Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP. But weren't the debts mostly related to the farms not working out? I don't think Charles had much other skill to offer. You will remember the many disasters they experienced with weather and crops.

As for alcoholism, I'm not going to condone it but that was pretty much the most common escapism/entertainment they had.

I've been doing my European genealogy and they were pretty much living the same life ... hand to mouth farmers with a tendency towards alcoholism. Moved to the U.S., became factory workers, got compulsory public education, started bettering themselves and joined the white collar world. I think this was a ubiquitous part of the Agricultural Revolution transition.

PP here. From what I remember, there were issues where Pa would be too drunk to harvest their crops, and the whole family would have starved if not for the help of others. The debts came because he was a terrible businessman.

The real problem, though, is this idealized version of what prairie life was like. The "Good Old Days" fallacy, similar to what we do with the 1950s. It sets people up to think we need to go back to those times.

Which is why there's a growing number of men (and sadly, women) who want to revoke women's rights, because they think that they would be successful and their wives would support them and everyone would be happy if only we could go back to those times when people had zero other options. See: MAGA.

When the reality is that most men wouldn't be successful, women would be trapped in abusive marriages, children would die and be abused, substance abuse and mental health disorders run rampant, and most would be in poverty.

I would fully support a historically accurate version. Show people what life was really like and that the American Dream wasn't a reality. We want progress, not reverting back to the past.

It sounds like you need to move to the politics forum.


Have you ever been farther west than Virginia or visited any western location beyond Chicago or LA? Gone camping? Driven through the Dakotas or Kansas? Spent a winter day with a broken heater?

What those pioneers did was extraordinary.

I am from the west and have camped and hiked etc. I agree it’s extraordinary which is precisely why there is a danger in romanticizing all that because people then think things were better. Some things maybe were (no worried about microplastics in our brains!) but many were not. I’m reminded of the pbs reality show that put modern families out there to live like pioneers for something like 60 days. The men all found it a great vacation from the stress of modern life. The women all despaired of the fact that the women’s work was literally never done.. Then men basically worked with the sun. But the women needed to be up first to feed the men and work after dusk to clean and get things ready for the next day. Washing took forever. Cooking took forever. Everything took forever. And at least those women weren’t pregnant, which the pioneer women often were. There was one census in the late 19th or early 20th century where they asked women how many children they’d birthed and how many were still living. Just scanning those pages is heart breaking. And that doesn’t even include the endless miscarriages due to back breaking work, contaminated food/water, and viral disease. There’s a reason that young women flocked to the cities when industrialization happened — even working in a dark, dangerous mill was better than this.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP. But weren't the debts mostly related to the farms not working out? I don't think Charles had much other skill to offer. You will remember the many disasters they experienced with weather and crops.

As for alcoholism, I'm not going to condone it but that was pretty much the most common escapism/entertainment they had.

I've been doing my European genealogy and they were pretty much living the same life ... hand to mouth farmers with a tendency towards alcoholism. Moved to the U.S., became factory workers, got compulsory public education, started bettering themselves and joined the white collar world. I think this was a ubiquitous part of the Agricultural Revolution transition.

PP here. From what I remember, there were issues where Pa would be too drunk to harvest their crops, and the whole family would have starved if not for the help of others. The debts came because he was a terrible businessman.

The real problem, though, is this idealized version of what prairie life was like. The "Good Old Days" fallacy, similar to what we do with the 1950s. It sets people up to think we need to go back to those times.

Which is why there's a growing number of men (and sadly, women) who want to revoke women's rights, because they think that they would be successful and their wives would support them and everyone would be happy if only we could go back to those times when people had zero other options. See: MAGA.

When the reality is that most men wouldn't be successful, women would be trapped in abusive marriages, children would die and be abused, substance abuse and mental health disorders run rampant, and most would be in poverty.

I would fully support a historically accurate version. Show people what life was really like and that the American Dream wasn't a reality. We want progress, not reverting back to the past.

It sounds like you need to move to the politics forum.


Have you ever been farther west than Virginia or visited any western location beyond Chicago or LA? Gone camping? Driven through the Dakotas or Kansas? Spent a winter day with a broken heater?

What those pioneers did was extraordinary.

