Were you a fan of Little House on the Prairie? If you loved the books, or the long-running TV show, you may be interested in Laura’s Little House Legacy, a new documentary about Laura Ingalls Wilder, the celebrated author of the much-loved series. Directed by my cousin Dean Butler, who portrayed Laura’s husband Almanzo on the NBC program, Little House Legacy tells the story of her remarkable long life. Laura, it should be noted, was an early feminist icon; she famously insisted that the promise “to obey” be stricken from the vows when she married Almanzo. Active in the suffrage and temperance movements, Ingalls Wilder was both a woman of and ahead of her time. Her story has been dramatized, but the truth behind her life has remained untold, at least on film, until now.
Check out the website for the forthcoming film, see trailers (also on Youtube), and check out Dean’s blog.
I have not only seen the trailer – I’ve had the pleasure to watch “Little House On The Prairie – The Legacy Of Laura Ingalls Wilder”, produced and directed by Dean Butler, in full length at least five times – presented by Dean himself at the Washington Pavilion in Sioux Falls, SD, during the “Little House” week.
It is an outstanding, long awaited and long overdue documentary about this amazing woman and how she became the writer of this famous children’s books loved all over the world. Dean and his company LegacyDocumentaries did a great job on this.
I’m so glad to hear about this. Not only did I read all the Little House books to my son when he was a kid, but I am also a big fan of Wilder’s daughter, professional writer and radical libertarian Rose Wilder Lane. Lane, as you may know, was really the co-author of all the books but one. (A biography of Lane, The Ghost in the Little House, by William Holtz, argues that she ghost-wrote them, which I think is an exaggeration.) It sounds like this film does not deal with the Lane authorship question.
Hugo:
Thank you for this nice mention on your blog. We need to have you write more about Laura’s feminist leanings. She has been branded for years as being “old-fashioned”, but as you state, she was really ahead of her time and continues to be a voice supporting the importance of individual and community responsibility. Our program is a look at Laura’s writing process, which includes her significant collaborative relationship with her daughter, Rose Wilder Lane.
I’m glad you mentioned this too. Don’t know why she was branded as being “old-fashioned”, when she was very much ahead of her time. Not too many people also knew of Rose Wilder Lane, although I’m a big fan of her’s too. I hope it will show in my area too. Thanks for mentioning it. It’s nice reading comments from other people who appreciated her works and her many contributions.