Rose Wilder Lane

[BEG]

When I was recovering from my eye surgery I started watching Little House on the Prairie and Bonanza (Micheal Landon was HOT both as PA and Little Joe).  I got into it so much that I started recording them (call me a nerd).  It got so I watched an episode of one of the shows a day.  I have gotten my kids to watch them too and now we sit down and watch them together.  One night I was talking to my husband about my new found hobby.  He theorizes that I like watching those shows because they both are of a simpler time and are generally about good honest people.  That we are so bombarded with the crap that is going on today that I need something to balance the insane crap that is going on in the world.  I think he is right, everything seems upside down.

Anyway, I must have missed the show where Ma and Pa from Little House on the Prairie moves away from Walmut Grove so I googled it.  I found wikipedia about the books and Laura Ingels Wilder.  It talked about her daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, so I clicked on her name and read about her.  It was very interesting.  From the link:

LINK

Columnist for a black newspaper: The Pittsburgh Courier

During World War II, Lane had one of the most remarkable, but little studied, phases of her career. From 1942 to 1945, she wrote a weekly column for The Pittsburgh Courier, the most widely read American black newspaper.[citation needed]

Rather than hiding or trimming her laissez faire views, she seized the chance to sell them to the readership. She sought out topics of special interests of her audience. Her first entry glowingly characterized the Double V Campaign as part of the more general fight for individual liberty in American history. "Here, at last, is a place where I belong," she wrote of her new job. "Here are the Americans who know the value of equality and freedom." Her columns highlighted black success stories to illustrate broader themes about entrepreneurship, freedom, and creativity. In one, she compared the accomplishments of Robert Vann and Henry Ford. Vann’s rags to riches story illustrated the benefits in a "capitalist society in which a penniless orphan, one of a despised minority can create The Pittsburgh Courier and publicly, vigorously, safely, attack a majority opinion" while Ford’s showed how a poor mechanic can create "hundreds of jobs ... putting even beggars into cars."[3]

She combined advocacy of laissez faire and antiracism. The views she expressed on race were remarkably similar to those of black writer, and fellow individualist, Zora Neale Hurston. Lane's columns emphasized the arbitrariness of racial categories and stressed the centrality of the individual. Instead of indulging in the "ridiculous, idiotic and tragic fallacy of 'race,' [by] which a minority of the earth's population has deluded itself during the past century", it was time for all Americans (black and white) to "renounce their race". Judging by skin color was comparable to the Communists who assigned guilt or virtue on the basis of class. In her view, the fallacies of race and class hearkened to the "old English-feudal ‘class’ distinction." The collectivists, including the New Dealers, were to blame for filling "young minds with fantasies of 'races' and 'classes' and 'the masses,' all controlled by pagan gods, named Economic Determinism or Society or Government."[3]


The Discovery of Freedom

In the early 1940's, despite continuing requests from editors for both fiction and non-fiction material, Lane turned away from commercial writing and became known as one of the more influential American libertarians of the middle 20th century. She vehemently opposed the New Deal, perceived "creeping socialism", Social Security, wartime rationing and all forms of taxation, claiming she ceased writing highly paid commercial fiction in order to protest paying income taxes. She cut her income and expenses to the bare minimum, and lived a modern-day version of her ancestors' pioneer life on her rural land near Danbury, Connecticut.

A staunch opponent of communism after experiencing it first hand in the Soviet Union during her Red Cross travels, she wrote the seminal The Discovery of Freedom (1943), and tirelessly promoted and wrote about individual freedom, and its impact on humanity. As Lane grew older, her political opinions solidified as a fundamentalist libertarian, and her defense of what she considered to be basic American principles of liberty and freedom could become harsh and abrasive in the face of disagreement.[citation needed]

In 1943, Lane was thrust into the national spotlight through her response to a radio poll on Social Security. She mailed in a post-card with a response likening the Social Security system to a ponzi scheme that would ultimately destroy the US. The subsequent events remain unclear, but wartime monitoring of the mails eventually resulted in a Connecticut State Trooper being dispatched to her farmhouse (supposedly at the request of the FBI) to question her motives. Lane's vehement response to this infringement on her right of free speech resulted in a flurry of newspaper articles and the publishing of a pamphlet, "What is this, the Gestapo?", that was meant to remind Americans to be watchful of their rights, despite the wartime exigencies.

There was an FBI file compiled on Lane during this time, which is now available under the Freedom of Information Act.

Later years

During the late 1940s and through the 1950s, Lane played a hands-on role in launching the "libertarian movement", a term she apparently coined. She wrote book reviews for the National Economic Council and later for the Volker Fund, out of which grew the Institute for Humane Studies. Later, she lectured at, and gave generous financial support to, the Freedom School headed by libertarian Robert LeFevre.[3]

I want to learn more about her. 

[IassaFTots]

I gave my niece all of my Wilder books.  I read them, and reread them.  I love them. 

[Chris_]

How you are you doing, BEG?

There is something about shows/movies that take place in that time period. It seems simpler although I'm sure they had just as many headaches to deal with as we do, only different kinds.

But I do seem to stop and watch whenever I catch one of those shows on TV.

[Hawkgirl]

I remember watching Little House growing up as a little girl.  After dinner, my parents, brother and I would watch it together as a family.  I loved it back then...mainly because it was cool to me how people lived without television, A/C, etc. 

I'd probably get into it again if I started watching it...but haven't done it yet.  I think it's a good thing to do with children, if you have them.  When my daughter is old enough, I don't want her to watch the crap that is on nowadays...I would watch the old shows with her as well.

[littlelamb]

They have a stage play that is coming to town soon of Little House and Melissa Gilbert (Half pint) is going to play Ma. I plan on getting tickets for it

[IassaFTots]

They have a stage play that is coming to town soon of Little House and Melissa Gilbert (Half pint) is going to play Ma. I plan on getting tickets for it

I saw that here too!  I wish I had known about it sooner.