I am at the end of Prairie Fires, the biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder and a couple of conclusions struck me: 1. The tv series, in which the original Little House stories were taken over by Michael Landon and remolded into his political view, glorified the prairie settlements as the way American kept fed during the depression, whereas in fact, most of the settlers were forced to leave after their ecological devastation of the plains caused the dust storms and heat and drought that followed excessive logging of the forests.
2. The Little House tv series was popularized during the greatest period of Native American civi rights protest, and, similarly, glorified the genocide of the Indigenous people after the greedy land grabs and the fraudulent treaty deals of the Federal Government.
Also worth note, the individualistic survival simplicity is in fact, utterly delusional. No one survived on the plains or anywhere else without help from others then or now. "No man is an island" has always been true. The settlers depended on federal land gifts (so much for limited the federal government preached by Republicans) and endless loans which could never be repaid after ecological disaster destroyed crop after crop and finally forced the failed small farmers off their land and into the westward migration to California to work as agricultural labor.
Still, a very informative and interesting book on many levels and I recommend it highly! It is especially interesting to fans of the work of Willa Cather, another writer of the plains experience.
Today, Saturday, I am off to Maple Shade to put my historic places 8x19 painting of the Drive In Custard Stand in the gallery of Main Street Art to join the other three paintings on display there, The one-room school, and the railroad, and the stone silo. Then on to a health food store I have seen on Facebook at 23 Center St. in Merchantville, all after lunch at Maritza's also on Main Street in Maple Shade.
Tomorrow, off to the Farm Museum in Marlton and Second Time Around Book Store, and lunch with pal, Barb Solem.
Have a wonderful weekend - Happy Trails!
Jo Ann
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