Land of Laura: the Podcast about Laura Ingalls Wilder

Historian Michelle Marie Martin, PhD, was with the Little House on the Prairie Museum at Independence, Kansas from2008-2015, the last four years as executive director of the site.

In this episode Dr. Martin shares the history of the site, the complicated history of the Osage land, how living history can be a tool for learning, and why the African American doctor who cared for the Ingalls family, George Tann, is so darn interesting.
Every August the Little House on the Prairie Museum hosts Carrie Days in honor of the August 3rd birthday of Carrie Ingalls, who was born at the site.

www.lhopmuseum.com

Erin Blakemore is a journalist, historian, and author of the book The Heroine's Bookshelf. Here's part 2 of her interview where she details the magic of listening to the Little House books on audiobook for the first time.

Erin shares several of her revelations, including how she feels Laura Ingalls Wilder used horses as a vehicle to communicate sensuality and sexuality when she didn't have the words to do it otherwise. Also, in the midst of narrator Cherry Jones' brilliance, the few things she got painfully wrong.

Erin Blakemore is a journalist, historian, and author of the book The Heroine's Bookshelf. Recently after brain surgery she turned to the the comfort of her beloved Little House books in a way she never had before: by listening to them on audio. Erin's first time listening to Cherry Jones' masterful narration of the entire Little House series was transformative. In the first of two episodes, Erin shares that experience with Land of Laura's listeners and offers commentary of her own on the enduring impact of Laura Ingalls Wilder's stories on our collective cultural history.

https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-heroines-bookshelf-erin-blakemore?variant=44503652106274

With fully half of the books taking place there, De Smet, Dakota Territory — South Dakota today — is the pinnacle of Little House homesites. By the Shores of Silver Lake, The Long Winter, Little Town on the Prairie, and These Happy Golden Years are all grounded in the tiny town of De Smet.

From the Surveyors' House to the house Pa built on Third Street to a robust collection of Ingalls and Wilder artifacts, the Laura Ingalls Wilder Memorial Society is responsible for overseeing and preserving the bulk of what visitors get to see in De Smet.

This week's Land of Laura welcomes Mary Jo Wertz, Executive Director of De Smet's Laura Ingalls Wilder Memorial Society. Learn how she came into the position, what it's like to head up the Society as a former pharmacist, and what visitors can expect in 2026 and beyond — including a few unexpected surprises. (Really!)

www.discoverlaura.org

What Laura Ingalls Wilder fan among us hasn't dreamed of living in De Smet, South Dakota? Eric Fairchild actually made that a reality when he and his partner took over Prairie House Manor Bed and Breakfast, a longtime staple of Laura Ingalls Wilder's Dakota Territory hometown.

On this week's Land of Laura podcast, Eric tells us all about his career change from retail lifer to innkeeper, the experience of trading urban Colorado for South Dakota, and the joy of immersing himself fully in the history of his new hometown — where he arrived without having read a single Little House book.

Prairie House Manor

⁠De Smet, South Dakota⁠

Plum Creek Park in Walnut Grove

Have you ever looked at one of Laura Ingalls Wilder's manuscripts? Or dug into Rose Wilder Lane's journal entries? Or read the letters Rose exchanged with her beloved "Mama Bess"? The largest collection of Laura Ingalls Wilder/Rose Wilder Lane research materials is in West Branch, Iowa, at the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum. This week Land of Laura talks to Hoover archivist Spencer Howard as well as researcher Eddie Higgins. Tune in to hear all about how the Laura/Rose collection came to be, what's in it, and how you, too, can access this treasure trove of research materials — even if you can't get to Iowa.

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https://hoover.archives.gov/research/manuscript-collections/lane

This week Land of Laura is thrilled to talk with ‪@LauraIngallsGunn‬. In the past few years, the interior designer has found herself increasingly seated behind her sewing machine. She has been recreating clothing based on descriptions found on the pages of the Little House® books as well as from the Little House on the Prairie television series. Her lovingly handcrafted garments have been displayed at Little House celebrations and museums all over the country. ‪@LauraIngallsGunn‬ has a forthcoming book, WHAT LAURA WORE: Fashions Inspired By The Little House Books, that shares clothing Laura Ingalls Wilder, her family, and other Victorian contemporaries might have made, wore, and cherished.

Let the Hurricane Roar ... Missouri Ruralist ... the Rock House ... LauraPalooza ... Holtz ... homesite ... Burr Oak ... what is the significance of all these terms in the world of Laura Ingalls Wilder?

If you've ever wondered what we're referring to sometimes when we're talking on the podcast, we're here to help. Presenting Laura Ingalls Wilder 101.

Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder won the Pulitzer Prize for biography in 2018. Before writing Prairie Fires, author Caroline Fraser was selected to edit the Library of America's official two-volume set of the Little House® books. Back in the early 90s, her extensive review of William Holtz's Ghost in the Little House was featured in the New York Review of Books. Her latest book, Murderland, looks at environmental links between serial killers and polluted areas of the Pacific Northwest. Today she joins Land of Laura to talk to us about all of it.

https://www.carolinefraser.net/

Scholars have wondered for years about what happened to Rose Wilder Lane's "lost" Armenian book. Thanks to historian and author Ginger Pedersen, now they know.

Dr. Mabel Elliott worked tirelessly in early-1920s Europe to help thousands of Armenian women and orphans in the aftermath of the horrific Armenian genocide. She subsequently wrote a book about that work.

A hundred years later, Ginger Pederson was in the thick of research for her biography on Dr. Elliott, Unbreakable Healer, when she learned that Dr. Elliott's book, Beginning Again at Ararat, had an uncredited collaborator.

That collaborator? Rose Wilder Lane.

On this week's Land of Laura, Ginger Pedersen tells her story of solving this literary mystery along with Rose Wilder Lane scholar Sallie Ketcham.

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YouTube explainer about Children of Ararat

Children of Ararat

Unbreakable Healer

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Theme music is "Roll the Old Chariot Along" from the album Green Willow by the Dreadnaughts. Used with permission.

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Laura Ingalls Wilder

Little House on the Prairie

Rose Wilder Lane

Children of Ararat

Armenian Genocide

Ginger Pedersen

Sallie Ketcham

Mabel Elliott