Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This is a dual bio of Wilder and Lane set against a heavy dose of historical backdrop. And almost immediately this is where Fraser goes off the rails. She will recover at times and I stuck with her because the topic is so interesting to me. Fraser is no historian and it shows. She makes many mistakes that sometimes appear to be just sloppy work; while others are clearly set piece to support a bias. For which she has many. I gather from a quick look at her other work she has done some environmental writing. And she brings this to Little House as subtle as a Hurricane. Frontier settlement, yes it was a frontier, and land laws are fundamental to the story. A clear understanding is obviously the foundation to the entire work. Fraser brings her environmental focus like a crusade into the story. The Ingalls and Wilders were simply duped into a “scam,” destined to fail because the Homestead Act was a failure and then they were complicit in fraud and get this - climate change. Yes Almanzo with his two row sulky plow caused global climate change induced drought. With that the reader may ask if Fraser has a grasp on 19th century agricultural practices, as this would form another foundation to the story. Well no, she doesn’t. For example, she will indict Almanzo as committing fraud in his Homestead claim because he left. She ignores the fact that a settler had six months to occupy said claim because, depending on the time of year they filed, they would have had no crop or supplies to support their stock. Almanzo in the dock of history is a clear theme. Unbiased scholarship as presented in Edwards, Homesteading the Plains shows that 50-60% of homesteaders proved up and were on the land a year later. As well, less than 10% of the cases show any indication of fraud. And in many of these it was not the intention of the homesteader to game the system, but instead they were within the spirit of the law while not with the letter. The Homestead Act, a complicated law covering many years and a massive geographic area is complicated; however, the old tropes that it was a “failure” and a “fraud” have been called into serious question. Unfortunately, Fraser continues this and reinforces it with her bias. Academia has been on a thirty-year rant against Great Plains settlement and Fraser is obviously a student of Richard White. When covering the move from Wisconsin to Mo/Ks she will use 1850’s overland travel as an example. The Wilders were not going 3,000 miles across unsettled land on a trail of tears covered in burials. It was 1869 in settled Iowa and Missouri. In general the entire life of Wilder will be set against a backdrop of hardship. Certainly it was hard, however, a historian would provide context for this. Simple facts are incorrect, for example, Keystone South Dakota is not at 9,100 ft elevation. Google can be a friend to an author’s fact checker. Although I doubt one was used, a history undergrad intern would have caught most of this. It is unfortunate we have another title in the Little House pantheon by a literary critic. While it is important to provide historical context to the work, Fraser will take large journeys into geography she has inadequate equipment for. She would have done well to stick hard and fast to her area of expertise. I found the literary sections very interesting; however when the author introduces so much bias and error on historical issues, this reader wonders if you can trust those areas that you might not be as familiar with. Even more unfortunate is the Little House fan who wants more knowledge of the life and times and uses Fraser exclusively will take this as history. It most certainly is not and Amazon did not classify it in that category. Fraser’s presentation is not for the faint of heart Little House reader, so be ready for a bumpy ride if you are. If one wants to learn Wilder and her times, the book Pioneer Girl would be a much better start. Then I would suggest Ray A. Billington’s fine overview of the frontier process. The bibliography is also excellent and a great start to counter the White school of ‘failure.’ Edit: As this book has generated so much commentary I've had a number of discussions about my opinion of it and my review specifically to the climate issue and no I am NOT a climate change denier (far from it). The thesis of the book, that Great Plains settlement was a failure and that the 1890s drought was caused by the settlers themselves can be summarized on pages 153-154. So if one looks into the footnote support here you'll find that Gilbert Fite is the "definitive" source. Fite, while a good summary is just that, a 19 page chapter on the Dakota Boom. This is an excellent example of how Fraser cherry picks her footnotes throughout the book. Fite's 1966 book is far from the "definitive" source and shows how shallow her historical research is and since this period is key to the Wilders' life it should have been researched more thoroughly. But it works well to support the bias, as does the emphasis on Hamlin Garland, if one wants to paint the picture as dark as possible. Of course Rolvaag lived in the James Valley but Giants of the Earth doesn't fit the thesis. See Fraser knows more about Cather's, Baum's, Garland's, Rolvaag's and Wilder's mistakes than they did (p 174). Again, the school of White is at work here. History is about what happened and not about how it could of, should of, or would of happened with a huge dose of Monday morning quarterbacking. Next up is climate change. Fraser will string some footnotes together about deforestation and offer up her opinion that the 1890s drought was caused by the farmers themselves. Of course the ecology changed. Where humans go they change the ecology. However, without any scientific evidence, to not only suggest, but to claim it as fact, that 1870-1890 farm practices caused the drought is beyond ridiculous. And one might ask where does Fraser live? Well I heard on an interview and I wonder if she has considered that Santa Fe New Mexico is also an unsustainable environment for the current level of human habitation without an intensive overlay of human technology.