And to have cspan here taping this to show on television is just icing on the cake. My job tonight is to introduce the two people on the podium who will be conducting this conversation. Jane henderson is the book editor at the st. Louis post dispatch. She grew up in st. Louis and graduated from the university of missouri columbia with degrees in journalism and english literature. She cut short her grad titstude work to go to work as a copy editor. After three years in the newsroom in connecticut, she returned to st. Louis and has been an editor and writer with the post dispatch features department for 30 years. She assigns and edits book reviews choosing from 300 or so new books each week. Tonight she will be having a conversation with Caroline Frazier. Caroline frazier is the editor of the library america edition of Laura Ingalls wilder, the little house books. Her latest book is prairie fires, the American Dreams of Laura Ingalls wilder. It was one of the New York Times ten best books of the year and won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for biography. The National Book critics circle award for biography and the bio internationals 2018 plutarch award. Carolyn frazier has traveled the country for the past two years giving talks on Laura Ingalls wilder, her daughter rose wilder lane and other topics to groups large and small at schools, mick libraries, conferences and universities. Formally on the staff of the new yorker, carolyn fraziers articles have appears in the new york review of books, the atlantic, the Los Angeles Times book review and the london review of books among other publications. She is also the author of gods perfect child, living and dying in the Christian Science church and dispatches from the conservation revolution. She was born in seattle, washington. In 1979, she graduated from Mercer Island high school. In 1987 she received her phd in english and American Literature from harvard. She lives with her husband in santa fe, new mexico. We would like you all to give her a very warm welcome tonight. [ applause ] i guess were on. Are you ready for us to go ahead . Are you going to talk . Thank you very much for having me and asking me to talk to carolyn frazier. Its really exciting. I think that probably most of us read little house on the prairie books when we were young and watched it on tv. I was getting to be a teenager at the time and sometimes was a little skeptical and thought it was a little corny. Well get back to that later. How long have you researched and studied and why did you start studying Laura Ingalls wilder . Well, i discovered the books as a kid too and read them and loved them and thought they were fantastic. I think part of the reason i really loved them was because my grandmother and most of my grand parents had been farmers in the midwest. They were all immigrants mainly from scandinavian places and came to minnesota and wisconsin and were farming in the late 1890s in some of the same places, same areas that Laura Ingalls had lived. So i think it was really fascinating to me to discover these books that told stories that cast some light on what they must have gone through. And then as an adult, i had an opportunity to review the first biography of rose wilder lane, Laura Ingalls wilders daughter, who was at one time a pretty well known journalist. And in the 90s, a biography of her appeared and it was quite a scandal, actually, because it claimed that she was really the author. That was william holts. He was from the university of missouri, right . Yeah. He taught at the university of missouri. It created quite a sensation. There were lots of headlines like little fraud on the prairie. Right, right, right. So i reviewed that book. Thats when i started looking at wilders manuscripts and kind of thinking about what an interesting story that was. Her life . Yes. I think you mention in your book that a lot of his assertions about rose writing the books actually is in the appendix, right . Did he set out, do you think, to debunk it, or did he just somehow fall into that later . Yeah. It was kind of an odd presentation in some ways because he seemed to have some real hostility towards laura as part of the story. I was very critical of her. Yet he didnt bring up this thing that was a central part of the book. His book was called the ghost in the little house until really the appendix when he talks about it a little bit at the end. So it was a contentious kind of argument to make. I ultimately came away from it feeling like there was a lot more to the story and that it was more complicated really. Than that. Than that. But when you earned your phd, im not sure how many people at harvard were studying Laura Ingalls wilder, were they . Ill tell you exactly how many. There were zero. And i didnt even think of it at that time. But i would never have proposed it because it was just not considered it wasnt considered academic, i would assume. Yeah. But you kind of have made it academic in a way with your book, because you do incorporate so much history into the story, right . Yeah. I mean, i later had the opportunity to edit a new version of the little house books, a new edition for the library of america. That entailed writing some notes on the text explaining what certain historical events were for the reader. As i was doing that, i began to realize, you know, this stuff is really interesting. Its really interesting to me. So i began to hope that it would be potentially interesting to readers as well. And so how long did you study or what papers did you dig up . Where did you find actual new information that hadnt been written about much before . Well, scholars were starting to do, you know, related work. I mean, theres a fascinating paper, for example, about the ingalls family in kansas that i found. And there was another paper in a folklore journal about a discussion of the origins of this phrase that occurs repeatedly in little house on the prairie, the scurrilous phrase, the only good indian is a dead indian. That