Prairie Fires
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146. See Norma Lee Browning, “Rose and Laura,” draft of a memoir written for a publication of Waldenbooks, p. 1. De Smet Collection.
147. RWL to Charlie Clark, August 11, 1943.
148. John Turner to RWL, undated. In the letter, Turner expresses a wish to “break completely,” which appears to refer to his financial dependence on Lane. Decades later, Turner wrote to William Holtz to suggest that he did not consider it a “good bye” letter.
149. John Turner to William Holtz, undated letter, circa early 1990s. HHPL, WHC.
150. RWL to Charlie Clark, August 11, 1943.
151. Several manuscript versions of “Forgotten Man” survive in Lane’s papers at HHPL. The quotation is taken from one labeled in Lane’s handwriting, on the first page, “Last copy”; see p. 10.
152. Franklin D. Roosevelt, Radio Address, Albany, NY, April 7, 1932. See The Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt, vol. 1 (New York: Random House, 1938), p. 648.
153. See RWL to Ruth Levine, September 15, 1939. In this letter, held in the Isaac Don Levine Papers at Emory University’s Manuscript, Archives and Rare Book Library, Lane quotes extensively from the Post’s rejection letter, written by its new editor, Wesley Stout.
154. Ibid., September 15, 1939.
155. RWL to Bye, June 5, 1940.
156. “The Long Winter,” Kirkus Reviews, June 15, 1940; Anne T. Eaton, “The New Books for Younger Readers,” New York Times Book Review, January 26, 1941, p. 52.
157. See Carrie Ingalls to LIW, August 6, 1940.
158. LIW to RWL, March 17, 1939.
159. Ibid., January 27, 1939.
160. Ibid., January 25, 1938.
161. Ibid., May 24, 1939.
162. LIW, “Prairie Girl” outline, HHPL.
163. See Chapter 3, “Getting Ready for the Fourth,” in LIW, manuscript for LTOP, pp. 18–24. Pomona Collection.
164. LIW, manuscript for LTOP, p. 28. Pomona Collection.
165. Ibid.
166. Ibid., p. 29.
167. LIW, LTOP in LIW: The Little House Books, vol. 2, pp. 409–10.
168. Ibid., p. 410.
169. RWL to Garet Garrett, undated partial letter, late 1930s, beginning “P.S. Besides, it is not a question merely of the New Deal.”
170. LIW, LTOP in LIW: The Little House Books, vol. 2, p. 412.
171. See Holtz, Appendix A, Ghost, pp. 379–85.
172. See LIW, “List of Corrections,” p. 1, correction to p. 23.
173. Wilder’s teaching certificate is on display in the Mansfield Collection. It is reproduced in Laura’s Album, p. 25.
174. See LIW, LTOP in LIW: The Little House Books, vol. 2, p. 543.
175. Ibid., p. 536.
176. Lane did not keep a diary in 1941; either she did not record her work on LTOP or the relevant records or letters have been lost. Miller surmised that Lane must have done her work between January and July of that year; see Miller, Becoming LIW, p. 239. Wilder submitted three copies of the typed manuscript to Bye in early July; see LIW to Bye, July 3, 1941.
177. “Briefly Noted,” New Yorker, December 6, 1941, p. 143.
178. Philadelphia Record, December 21, 1941.
179. In addition to Little Town, the 1942 Newbery Honor Books were George Washington’s World, by Genevieve Foster, Indian Captive: The Story of Mary Jemison, by Lois Lenski, and Down Ryton Water, by Eva Roe Gaggin.
180. LIW, “Speech at the Book Fair,” in LIW: The Little House Books, vol. 1, pp. 587–88.
181. LIW, “As a Farm Woman Thinks,” Missouri Ruralist, June 1, 1924.
182. As with LTOP, correspondence regarding Wilder’s final volume does not survive. In addition to Wilder’s holograph manuscript, two typescripts survive: an earlier typescript, with editorial remarks typewritten by Lane and holograph changes by both Wilder and her daughter, as well as a near-final typescript. Wilder’s draft manuscript and the later typescript are held at the Burton Collection; the earlier typescript is in the HHPL.