Yup. Lived there for 10 years. Spent a lot of time camping in below-freezing temperatures.

You're not actually reading what I wrote.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP. But weren't the debts mostly related to the farms not working out? I don't think Charles had much other skill to offer. You will remember the many disasters they experienced with weather and crops.

As for alcoholism, I'm not going to condone it but that was pretty much the most common escapism/entertainment they had.

I've been doing my European genealogy and they were pretty much living the same life ... hand to mouth farmers with a tendency towards alcoholism. Moved to the U.S., became factory workers, got compulsory public education, started bettering themselves and joined the white collar world. I think this was a ubiquitous part of the Agricultural Revolution transition.

PP here. From what I remember, there were issues where Pa would be too drunk to harvest their crops, and the whole family would have starved if not for the help of others. The debts came because he was a terrible businessman.

The real problem, though, is this idealized version of what prairie life was like. The "Good Old Days" fallacy, similar to what we do with the 1950s. It sets people up to think we need to go back to those times.

Which is why there's a growing number of men (and sadly, women) who want to revoke women's rights, because they think that they would be successful and their wives would support them and everyone would be happy if only we could go back to those times when people had zero other options. See: MAGA.

When the reality is that most men wouldn't be successful, women would be trapped in abusive marriages, children would die and be abused, substance abuse and mental health disorders run rampant, and most would be in poverty.

I would fully support a historically accurate version. Show people what life was really like and that the American Dream wasn't a reality. We want progress, not reverting back to the past.

It sounds like you need to move to the politics forum.


Have you ever been farther west than Virginia or visited any western location beyond Chicago or LA? Gone camping? Driven through the Dakotas or Kansas? Spent a winter day with a broken heater?

What those pioneers did was extraordinary.

Anonymous wrote:Ugh, I’m not happy about this.

Look, I loved the books as a kid. They’re great fantasy.

But the actual history behind the books is absolutely twisted. Laura’s daughter, Rose, was a huge libertarian/individualist (along with being anti-Semitic) and heavily edited the books to match her political beliefs.

From what I remember, Pa was a drunk and left his family so destitute they received public aid along with aid from their neighbors, or else they would have starved. He dragged them around so much to escape debts he owed. Laura was worried she would be sold into servitude.

Prairie life was also absolutely horrific. Prairie madness, abuse, and death was common.

But this series is just most political indoctrination into the whole “America was great!” BS that men were men, women were women, families were happy, people pulled themselves up by their bootstraps, and we need to get back to those times.

There is so much erong eith this post, the first one is judging history through a post 2020 grieved over everything anti American victim lens.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP. But weren't the debts mostly related to the farms not working out? I don't think Charles had much other skill to offer. You will remember the many disasters they experienced with weather and crops.

As for alcoholism, I'm not going to condone it but that was pretty much the most common escapism/entertainment they had.

I've been doing my European genealogy and they were pretty much living the same life ... hand to mouth farmers with a tendency towards alcoholism. Moved to the U.S., became factory workers, got compulsory public education, started bettering themselves and joined the white collar world. I think this was a ubiquitous part of the Agricultural Revolution transition.

PP here. From what I remember, there were issues where Pa would be too drunk to harvest their crops, and the whole family would have starved if not for the help of others. The debts came because he was a terrible businessman.

The real problem, though, is this idealized version of what prairie life was like. The "Good Old Days" fallacy, similar to what we do with the 1950s. It sets people up to think we need to go back to those times.

Which is why there's a growing number of men (and sadly, women) who want to revoke women's rights, because they think that they would be successful and their wives would support them and everyone would be happy if only we could go back to those times when people had zero other options. See: MAGA.

When the reality is that most men wouldn't be successful, women would be trapped in abusive marriages, children would die and be abused, substance abuse and mental health disorders run rampant, and most would be in poverty.

I would fully support a historically accurate version. Show people what life was really like and that the American Dream wasn't a reality. We want progress, not reverting back to the past.

Have we read the same books? Sure LIW left out things, but the books still contain plenty of difficulties. Living in a dugout with a dirt floor. Bears and panthers and wolves. A cousin getting stung by so many bees they had to wrap him in a sheet. Blizzards and tornados that killed people. Laura almost drowning in the creek. Mary going blind. Children getting lost on the prairie. Leeches. Failed crops. Frostbite. Starving during the long winter. Prairie fires.

