"Indians in the House": Revisiting American Indians in Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House Books Item Type text; Electronic Dissertation Authors Fatzinger, Amy S. Publisher The University of Arizona. Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 23/09/2021 22:15:14 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/195771 1 “INDIANS IN THE HOUSE”: REVISITING AMERICAN INDIANS IN LAURA INGALLS WILDER'S LITTLE HOUSE BOOKS by Amy S. Fatzinger _________________________ Copyright © Amy S. Fatzinger 2008 A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the GRADUATE INTERDISCIPLINARY PROGRAM IN AMERICAN INDIAN STUDIES In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY In the Graduate College THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA 2008 2 THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA GRADUATE COLLEGE As members of the Dissertation Committee, we certify that we have read the dissertation prepared by Amy S. Fatzinger entitled "Indians in the House": Revisiting American Indians in Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House Books and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy _______________________________________________________________________ Date: 4/16/2008 Luci Tapahonso _______________________________________________________________________ Date: 4/16/2008 Mary Jo Fox _______________________________________________________________________ Date: 4/16/2008 Joseph Stauss _______________________________________________________________________ Date: _______________________________________________________________________ Date: Final approval and acceptance of this dissertation is contingent upon the candidate’s submission of the final copies of the dissertation to the Graduate College. I hereby certify that I have read this dissertation prepared under my direction and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement. ________________________________________________ Date: 4/16/2008 Dissertation Director: Luci Tapahonso 3 STATEMENT BY AUTHOR This dissertation has been submitted in partial fulfillment of requirements for an advanced degree at the University of Arizona and is deposited in the University Library to be made available to borrowers under rules of the Library. Brief quotations from this dissertation are allowable without special permission, provided that accurate acknowledgment of source is made. Requests for permission for extended quotation from or reproduction of this manuscript in whole or in part may be granted by the copyright holder. SIGNED: Amy S. Fatzinger 4 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Special thanks to my committee chair, advisor, and mentor, Professor Luci Tapahonso; thank you for all of your generosity and kindness across the years, and for teaching me that everyone has a story to tell. Thank you also for revealing the beauty and power in everyday language, and its potential to change the world in good ways. Thank you to committee members Dr. Jay Stauss and Dr. Mary Jo Fox; each of you helped me to understand and appreciate the concept of “education” in new and important ways as you offered your support and guidance. Thank you to Dr. Judy Temple for encouraging my initial research on Laura Ingalls Wilder. Thank you to the staff at the Laura Ingalls Wilder Home and Museum in Mansfield Museum for answering my questions, and thank you to Sara Heitshu of the University of Arizona Library for your assistance in my research. Thank you to Dr. Allen Richardson at Cedar Crest College in Allentown, Pennsylvania for advising me to “do what I love,” and thank you to my family for understanding when doing “what I love” took me so far from home. Thank you to Fernando Chavez; your patience, support, and the writing accomplished on our road trips was essential to completing this work. Thank you to Louellyn White for your friendship, help in editing, and our “Little House” crossings that helped this work take shape, and thank you to Jaime Parchment for your positive perspective and ideas about Title 9 and its relationship to my work. Thank you to Octavio Fuentes; your inspiration is present in all of my work. Special thanks to Dolly Hunsicker, who gave me my first copies of the Little House books but passed on before this project’s completion. Thank you to all of my teachers, family, friends, and students for your kind support and interest in my work. 5 DEDICATION In memory of Dolly Hunsicker, who introduced me to Laura Ingalls Wilder. 6 TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT . .7 INTRODUCTION . 9 I. BLUE PRINTS FOR THE LITTLE HOUSE : CONSTRUCTING THE NARRATIVE . .. .26 II. THE TWO LAURAS: ONE REAL, ONE IMAGINED . 