183. LIW, THGY, manuscript, p. 303. Burton Collection.
184. Ibid., p. 305.
185. LIW, THGY, in LIW: The Little House Books, vol. 2, p. 724.
186. LIW, THGY, manuscript, p. 313.
187. LIW, “Ambition.” Mansfield Collection. A reproduction appears in Anderson, Laura’s Album, p. 24. Wilder misspelled Alexander (as “Elaxander”) in her original, which begins with an opening—“Ambition is, like other good things, a good only when used in moderation”—that differs from the version she wrote in her handwritten draft and in the first typewritten manuscript. See LIW, THGY, draft manuscript in the Burton Collection, p. 89 (microfilm image 93). In an editorial note, Lane encouraged her mother to dramatize the essay’s success to heighten the drama of the scene; see THGY, HHPL typescript manuscript with holograph changes, p. 75.
188. LIW, THGY in LIW: The Little House Books, vol. 2, p. 730.
13. SUNSHINE AND SHADOW
1. LIW to Ursula Nordstrom, May 7, 1945, in SL LIW, p. 272.
2. Kirkus Reviews gives the publication date of Little Town as November 20, 1941.
3. LIW to Alvilda Sorenson, December 29, 1941, in SL LIW, p. 236.
4. Bye to LIW, July 25, 1941; LIW to Bye, August 1, 1941.
5. LIW to Bye, August 1, 1941.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid., September 28, 1942.
8. Bye to LIW, September 29, 1942; May 5, 1943.
9. Ibid., May 6, 1943.
10. LIW to Bye, May 10, 1943.
11. Ibid.
12. LIW to Ursula Nordstrom, March 1, 1943, in SL LIW, p. 243.
13. Martha A. Green to LIW, September 10, 1943.
14. LIW to Ursula Nordstrom, May 7, 1945, in SL LIW, p. 271.
15. Evening News (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania), April 19, 1943, p. 5.
16. Ottawa Journal, May 19, 1943, p. 12.
17. Lynn Riggs, Green Grow the Lilacs: A Play (New York: Samuel French, 1930), scene 1, p. 3.
18. Anne T. Eaton, “New Books for Younger Readers,” New York Times Book Review, April 4, 1943, p. 58.
19. “These Happy Golden Years,” Kirkus Reviews, March 1, 1943.
20. LIW to Mrs. Phraner, May 10, 1943, in SL LIW, p. 248.
21. Isabel Paterson, The God of the Machine (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 1993), p. 167.
22. RWL, The Discovery of Freedom (New York: John Day, 1943), p. 12.
23. Lane and Rand met in person in 1947; see Rand to RWL, December 13, 1947, in Letters of Ayn Rand, ed. Michael S. Berliner (New York: Dutton, 1995), p. 383.
24. Stephen Cox, Introduction, The God of the Machine, p. xxiv.
25. See Cox, The Woman and the Dynamo, pp. 220–21. Rand may have had other influences; Garet Garrett’s 1922 novel The Driver featured a steely individualist by the name of “Galt,” a name shared with the protagonist of Rand’s fourth and final novel, Atlas Shrugged, published in 1957.
26. See, for example, Paterson, p. 50 and pp. 155–56.
27. Lane was reading the New York Herald Tribune Books section regularly, from at least the 1920s on. Living in Albania, she thanked Clarence Day for a gift subscription in 1927; see Lane to Clarence Day, July 10, 1927. She mentioned another gift subscription to the publication in Lane to Virginia Brastow, February 13, 1935; she also thanked Brastow for sendi
ng copies of the review. Years later, she quarreled with Paterson over who had paid for the subscription; see Lane to Paterson, March 26, 1942 (a letter misdated as 1932 but originating from McAllen, Texas, where Lane stayed briefly in 1942). Clippings from Paterson’s “Turns with a Bookworm” column were also found in Lane’s papers; see HHPL, Lane Papers, Correspondence & Subject Series, Paterson, Isabel, 1933–1945.