As for the heavy editing by Rose Wilder Lane to reflect her political views: Maybe so, but there is plenty of collectivism in the books. Ma's desire for church community and the family's deep respect for Rev. Alden. The church suppers and socials. The barrels they received from back east with clothing and toys. Almanzo and Cap risking their lives to save the people of DeSmet. The doctor who cared for the family when they were suffering from malaria. Pa and Almanzo riding out on the prairie after a storm to see if anyone needs help. Neighbors banding together in the Big Woods for pig slaughtering. The family's relationship with Mr. Edwards.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP. But weren't the debts mostly related to the farms not working out? I don't think Charles had much other skill to offer. You will remember the many disasters they experienced with weather and crops.

As for alcoholism, I'm not going to condone it but that was pretty much the most common escapism/entertainment they had.

I've been doing my European genealogy and they were pretty much living the same life ... hand to mouth farmers with a tendency towards alcoholism. Moved to the U.S., became factory workers, got compulsory public education, started bettering themselves and joined the white collar world. I think this was a ubiquitous part of the Agricultural Revolution transition.

PP here. From what I remember, there were issues where Pa would be too drunk to harvest their crops, and the whole family would have starved if not for the help of others. The debts came because he was a terrible businessman.

The real problem, though, is this idealized version of what prairie life was like. The "Good Old Days" fallacy, similar to what we do with the 1950s. It sets people up to think we need to go back to those times.

Which is why there's a growing number of men (and sadly, women) who want to revoke women's rights, because they think that they would be successful and their wives would support them and everyone would be happy if only we could go back to those times when people had zero other options. See: MAGA.

When the reality is that most men wouldn't be successful, women would be trapped in abusive marriages, children would die and be abused, substance abuse and mental health disorders run rampant, and most would be in poverty.

I would fully support a historically accurate version. Show people what life was really like and that the American Dream wasn't a reality. We want progress, not reverting back to the past.

Can you provide a source for Pa having a drinking problem?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP. But weren't the debts mostly related to the farms not working out? I don't think Charles had much other skill to offer. You will remember the many disasters they experienced with weather and crops.

As for alcoholism, I'm not going to condone it but that was pretty much the most common escapism/entertainment they had.

I've been doing my European genealogy and they were pretty much living the same life ... hand to mouth farmers with a tendency towards alcoholism. Moved to the U.S., became factory workers, got compulsory public education, started bettering themselves and joined the white collar world. I think this was a ubiquitous part of the Agricultural Revolution transition.

PP here. From what I remember, there were issues where Pa would be too drunk to harvest their crops, and the whole family would have starved if not for the help of others. The debts came because he was a terrible businessman.

The real problem, though, is this idealized version of what prairie life was like. The "Good Old Days" fallacy, similar to what we do with the 1950s. It sets people up to think we need to go back to those times.

Which is why there's a growing number of men (and sadly, women) who want to revoke women's rights, because they think that they would be successful and their wives would support them and everyone would be happy if only we could go back to those times when people had zero other options. See: MAGA.

When the reality is that most men wouldn't be successful, women would be trapped in abusive marriages, children would die and be abused, substance abuse and mental health disorders run rampant, and most would be in poverty.

I would fully support a historically accurate version. Show people what life was really like and that the American Dream wasn't a reality. We want progress, not reverting back to the past.

I understand what you're trying to say. However, as a girl reading those books in the 1970s, I enjoyed them but definitely did not want to join that world:

-Everything you owned in a wagon
-Dangerous animals that could kill you
-Your toys are mostly made of fruits and vegetables except maybe one or two things
-Christmas is 2 pieces of candy, an orange, and new mittens, and maybbbe one good toy
-Lots of behavior control
-All your houses are crappy - especially the mud cave sod house - didn't the roof fall in?
-About once a year you get a barrel from back East with some rations and a few magazines (The Atlantic!)
-You have to keep moving because your Dad is not able to successfully execute his occupational plans
-Your sister goes blind because of incurable diseases

Fascinating books but the circumstances were not enviable.

