her, what should I say? This is where I get stuck. Until now, whenever I’ve been faced with educating my daughter on various aspects of How The World Is, no matter how much hemming and hawing I do or how cleverly I try to craft words in my head, ultimately I’ve decided to do and say nothing until she does. Kids don’t know that injustice exists until it affects them or it’s pointed out to them. Kids who are different from her — the overweight kid in fourth grade, her African-American classmate, the two kids in her school on permanent crutches — are simply part of her life. If she asks questions, I answer. But basically she doesn’t notice or compare or judge. It’s simply How Things Are.
But she’s only six. There is going to be a time where she hears or sees something that doesn’t square with this ideal. And that’s when we’ll have a discussion. I’m willing to wait.
Plus, I should admit something. I was painfully aware of racism as a child. (That’s not the admission.) But the way I recognized it was through epithets. And as a child, to me, “darky” was not an epithet I recognized at all — never mind recognized as derogatory. I didn’t think of “darky” as being tantamount to “black man.” And I certainly didn’t equate it with the epithets I did hear in my daily life, which would have been derivations of Negro. Maybe that was naive of me, but children are naive. I just accepted the “darky” role as something Pa impersonated, the way I accepted him impersonating a bullfrog or mad dog or a “common tater on the ax.” It was nothing more and nothing less than play.
Of course the truth was a different story, but I keep asking myself this question: why provide an explanation for the ugliness of a truth if the ugliness isn’t apparent to begin with?
I don’t know. What do you all think?
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?
After Sandra referred to Almanzo Wilder as “The Oyster” in her last post, Laura W expressed her curiosity in the comments as to what this was all about. I decided to post the answer rather than reply to Laura as others of you may be curious as well, and it’s an interesting story.
In early 1937, Rose Wilder Lane was collecting information from her father for her book Free Land, which was published in 1938. In a letter dated March 20, 1937, Almanzo wrote Rose the story of how he, his brother Royal, and sister Eliza Jane journeyed from Minnesota to Dakota Territory to file on their homestead claims. In the story he comments, “After we past Sioux Falls about 10 miles, one of the horses took the colic and died…” (spelling preserved)
Laura wrote another letter to Rose the same day filling in some of the details for her that Almanzo had not included in his letter but she thought would be of help to her daughter.
She explained that the horses were fed their noon oats, and then given water a few miles down the road when they came to a house with a pump. They drove on about five miles, and then “the horse was taken sick and died in a few minutes. Driving hard on dry oats, getting too hot and then drinking cold water and swelling ‘em up. Manly has always blamed E.J. because she kept urging him to drive faster.”
Laura later adds, “As for getting Manly to tell what some one said — Have you heard of oyesters. It is long ago. But you can imagine what E.J. would say to make him drive faster.” (spelling preserved)
Thus Sandra’s nickname for Almanzo… the oyster.
So… while we’re here, anyone want to offer up a suggestion as to just what E.J. would say to make him drive faster? 
She tried to be humble about it, slipping it in at the bottom of her post, but I won’t let her get away with that. Beyond Little House’s own Amy Mattson Lauters was on a Wisconsin NPR station today talking about her book, More Than a Farmer’s Wife: Voices of American Farm Women, 1910-1960. Thanks to Elliemae for sending us the link — you can listen to it here.
My daughter started The Long Winter over the weekend. I am keeping quiet and remaining low-key. She has no idea how thrilled I am, which is the only way she’ll finish the series.
She recently completed By The Shores of Silver Lake. That actually took a little while to get into. We forget, as veteran readers, what a jolt it can be to move from the little girl who rolled down straw stacks to the more sedate teenager, responsible for making up the lost sight of her now-blind sister and grieving the death of her dog. “I don’t like this very much,” my daughter said after Jack died. And then: “When does Mary stop being blind?”
But she got through it. A lot of the time she’s silent when she reads, so I try to gauge her interest by asking questions. After Silver Lake was done, I asked her favorite part. She asked mine back. OK. I liked Laura and Carrie sliding on the moonpath on the ice, I said. Oh, she said. She liked when Laura hung out with Lena and Gene.
Otherwise she didn’t volunteer anything. “Anytime anything doesn’t make sense,” it occurred to me to say, “feel free to ask me whatever questions you like. If there’s anything you don’t understand, I can help you.”
To my surprise, she had a question ready. “What word is this?” she asked, pointing to a passage in the chapter “Building Boom.”
What on earth is Pa doing?” [Laura] asked Ma.
“He’s putting up a building on the town site.”
“Who for?” Laura asked, beginning to sweep. Her fingers were shrunken in ridges, from being so long in the dishwater.
“‘For whom, Laura,’” Ma corrected her.
