Laura Ingalls Wilder was a young girl who lived more than a century ago. She wrote eight autobiographical children’s novels that were published beginning in 1932. Her books have since been reprinted in 26 languages and are a staple of children’s literature around the world.
Wilder wrote her first book, Little House in the Big Woods at the age of sixty-five. In it, she described her first few years of life in a log cabin in Wisconsin. All of her books tell the real-life tale of her pioneer family which moved by covered wagon from one territory or state to another. Readers met Pa, Ma and her sisters Mary, Carrie and Grace. Little House on the Prairie, the second book, was set on the Kansas plains.
Many will remember the Little House on the Prairie television series of the 1970s and 80s that was loosely based on the books.
Read more about Laura Ingalls Wilder in the Clarice Whittenburg papers at UW’s American Heritage Center.