Pioneer Girl: fact and fiction of Laura Ingalls Wilder, A-Z

Once upon a time, many years ago, Laura Ingalls Wilder recorded the memories of her early life, from age two when she and her family settled in Indian Territory, through her marriage at age eighteen to Almanzo Wilder in 1885. She wrote in soft pencil on lined school tablets, and by the time she finished writing, Mrs. Wilder had filled almost four hundred pages with what would be edited and expanded over the next two decades into the award winning "Little House"Ž series of books.

The original manuscript was probably intended to be read by only one other person, Wilder's daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, an internationally acclaimed author. Rose encouraged and helped her mother re-work the stories about Laura Ingalls' early years near Pepin, Wisconsin, into what became Little House in the Big Woods, published in 1932. The rest is history.

The hand-written Pioneer Girl manuscript is archived by the Laura Ingalls Wilder / Rose Wilder Lane Home and Museum in Mansfield, Missouri. A microfilm copy of the handwritten pages is available inter-library loan (ILL) through the University of Missouri at Columbia. For more information, search the Western Historical Manuscripts Collection site.

Two typed versions of the handwritten Pioneer Girl manuscript were unsuccessfully submitted by Rose Wilder Lane for publication. Known as the "Carl and Zelma Brandt version" (160 pages) and the "George T. Bye version" (195 pages), these as well as a "shorter revised copy" (126 pages) are part of the Rose Wilder Lane Collection archived at the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library-Museum in West Branch, Iowa.

Research copies of these may be purchased for $.50 per page postpaid, or made in person for less. For information, contact the Senior Archivist, Herbert Hoover Presidential Library-Museum, P.O. Box 488, 210 Parkside Drive, West Branch, Iowa 52358 USA - Phone: (319) 643-5301.