45 III. “SO MANY WAYS OF SEEING THINGS AND SO MANY WAYS OF SAYING THEM”: REMODELING THE LITTLE HOUSE . .74 IV. “INDIANS IN THE HOUSE” . .110 V. EXPECTATIONS AND EXCEPTIONS IN THE WOMEN OF THE LITTLE HOUSE : THE LITTLE HOUSE TEXTS AS A WOMEN’S FRONTIER NARRATIVE . 155 VI. LITTLE HOUSE IN A BIG DEPRESSION: THE LITTLE HOUSE NARRATIVE AS DEPRESSION-ERA CHILDREN’S LITERATURE . 204 VII. “TO BE CONTINUED . .”: LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE AS A TELEVISION SAGA . .238 CONCLUSION . .263 WORKS CITED . .269 7 ABSTRACT Laura Ingalls Wilder’s eight-novel Little House series, published between 1932 and 1943, is among the most acclaimed and controversial examples of modern children’s literature. The narrative tells the true story of Wilder’s pioneer childhood in the 1870s and 80s, including her family’s encounters with American Indians. Recently some scholars have argued that Wilder’s depiction of American Indians is derogatory, but examining Wilder’s literary devices and contextualizing the story in the eras in which it occurred and was written about reveals a more complex portrayal of Native themes. Biographical information about Wilder suggests that she deliberately crafted her story as she recorded it; such changes afforded opportunities to emphasize her political values and critique mythology associated with America’s frontier era. Analyzing the narrative in the context of frontier Kansas, and more specifically as women’s frontier literature, reveals the literary uniqueness of the Little House story and highlights fallacies inherent in the premise of Manifest Destiny. As Wilder recorded her memories with the help of her well-known libertarian daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, during the Depression they often emphasized their anti-New Deal politics and cautioned readers about the dangers of supporting “big government” policies. The Little House story also reflects trends of the Golden Age of children’s literature which demonstrated respect for children by removing didactic lessons from the literature; thus the Little House texts present the controversial subject of America’s frontier history in a manner that allows children to draw their own conclusions about it. Finally, two television versions of the Little House story present didactic, positive lessons about American Indians on the frontier, but diminish the 8 possibility for multiple interpretations of the events inherent in Wilder’s original story. In a non-fiction article in The Missouri Ruralist in 1920, Wilder reminded her neighbors that home is “the best place for teaching many things, first and most important of which is how to think for one’s self.” Wilder’s texts offer opportunities for discussing the complex topics associated with frontier history and encourage young readers to think critically about Native issues in the texts—opportunities seldom found in mainstream American storybooks and curriculum. 9 INTRODUCTION “So after many days my words came back to me and the thoughts that followed them were altogether different from those connected with them before.”—Laura Ingalls Wilder, Missouri Ruralist , 1920 (Wilder, LHO 93) In the spring of 2005 I took a graduate course titled “Women Writers of the West” with Judy Nolte Temple at the University of Arizona. Laura Ingalls Wilder’s name was offhandedly mentioned in class one day, and as the time for final paper topic selection approached I could think of no subject that interested me more than revisiting Wilder’s Little House series. As a doctoral student in American Indian Studies with a focus in literature, I particularly wanted to examine Wilder’s portrayal of American Indian characters. As a girl I’d read the Little House books dozens of times, and the stories were familiar favorites as I now revisited the worn pages. I vaguely remembered American Indians in the Little House books and prepared myself for disappointment in my childhood heroine, realizing the likelihood that Wilder would fall into the entrapments of the sentiments toward Indians of her times—perhaps she would live in fear of her presumably “hostile” neighbors, romanticize the “noble savage,” or mourn the “vanishing Indian.” And disappointment it was. There was no denying the offensiveness of Wilder’s descriptors as she encountered Indians for the first time. The scholar of American Indian Studies in me cringed with each mention of the “tall, thin, fierce-looking men” whose “eyes were black and glittering, like snake’s eyes” (Wilder, LHP 134-44). Laura’s Ma “looked as if she were smelling the smell of an Indian whenever she said the word.” Ma, in fact, “despised Indians. She was afraid of them, too” (Wilder, LW 64). Laura’s Pa was 10 somewhat more