was in use at the time. Because of an event that is also mentioned in the book called the minnesota massacre. So there was a whole history just about that one phrase that was so fascinating in terms of how that was used politically to justify the treatment of indians. So it seemed like a really rich history that really paid attention. Some of the papers are in the Herbert Hoover library too . Are those roses only, her papers . Both. Laura Ingalls Wilders papers are in the Herbert Hoover library . Yes. Its unusual, but the reason that came about was because when rose began her writing career and she really began as a yellow journalist she was writing these kind of questionable biographies of people. And she wrote one of Herbert Hoover. She was actually the first person to write a biography of hoover before he became president. And that was for adults . Yes. It wasnt for kids . Yes. But it was actually fictionalized. Right. Anyway, after her death, her papers ended up at the hoover president ial library as well as some of her mothers. Isnt that interesting. So what were some of the revelations that you found . I mean, obviously this book has won the Pulitzer Prize. People must have thought it was somewhat groundbreaking the way you pulled it together, all this information and how it related to history, i assume is why it won. I think it was a combination of establishing the importance of wilder and her work to both our literary history, but also our self image, the way that we see ourselves as the descendents of people who crossed the great plains and were involved in the settlement of the country. I think people are interested in the kind of fantasies that weve created about our own past and sort of looking at how true are those stories that we tell ourselves. Well, oh peop rk, other peop telling that story, though, before wilder, werent they . Oh sure, but i think that her story has become one of the central ways that children absorb, especially white children, the ideas about manifest destiny, which thats a concept that has been interrogated quite a bit and yet even still today you hear politicians and other people kind of endorsing this idea that there was some grand plan for behind the whole idea of homesteading and so forth. Its been known that some of our president s and president ial candidates have been big fans of little house on the prairie. So was that a subtle message on their part, or was that just that thats what they were interested in . Well, i think youre speaking about ronald reagan, who famously there was this anecdote about how he used to watch little house on the prairie in the white house with nancy, because i think he knew Michael Landon, who of course was the star and producer and director of the tv show. They were friends and landon was a big reagan supporter. I doubt very much whether reagan himself had read the books or kind of had that sort of knowledge of the background of them. But yeah, i think there is maybe a little bit of a message in that, you know, that it was considered to be wholesome. Wholesome and hard working. I guess an also kind of pulling yourself up by the bootstraps, right . Right. That whole notion of i mean, reagan famously said that, i mean, he obviously didnt support government. He said something famous about, you know, if somebody comes to you and says im here from the government and im here to help, you know youre supposed to be suspicious. Yes, that thats like the worst thing you can hear. So there is a kind of kernel in the books of this sort of slightly antigovernment. Well, i wasnt going to actually bring that up until a little later, but since were talking about it, i remember reading an essay in the new yorker a few years ago, Judith Thurman, who the person i was talking about the president ial candidate, Vice President ial candidate was sarah palin. It became associated with her. And Judith Thurman seemed to want to point out this idea that people are doing this all themselves and that Laura Ingalls wilder did it all herself wasnt entirely true, that she had had help, that the government had given or loaned them money to buy land, et cetera. I assume youve read that essay. Mmhm. How did you react to that and what is your interpretation of how much help or not from the government did the ingalls get . Yes. Its quite clear, actually, that laura herself had a really sort of contradictory reaction to the federal government because for a time in the 1920s she actually worked in a sense for the government. She was the secretary treasurer for the mansfield, missouri, federal farm loan program. So she helped farmers fill out paperwork and so forth to get these loans, which were beneficial for farmers. And she was very supportive of that program. But then when the new deal came along, she was very opposed to that. She was opposed to people taking assistance or aid from the government, as many people were, many farmers were. It wasnt an unusual attitude to have, was it . No. I remember my own mother, who was born in the 20s and was one of a family of ten. I said why dont you like fdr or something . She said, because he made us feel poor. Well, you were poor. During the depression with ten kids in the family, you were pretty poor. Apparently a lot of people didnt like either to feel that or to feel like they were being told that. I dont know. Yeah. Its kind of a baffling thing, because i think laura and certainly rose loved this idea of complete independence and autonomy and they felt that, you know, farmers and people should never take things from the government. That was shameful, i think, to them. And yet, you know, when you look at the history of the ingalls family, they did accept help. They accepted help, for example, for mary, lauras older sister, who became blind as a teenager as a result of an illness. And mary was ultimately sent to college in iowa, which was a state program that paid for that. So they were willing to accept aid. In fact, i think shes really the only member of the family that was