Reference no: EM133569657

Assignment:

The post-Civil War years marked the birth of children's author Laura Ingalls Wilder (1867-1957), who chronicled the experiences of her family's journey across the Midwest and Great Plains of the United States as a pioneering family. Wilder wrote nine books in her much heralded Little House series, as well as a final memoir about the latter years of her life with her husband Almanzo Wilder and daughter Rose Wilder Lane. The popular television series "Little House on the Prairie" was based on the book series, and numerous museums and historic sites have been established throughout the country marking the areas where her family lived and documenting such things as the recipes her family used to cook some of the meals that the books describe. These efforts to preserve the history of her family have created an interesting archive of both fictional and historically reliable artifacts that offer us -- as students of women's history -- a unique opportunity to study.

The Laura Ingalls Wilder archive also offers us a model of what public history might look like within the field of U.S. Women's History.

• Through Women's Eyes.
• Familiarize yourself with the concept of public history by visiting the National Council on Public History what is it?

2nd: Visit the Laura Ingalls Wilder Historic Home and Museum and at least one more of the websites below on Laura Ingalls Wilder and her family. If you live near one of the museums or historic sites dedicated to her family, you might want to physically visit the site if you have the time to do so.

• Little House on the Prairie Museum
• Wilder Homestead in Malone NY
• Rose Wilder Lane's life history from the Library of Congress American Memory Project
• Little House in the Census

Be sure to indicate which site you visited and provide specific details about what the site contains.