Anonymous wrote:PP. But weren't the debts mostly related to the farms not working out? I don't think Charles had much other skill to offer. You will remember the many disasters they experienced with weather and crops.

As for alcoholism, I'm not going to condone it but that was pretty much the most common escapism/entertainment they had.

I've been doing my European genealogy and they were pretty much living the same life ... hand to mouth farmers with a tendency towards alcoholism. Moved to the U.S., became factory workers, got compulsory public education, started bettering themselves and joined the white collar world. I think this was a ubiquitous part of the Agricultural Revolution transition.

PP here. From what I remember, there were issues where Pa would be too drunk to harvest their crops, and the whole family would have starved if not for the help of others. The debts came because he was a terrible businessman.

The real problem, though, is this idealized version of what prairie life was like. The "Good Old Days" fallacy, similar to what we do with the 1950s. It sets people up to think we need to go back to those times.

Which is why there's a growing number of men (and sadly, women) who want to revoke women's rights, because they think that they would be successful and their wives would support them and everyone would be happy if only we could go back to those times when people had zero other options. See: MAGA.

When the reality is that most men wouldn't be successful, women would be trapped in abusive marriages, children would die and be abused, substance abuse and mental health disorders run rampant, and most would be in poverty.

I would fully support a historically accurate version. Show people what life was really like and that the American Dream wasn't a reality. We want progress, not reverting back to the past.

I suspect they had a x related genetic disorder. Ma, Laura and I think Rose all had still born sons or ones who died in infancy. Not having sons definitely had a negative impact on their financial condition. Plus Pa’s really obvious adhd and then a string of bad luck with weather.

I think leaving out the particularly depressing parts was absolutely a common thing for almost all people born before maybe 1950. How many of you have grandparents that suffered through the Great Depression or survived/fled the holocaust and how much did they talk about the really awful stuff, versus talking about the happy memories, or even telling the “it was tough but we banded together” type stories? Or grandparents who lost a young child and never told the surviving children about it? My grandmother was raised by a woman who lost almost all her family in the Irish famine and probably spent most of her childhood starving (and possibly in a work home) but never said word one about that to her grandchildren. She talked about the herbs and flowers they had, the language, etc etc. No one taught the Irish famine in school back then so my grandmother didn’t even know to ask her grandmother to talk about it. The view was that it didn’t help anybody to relive all the worst memories.

But even with that said, the books are pretty horrific. When her dad left to go find work and they didn’t hear from him for months and months and probably thought he had died and they’d never know how/when/where, and he almost froze to death/starved getting back to them…. Or the story where they all had. Cholera or whatever and were dying in their beds all too weak to stand and get water until a doctor just happened to be passing by and stopped in their cabin? That’s insane.

PP. But weren't the debts mostly related to the farms not working out? I don't think Charles had much other skill to offer. You will remember the many disasters they experienced with weather and crops.

As for alcoholism, I'm not going to condone it but that was pretty much the most common escapism/entertainment they had.

I've been doing my European genealogy and they were pretty much living the same life ... hand to mouth farmers with a tendency towards alcoholism. Moved to the U.S., became factory workers, got compulsory public education, started bettering themselves and joined the white collar world. I think this was a ubiquitous part of the Agricultural Revolution transition.

Ugh, I’m not happy about this.

Look, I loved the books as a kid. They’re great fantasy.

But the actual history behind the books is absolutely twisted. Laura’s daughter, Rose, was a huge libertarian/individualist (along with being anti-Semitic) and heavily edited the books to match her political beliefs.

From what I remember, Pa was a drunk and left his family so destitute they received public aid along with aid from their neighbors, or else they would have starved. He dragged them around so much to escape debts he owed. Laura was worried she would be sold into servitude.

Prairie life was also absolutely horrific. Prairie madness, abuse, and death was common.

But this series is just most political indoctrination into the whole “America was great!” BS that men were men, women were women, families were happy, people pulled themselves up by their bootstraps, and we need to get back to those times.

Anonymous wrote:It's funny how the critiques of the LH books are both that they are too racist AND that they whitewashed too much.

