Review
of Little House on the Prairie
By
Elizabeth Matthews (March 19, 2017)
Written
by Laura Ingalls Wilder
335
Pages
I
was first introduced to the Little House series
by Laura Ingalls Wilder when I was a young girl. I remember my father coming
home from work every night, and I would excitedly bring him whichever book we
were reading together. My favorite book from the series was Little House on the Prairie, so I decided
to pick this book up and read it all over again, twenty years later. By doing
this, my love for the writing of Laura Ingalls Wilder grew even deeper, and I
gained an even greater appreciation for the stories she told about her childhood.
There are so many connections between her own personal stories and the
movements of the many pioneers going west during this period. Throughout her
book, Laura discusses many of the hardships these homesteading families faced
agriculturally and culturally during this time in history, while also
discussing the joys, independence, and freedom homesteading brought these
families.
Little House on
the Prairie starts
off with Pa, Ma, Mary, Laura, and baby Carrie Wilder leaving their cabin in the
woods of Wisconsin, crossing the Mississippi River, and heading into “Indian
territory.” Laura recalled how her father wanted to leave the woods because too
many people had settled there. He was a man who needed his land to be spacious
and full of wild animals. The idea of having adequate land for farming and
providing for a family was, and still is, a common desire for many homesteading
families. Laura’s father understood that the flat plains of the Midwest could
lead to more successful farming of the land. It was clear that this family truly
survived off of the land; packing up everything one owns into a covered wagon
and moving into unsettled, unknown territory is not something one does lightly. Travelling far, and sometimes dangerous, distances to find land was a hardship that many homesteading families faced during this era.
As
Laura goes into her story about crossing a high, rushing creek during the
journey west, she really painted the true terror this experience caused her.
While this story was a scary one for her, it was also one where she saw the
true strength of her parents. Wilder wrote, “If Pa had not known what to do, or
if Ma had been too frightened to drive, or if Laura and Mary had been naughty
and bothered her, then they all would have been lost.” The pioneers of this
time had such strength that can still be found in homesteaders and farmers
today. There is a common theme in agriculture where people need to rely on each
other to accomplish the hard tasks that farming requires, and this family exemplified this trait throughout their journey and
homesteading experience.
Eventually,
the family reached a place to settle in the plains of the Midwest. Laura
recalled how her parents were unsure if they were settling in “Indian country”
or not. Wilder wrote, “But whether or no, the Indians would not be here long.
Pa had word from a man in Washington that the Indian Territory would be open to
settlement soon.” This and many other stories she told throughout the book really
depicted the long and painful struggle for land ownership between the Native
Americans and settlers. Laura even portrayed the racial and cultural struggles
of this period and how she was confused by them. In a conversation with her
father, he stated that the white settlers would get their first pick of land
and the “Indians” would need to move west. Laura then asked if this would make
the Native Americans mad. It was interesting to see these racial conflicts
through the eyes of a child because it truly made no sense to Laura why the
color of skin would cause someone to get the land someone else already had. In
the end of the book, the Wilder family ends up leaving the territory for fear
of being removed by government officials for being in Native American
territory. However, it is clear that many other settlers and Native Americans
struggled for a long time over the rights to the agricultural land in America. This
historical, cultural battle over potential farming land unquestionably shaped
the country’s agricultural system and how the land in America was used, and it was a hardship that many homesteading families faced.
While
the struggle between the settlers and Native Americans was a common theme
throughout the book, there were also stories Laura told about her father
farming and homesteading on the plains. She fondly discussed watching her father plow
through the high, prairie grass with the help of their two horses and learning how hard
the work truly was. She also wrote about how they owned a cow for milk and how
her father worked hard to dig their own well for fresh water. Her father and
mother clearly had the desire to be truly independent and self-sufficient,
which is the main desire for many homesteaders. The fact that the nearest town
was 40 miles away, showed just how important it was for the farming her father
did to be successful. Homesteading takes true dedication, hard-work, and strength,
and it is admirable that so many people created these lives for themselves. This
novel truly shows how farming greatly contributed to the American dream of
being free and independent. Laura Ingalls Wilder’s stories are enticing,
exciting, and extremely entertaining to read, and I would highly recommend Little House on the Prairie.
This is the copy of Little House on the Praire that I read with my father 20 years ago.
