LAURA INGALLS WILDER AND EDUCATION IN KINGSBURY COUNTY, 1880 -1885
– by Nancy Cleaveland
INTRODUCTION
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Since the publication of the first “Little House”® book, readers have wanted to know how Laura Ingalls Wilder’s real life paralleled the stories presented in her fiction. Because the “Little House”® stories are so highly believable, readers tend to take them all at their word without the benefit of historical research to authenticate them. Wilder herself perpetuated the myth that her stories were all true, and her daughter Rose Wilder Lane remained adamant until her death that the “Little House”® books were entirely factual. Still, both Wilder and Lane knew that the books were fiction and complete accuracy was admittedly sacrificed for the sake of a good story.
Many of the relationships, individuals, places,and activities in the “Little House”® books can easily be proven as historically correct, generating confidence in the overall accuracy of Wilder’s recollections. But even Wilder’s unpublished memoir, the handwritten Pioneer Girl manuscript - on which the “Little House”® books were based and which most scholars accept and quote as factual - is only as accurate as Wilder’s memory when writing of events which occurred as many as fifty years in her past. While trying to write a truthful account, Wilder herself realized that sometimes her “memory failed her on all but the high lights.” [1] In the case of the “Little House”® books, it is easy to glorify all of Laura’s memories simply because they are so believable and come to look upon them as something they were never intended to be – the absolute truth.
Wilder’s biographers have been able to verify much of what was included in the “Little House”® books as factual by comparing the text favorably to both Wilder’s reminiscences and correspondence [2] and to other preserved documents: land records; certificates of births, marriages, and deaths; wills and probate records; and other primary sources. From the years while writing about her life in De Smet, Dakota Territory, however, less Wilder correspondence and only single manuscript copies exist. Research about the years included in these books [3] is even more difficult due to a lack of definitive historical records from the early years of Kingsbury County. Because of the scarcity of multiple sources to support the validity of Wilder’s stories in the De Smet books and because so much of Wilder’s earlier life compares favorably to her fiction, many have accepted Wilder’s version of her De Smet years on faith alone, relying heavily on the fact that earliest and published versions of the same story are in agreement.
Few researchers have studied the handwritten records of the first superintendents of schools in Kingsbury County to determine if Wilder’s stories of her own schools and teaching career mesh with the early history of education in the county. These records contain valuable historical evidence which disputes much of the chronological historical information presented both in Wilder’s De Smet fiction and in her memoirs. Information from these records, along with other primary sources from the years 1879 to 1885, such as homestead files and deeds, tax records, territorial statutes, and vital records, present a more complete and accurate picture of educational advancements during these years. Laura Ingalls, as both student and teacher, was part of a significant period in both Kingsbury County and Dakota Territory history, not only when school districts were first being formed and organized, but when the very laws governing the educational process underwent some of the most profound changes in history.
Notes:
Laura Ingalls Wilder’s handwritten draft of Pioneer Girl was used exclusively in this study. It is on microfilm at Western Historical Manuscripts, The University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri. There was no pagination in this draft.
Handwritten drafts of manuscripts were used as follows:
By the Shores of Silver Lake, The University of Missouri, Columbia;
Little Town on the Prairie, Pomona, California, Public Library;
The Long Winter and These Happy Golden Years, Detroit Public Library, Rare Book Room, Detroit, Michigan.
All of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s “Little House”® books were published in New York by Harper and Brothers (now HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.). Copyright registration dates for the books used are:
By the Shores of Silver Lake, October 20, 1939;
The Long Winter, October 30, 1940;
Little Town on the Prairie, November 6, 1941;
These Happy Golden Years, March 17, 1943.
The letters cited are all from the Laura Ingalls Wilder-Rose Wilder Lane Collection at the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library in West Branch, Iowa.
All Dakota Territory public land records, court documents, school records, and deeds cited are from the Kingsbury County Courthouse, De Smet, South Dakota, except as otherwise noted.
All Dakota Territory newspapers cited are on microfilm at the South Dakota State Archives, Pierre, South Dakota.
1. Laura Ingalls Wilder to Rose Wilder Lane, letter dated October 8, 1938.
2. The Laura Ingalls Wilder - Rose Wilder Lane Collection is in the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library in West Branch, Iowa.
3. The De Smet “Little House”® books include By the Shores of Silver Lake, The Long Winter, Little Town on the Prairie, and These Happy Golden Years.