able, you know, to go to college. So there was clearly flexibility in the original ingalls family. And for some reason i think that laura possibility because she was a little ashamed of some of her own reliance on her daughter financially developed a somewhat more rigid reaction. But when did she start writing or talking about that exactly . Was it more like in the 20s and 30s . It was really with the advent of fdr. You dont see laura talking about it before then. Tell us about Charles Ingalls. He took advantage of the homestead act, right . Mmhm. So what did that mean . I mean, how did that affect the family . Well, and of course the homestead act was one of the biggest government giveaways in history and the family was fine with that. He began you know, i mean, the homestead act is signed into law around 1862 by lincoln. And he takes advantage of it first in minnesota, although they dont really develop a homestead there. It really becomes a factor in their lives when they move onto the dakota territory, the town which the ingalls family did help found. I think it was from the beginning a real struggle for them, because it involved breaking land, you know, which cutting up the prayirie with a breaking plough, which i think is fiendishly difficult work to cut through all the roots and tear off the grasses on the prairie. I think he really by this time, hes an older how old was he about . Id have to look, but i think he was probably by that time in his, you know, late 30s, 40. And hed probably been working yes. And hed be working like a dog all his life. Right. Yeah. I think it really took it out of him. They were able to, you know, have a few good crops and so forth, but he wasnt really supporting the family just with the homestead. He had to go into town and build houses. He actually worked mainly as a carpenter in his later years. So it kind of shows you how tough that was. I think it was easier for big families who had a lot of sons who could help out. And he didnt have any sons, right . Sadly they had a boy. Did he die . Yes. Lauras little brother freddie, who was born right after the locusts wiped them out in minnesota, and he died less than a year old. So there were no sons. Mary had her disability. So it was a really pretty tough life. Were they expected to pay back the government or prove the land, make sure that it was producing or something before they could really keep it . Yeah. The process of what they called proving up on the land took about five years. When you applied for a homestead, you filled out some paperwork and you paid a small f fee, you know, a few bucks. I think it was 10 for a while and then it gradually went up. And you did have to clear a certain number of acres and you had to build something. You had to build some kind of house or shanty or sod house or something. You had to prove that that was on the land. And you had to at the end of this process, at the end of five years, you had to get some friends or neighbors to help you fill out the paperwork and testify to this. You know, you had to prove that you had done this. And that had to be published in the local newspaper. Thats why a lot of local newspapers were founded, was to publish that paperwork. Also probably to publish announcements perhaps even from the government and haland sales sure. But to play devils advocate here, theyre not getting anything really for free from the government because theyre also doing the government a favor, arent they, by moving west and kind of helping clear out the indians and create a farm . Yeah. Although the utility of some of those farms is and was questionable because especially on the great plains, in the dakotas, a lot of that land was not ideal for farming, especially what they called dry land farming, which was just going alone without irrigation, just relying on whatever Mother Nature provided. So that land was marginal for farming. The government actually knew that when it participated in sending people out there or allowing the railroads to send people out there. Because the government scientists like John Wesley Powell had basically told them, look, this is better for grazing than it is for farming and you actually need a lot more of it to be successful. You need a lot more than the traditional 160 acres that the homestead act provided to make a go of it. But they did not pay any heed to that. So what was their motive in that, do you think . I believe the motive was to help the Railroad Companies pursue their profits. Oh really . Okay. So what about pa, though . I mean, we love pa, right . We do. Because he loves laura. Laura loves him. You know, we saw him on tv. But he sounds like he wasnt a very good, you know, provider. And laura knew that. You know, she admitted as much in a letter that she wrote to rose. She said Something Like, you know, pa was no farmer, he was no businessman, he was a poet and a musician. And i think she loved him for those qualities that were not that practical. She loved his charm and his he was very affectionate and loving father and he was, i think, a kind of very talented musici musician. I think his fiddle playing was something that made their lives worth living, you know, even during the darkest hours which were pretty dark of the family. And so, you know, she came away from her relationship with him, i think, valuing him as a father even though he had in a lot of ways failed as a provider. Right. Was that unusual or did he have like a very short Attention Span or something . I think it was just kind of restlessness in one way. He loved to kind of be moving on. He had an itchy foot, you know. He clearly disliked it when an area became too settled and overpopulated. He always wanted to keep going and moving onto the next place that was wilder. He loved to kind of wander by himself on these hunting forays. So i think it was just that he was not supremely dedicated to the domestic farming scene. Well, what about his poor wife . I mean, was she doing the lions share of the work at home . Poor carolyn. She sou