28. RWL Journal, June 28, 1939.
29. See RWL 1940 Journal, including May 29 and November 5, 1940.
30. See Paterson, pp. 3–5; RWL, Discovery of Freedom, p. 14.
31. Regarding bodies of knowledge, see Paterson, pp. 290–91; RWL, Discovery of Freedom, pp. 13–14 and p. 148.
32. Paterson, p. 235.
33. RWL, Discovery of Freedom, p. 32.
34. Paterson, p. 82.
35. RWL, Discovery of Freedom, p. x.
36. Ibid., p. 26.
37. Ibid.
38. Ibid.
39. Ibid., p. 180.
40. Kirkus review of The Discovery of Freedom, January 8, 1942.
41. Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead (New York: New American Library, 1952), pp. 624, 680.
42. Cox, Introduction, God of the Machine, p. xxix.
43. RWL, “What Is This—The Gestapo?” (New York: National Economic Council, Inc., 1943). In 1945, Lane would become the editor of the N.E.C’s book review, a publication with an unsavory background; for more on the National Economic Council and its leader, Merwin K. Hart, see Joseph W. Bendersky, The “Jewish Threat”: Anti-Semitic Politics of the U.S. Army (New York: Basic Books, 2001), p. 412; and Max Wallace, The American Axis: Henry Ford, Charles Lindbergh, and the Rise of the Third Reich (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2003), p. 252.
44. “Author’s Criticism of Social Security Brings F.B.I. Probe,” Washington Star, August 9, 1943. This Associated Press article appears in Lane’s FBI file, declassified in 1984; versions of the piece, datelined Danbury, Conn., appeared across the country. See, for example, “‘What’s This? Gestapo?’ Asks Novelist in Security Quiz,” Oakland Tribune, August 10, 1943.
45. Rebecca West, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon (New York: Penguin Classics, 1941; 2007), p. 1070.
46. See RWL to Herbert Hoover, June 12, 1945. During 1945 and 1946, Lane wrote repeatedly to Hoover regarding Rexh Meta; she also asked Bye to consult his contacts and her friend Mary Paxton Keeley, who knew Truman, to intervene on Meta’s behalf. See HHPL, Herbert Hoover, Post-Presidential Individual Correspondence, Box 119, Rose Wilder Lane, 1945–1963.
47. RWL to Hoover, June 12, 1945.
48. Sources on Meta’s fate during and after the war are few, contradictory, and perhaps unreliable. He was interned in Italy during the early part of the war, according to Lane; see RWL to Herbert Hoover, May 30, 1945. An online Albanian source suggests that Meta returned to Albania in 1943 where he took part in the founding of the Second League of Prizren, a fascist organization bent on preserving the unification of Kosovo and Albania. After the war he was arrested by the Communist regime of Enver Hoxha, tried (for treason or perhaps for “anti-communist activities,” as Lane believed), and given a death sentence, later commuted to twenty-seven years. Lane received news through an intermediary suggesting that he may have been released in the mid-1960s; see Roger MacBride to RWL, July 1, 1966. He died in Tirana in 1985. For more, see RWL to Herbert Hoover, June 27, 1945; see also the Albanian Wikipedia entry on Rexh Meta, which may include material from an online magazine, www.panorama.com. That source was translated by a specialist in Albanian studies; Dr. Robert Elsie, email message to the author, January 6, 2016.
49. RWL to Herbert Hoover, October 25, 1946.
50. See Holtz, “Ghost,” p. 290.
51. RWL to Jane Burr, January 18, 1945.
52. See ibid.; this letter, held in the Jane Burr Papers at the Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College, contains Burr’s penciled responses in the margins. See also Holtz, “Ghost,” p. 305; Holtz cites Jane Burr to Floyd Dell, November 9, 1949.