“Whom” was the word. Surprisingly difficult to explain to a six-year-old, but I did the best I could.
And then I thought about Ma and grammar. I thought ahead to Little Town on the Prairie, when Carrie is looking out the window reporting on the actions of Mr. Boast and Lew Brewster, who have come to hire Laura for school.
“That’s him now, at the door!”
“That is he,” said Ma.
And later …
It was only a moment before Carrie exclaimed, “That’s him now—“
“’This is he,’” Ma said almost sharply.
“That’s he coming—It don’t sound right, Ma—“
“’Doesn’t sound right,’” said Ma.
“Right straight across from Fuller’s Hardware!”
Does anyone else besides me find this passage hilarious? First of all, we’ve never been aware of Carrie as a particularly lazy grammarian, nor, to a lesser degree, of Ma as grammar enforcer (although it’s easy to assume she would be). But all of a sudden—maybe the Hard Winter got to her?—Carrie can’t seem to speak a coherent sentence. And Ma, in her gentle way, corrects her and corrects her, finally on the edge of losing her cool and speaking “almost sharply.” When Ma gets sharp—or almost sharp—one would expect this to be the final grammar infraction, but alas, it’s the second-to-last. Carrie still has one more in her. (And, in my opinion, replacing “doesn’t” with “don’t” is a far more egregious error than misusing objective pronouns.) But Ma calms back down anyway, even as she corrects Carrie a third time.
I’ve long pondered Laura the author’s use of “almost sharply.” This is to imply that Ma otherwise would never speak sharply. We know, of course, that this isn’t true of Laura, not the Little House character Laura, nor the adult parent of cunning, precocious Rose or wife to “the Oyster.” Looking back to her childhood while in her sixties, Laura saw her mother as a paragon of calm. Or so it seems to this reader. I wonder if she ever wished—well into her adulthood—that she was more like her Ma, and writing about her serene ways was one way of honoring her, the type of mother she couldn’t quite be. And then I can’t help but wonder if Laura would have been more like Ma as a parent if Rose hadn’t been … so like Rose.
Eh, it’s fun to think about, anyway. Grammar nerds unite!
Do you do anything that is Little House-like? Do you knit? Sew? Butcher your own animals? Make your own cheese? Share it in the comment section and be entered in a drawing for a copy of my book Rose Wilder Lane’s San Francisco. In approximately two weeks I will let the computer at random.org pick the winners. There will be several opportunities throughout the summer to win a copy so if you miss out this time, keep trying. Feel free to enter the drawing, even if you already have a copy of the book. Win one for a friend or for your local library. Most of all have fun! (For more information on Rose Wilder Lane’s San Francisco visit PrairieMania.com.)
One of the things I really appreciate about the folks who read, contribute to, and write for this blog is the fact that all of us love to share Laura with others.
I have several nieces and nephews, but I have three nieces who are all at the right age to start reading and appreciating Laura. We read the books together. But we also have a wonderful time “playing” Laura. Pancake men for breakfast! Nine-patch quilt pillows! Making butter in a Mason jar! Babysitting sourdough starter for fresh bread! Taking walks in the park, building campfires, singing songs–we do it all.
We particularly enjoy the CD I bought at the Little House on the Prairie Musical gift shop at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, “Happy Land: Musical Tributes to Laura Ingalls Wilder.” It features fiddle-playing of classic tunes from the book, as well as traditional compositions of a number of songs, including “Highland Marry”, “Captain Jinks,” “The Big Sunflower,” and “Captain Jinks.”
We giggle along with some of the lyrics; “Captain Jinks” in particular has some surprisingly naughty verses. “Highland Mary” is sweet and haunting; I can see why it was Mary’s favorite.
In what ways do you “play” Laura?
*****
For those who might be interested, I’ll be on a live radio call-in show Wednesday, June 24, starting at 1:06 p.m. on WILL-AM. It’s an NPR station, and I’ll be talking about my new book, More than a Farmer’s Wife: Voices of American Farm Women, 1910 to 1960.
Ma made Pa’s Sunday shirts of calico. He wore a black silk tie, a coat and vest and pants. I can’t describe them. Seems as though all I ever saw of Pa was his face especially his eyes, his whiskers and his hair always standing on end. And too his hands on his violin.
~Laura Ingalls Wilder, 1936
On Mother’s Day weekend, we honored Caroline Ingalls by sharing what we most admired about her, what she had taught us, or the influence she had on our lives.
Now it’s Pa’s turn. Charles Ingalls was dearly loved and respected by his daughter Laura, and it is often said that it was the preservation of his stories that motivated Laura to begin writing the story of her childhood in the first place.
Whether it’s a story he told, an expression he used, or something he did or said, now’s your chance to share just what it is about Pa that impresses you most. Happy Father’s Day!
