Pulitzer Prize Biography Winner
Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder
by Caroline Fraser
Summary
Fraser separates the real Laura Ingalls Wilder from the beloved pioneer of the Little House books, charting a hard frontier life marked by poverty, drought, and debt. The biography situates Wilder's family within the larger forces of westward settlement and American economic hardship. It also probes the fraught collaboration with her daughter and the political ideas that shaped the famous series.
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Historical Context & Significance
Fraser drew on Wilder's beloved Little House on the Prairie novels, which inspired a long running NBC television series.