53. Ernestine Evans to Berta Hader, August 3, 1953. Copy in HHPL, reproduced from original, Berta and Elmer Hader Correspondence, Special Collections Knight Library, University of Oregon.
54. RWL to Bye, February 28, 1942.
55. Ibid., August 25, 1942. Lane worked on but apparently never completed the sequel.
56. Ibid.
57. David T. Beito and Linda Royster Beito, “Selling Laissez-Faire Antiracism to the Black Masses: Rose Wilder Lane and the Pittsburgh Courier,” Independent Review, vol. 15, no. 2 (Fall 2010), p. 282.
58. RWL, “Rose Lane Says,” Pittsburgh Courier, March 27, 1943, and February 3, 1945; the latter column, which included Lane’s critique of rationing, was written in response to remarks made by an unnamed “Communist fellow-traveler acquaintance.” That acquaintance was Jane Burr; see RWL to Jane Burr, January 18, 1945. Jane Burr Papers, Smith College.
59. See RWL, “Rose Lane Says,” Pittsburgh Courier, November 11, 1944.
60. “Novelist, on Strike Against the New Deal, Retires to Farm with Food-Stocked Cellar,” New York Times, April 4, 1944, p. 23.
61. “Mrs. Lane’s Sitdown Strike,” New Republic, April 24, 1944, p. 553.
62. LIW to Aubrey Sherwood, February 23, 1943. De Smet Collection.
63. LIW to Hon. Clarence E. Kilburn, March 9, 1945. Franklin County Historical and Museum Society, Malone, New York.
64. Merwin K. Hart to RWL, November 3, 1960. In this fund-raising note, Hart asks Lane for a donation, adding, “Your mother, over quite a period of years, gave us a fairly substantial amount, and we deeply appreciated it.” HHPL.
65. LIW to Kilburn, March 9, 1945.
66. Chester Bradley, “Mansfield Woman’s Books Favored Both by Children and Grown-Ups,” Kansas City Star, April 10, 1949.
67. Keisha Mahoney-Jones, Acting Freedom of Information Officer, Social Security Administration, to the author, November 9, 2015.
68. LIW to Dorothy Wilder Pittman and Carl Pittman, June 9, 1946. Spring Valley Historical Society & Museum.
69. See Lawrence K. Fox to LIW, April 20, 1944, and May 22, 1944, as well as two undated drafts of letters in Wilder’s hand. HHPL.
70. Addendum to undated letter, LIW to South Dakota State Historical Society.
71. See PG, pp. 32–33, no. 29.
72. For details about the sale of the Ingallses’ Third Street house and the disposition of the family’s belongings, see “The House Is Sold,” Laura Ingalls Wilder Lore, vol. 4, no. 2 (Fall–Winter 1978), pp. 5–6.
73. See Walter G. Miser to LIW, June 3, 1946. De Smet Collection.
74. Ibid., June 5, 1946.
75. Ibid.
76. Ibid., June 10, 1946.
77. See Burkhiser, p. 18.
78. Many of these were later collected in Dear Laura: Letters from Children to Laura Ingalls Wilder (New York: HarperCollins, 1996); see Pat to LIW, September 3, 1943, p. 61.
79. Ibid., p. 29.
80. Ibid.
81. Ibid., p. 55.
82. Ibid., pp. 93–92.
83. LIW to Millicent Carpenter Axtell, January 20, 1948. De Smet Collection.
84. Ibid.
85. Mrs. Lena E. Heikes to LIW, undated, HHPL.
86. See Ken Emerson, Doo-dah!: Stephen Foster and
the Rise of American Popular Culture (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997), p. 168; and Timothy E. Scheurer, American Popular Music: The Nineteenth Century and Tin Pan Alley, vol. I (Bowling Green: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1989), p. 57.
87. Undated fragment in LIW’s hand. De Smet Collection.
88. Algernon Charles Swinburne, “The Garden of Proserpine,” The Norton Anthology of English Literature, ed. M. H. Abrams et al., 4th ed., vol. 2 (New York: Norton, 1979), p. 1564.