Whether Pa was a good guy or a bad one in real life doesn't matter because LIW was writing fiction, not autobiography. And as fiction, the Little House books are superb. There is no better depiction of pioneer life in children's fiction than the Little House books. They are unparalleled.

A PP. I think it's definitely interesting for adults to understand the real lives of the people in the stories. I do think Laura Ingalls Wilder felt she was conveying her truth. What she left out seems to have been stuff that would have been gratuitously depressing. Bonus hardships if you like. And I believe the daughter amped up the self-reliance. There's quite a lot of community-building and charity in the books so it's hard for me to feel that some aspect of their lives really got covered up.

I think the real PA screwed up a lot basically because he was poor but had an entrepreneurial spirit and he was trying to do better than subsistence agriculture.

In established settled lands, land cost a lot of money and his family apparently didn't have much money to help him set up a household. So he tried a bunch of ways to get a farm set up through sweat equity.

One thing we haven't talked about here was the possible impact of not having sons on the dynamic. I believe I read in real life the Ingalls had a boy baby who died. With all daughters, it was just Pa who could do the jobs requiring a man's physical strength. Of course the girls helped, but the lack of boys might have been an aspect of bad luck for the Ingalls with respect to farm production capacity. Also Mary really did go blind. So they also had a special needs kid who couldn't do all the normal chores.

I've visited the Almanzo Wilder birthplace in Malone, NY. It's a pretty decent farmhouse- not a crude cabin. He and several of his siblings went West to get free farmland. It was their way of getting established in life. They seemed to do o.k. at getting established until Almanzo got that disease which made him limp.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hollywood leaning into trad-wife culture for a buck or two?

Pretty much, I must have been the only girl who hated watching little house on the prairie back in the 70s. Pa was a jerk.

Were you from a lesbian household? Give the standard for fathers in the 1970s, I can’t imagine anyone thinking Pa was a jerk by comparison. He always had that twinkle on his eyes and the cute nickname for his daughter! I loved my dad a lot but he came home from work and was basically like “is dinner ready? Turn off the goddam lights in that room. Do you know what the electricity costs?” Then spent all weekend trying to fix the dishwasher or replace the carburetor so our car would work. Everyone in the 70s was basically stressed out and in a bad mood. When we saw kids running down a flowery hill with pa laughing, and no one worried about the electrical bill or eating canned peas, that all looked pretty good.

Not PP, but my dad was much, much better than this. Sorry that your dad was so terrible.

F— you. My dad was great and he died recently so I hope you feel really good about yourself.

[twitter]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://people.com/little-house-on-the-prairie-reboot-introduces-brand-new-perspective-11995786

Man, six-year-old-me is SO excited for this! I loved watching the opening credits and seeing Carrie fall down running down the hill after her sisters. It'll be up July 9th on Netflix.

Igh.

Instead of sweet and innocent, it's going to be woke and degenerate.

Just look what Netflix did to Anne of Green Gables. The reboot Anne with an A is horrific, dark and twisted for what ahould be a beautiful innocent children's series.

I was prepared to hate it after reading criticism on dcum because I am an anne traditionalist but I actually really liked it and don’t know what the naysayers were complaining about. Definitely not horrific dark and twisted. I thought it was very sweet.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Netflix ruined Anne of Green Gables, are set to ruin Little House on the Prairie, and are in production to ruin the Narnia series (making Aslan voiced as a female)

No-one can take our real books from us.

The editors of the Netflix Narnia gave an interview where he stated they didn't read the books or follow the source material, because they wanted to reinvent Narnia.

The producer gave an interview where she bragged that it will be totally different from the stories that people love, a "rock n roll" reimagining of the treasured stories.

The orginal director and producers selected for the project when the estate green lighted the netflix contract, left over creative difference differences because they wanted to stay true to the storytelling of CS Lewis, and Netflix wanted to wokify the stories.

Both the Little House and Narnia remakes are looking to be insulting disasters, in the vein of the Anne of Green Gables destruction.

Netflix should not be allowed to touch classic stories

Is Greta Gerwig looking to ruin Narnia the same way she ruined Little Women? Get that woman out of Hollywood.

Yes.

But the producer is worse. She is gleeful about ruining Narnia in all her interviews.