It’s important to remember that Charles Ingalls was not a successful pioneer the travels of his family include accidental infringement on Indian Territory (and indignation at being forced away), and several false starts before finally settling down in the DeSmet, South Dakota, area.

While the eastern section of the United States fought the Civil War and argued the place of African-Americans in a ‘reconstructed’ country, the Ingalls, like so many others, sought their own place in the wilderness.

This legislation offered free land to pioneers who were willing to ‘prove’ their claim by building a house, farming five acres, and staying put for five years. Charles and Caroline Ingalls’ peregrinations throughout what would become Wisconsin, Minnesota, Kansas, Iowa, and South Dakota were set in motion by the Homestead Act of 1962. To understand the achievement of Laura Ingalls Wilder, we must look not only at her nineteenth century beginnings, but also at the fifty-seven years she lived as a denizen of the “American century.”Īny reader of the “Little House” series knows that Laura Ingalls was born to a farmer and his wife in search of the American dream: a house and estate on the American Great Plains. The reality is that Laura Ingalls Wilder lived and wrote at a time when America was changing rapidly the majority of her life was lived after the heyday of western expansion, in a time when cities were expanding and the United States was reluctantly beginning its international dominance.

Given the assumption that Wilder the woman was interchangeable from Wilder the writer, it’s difficult to understand her life as something other than a hagiographer’s idealized portrait of the pioneer era. To avoid becoming hopelessly lost, please use the following directions.” An amusing comment, to be sure – but, surreptitiously or otherwise, an apt description of the life of Laura Ingalls Wilder and her devoted readers. On visiting the website of the Little House on the Prairie Museum lists, it lists the following caveat: “Due to an ongoing error with GPS technology, many GPS navigators and mapping services are unable to direct their users to our site.

The first 4 years laura ingalls wilder