Thursday, May 21, 2015

My "Little House" Pet Peeve: The TV Show Ingalls Family IS NOT the Real Ingalls Family

I'm easy going, Laura Ingalls Wilder fans. I don't complain a lot and I try to take life as it comes. But with all of the publicity surrounding "Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography " there's something that's been happening a lot lately and it's sticking in my craw.

Images of the wrong family are being used to portray the Ingalls family in articles and reviews. 

For example, this article from The Guardian:


And this article from The Express about "the real" Laura Ingalls Wilder.


Come again? That's not "the real" Laura Ingalls Wilder.

The problem isn't exclusive to reviews of "Pioneer Girl," though. For example this blog post discussing racism in the "Little House" series of books:



People. This is the REAL Ingalls family:


Ingalls Family L-R: Caroline, Carrie, Laura, Charles, Grace, Mary


This IS NOT the real Ingalls family:




When talking about the real Laura Ingalls Wilder, her friends and family, can we please use photos of the real Laura Ingalls Wilder, her friends, and family?

I realize there are people who are fond of the "Little House on the Prairie" television series and I don't begrudge them that. But if a writer is going to the trouble of writing an article about "the real" Laura Ingalls Wilder, or discussing "real" situations that happened to the Ingalls family, illustrating a piece with a photo of the fictional family is lazy writing and tells me the author can't be bothered to do his or her research.

To make it worse, when I geek out about LIW as I'm often known to do, there are people who didn't know Laura Ingalls Wilder was a real person. OR they know she was a real person but they think the events portrayed in the TV show are true to life.

There is very little about the Ingalls family in Little House on the Prairie TV show that even remotely resembles the family of the real Charles and Caroline Ingalls.

The Ingalls family had no adopted children
No, Virginia. The Ingalls never adopted a son named Albert.


Even today, there are people wondering why the real Laura Ingalls Wilder didn't write about her adopted brother Albert. Dude. There was no Albert. He was a figment of Michael Landon's imagination just like the rest of the "Little House on the Prairie" TV series. There was no Cassandra, no Albert doing drugs, no climbing to the top of the mountain (as if Walnut Grove actually had mountains), and no Nellie Olsen running a hotel.

The Ingalls family didn't live most of their life in Walnut Grove, MN

The town of DeSmet, SD and it's rich history would have made an awesome backdrop for a TV series.

Though the years the Ingalls family lived in Walnut Grove, MN were notable ones: Grasshoppers, floods, Laura braving a bridge as she sought help for her sick Mom. the truth is, the Ingalls family didn't spend many years there. Laura and Almanzo certainly didn't meet there, and the whole town didn't blow up once the entire Little House gang was done with it. 

The real Ingalls family were the first settlers in the town of De Smet, SD. They moved there when the real Laura Ingalls Wilder was 12 years old. They weren't"among" the first settlers, but the actual first people to say "hey, we're going to live here" thanks to the the kind surveyors who let the family winter in their home.

This is what makes me grumpiest. There is history here. The founding of a town and all the characters in the town? Man, that would have made an awesome series! The birth of a new town? Cap Garland? The comedy team of Almanzo and Royal Wilder? Laura watching the town drunks as she sewed her buttonholes? Lazy, Lousy Lisa Jane? I can tell you that the true life Ingalls family was more entertaining and interesting than the TV Little Housers.

Also? Why is no one in the Masters family featured in the television series at all? This is a family that played prominently in the Ingalls family's history - at least during the time the Little House books take place. Man, that kooky crew would have been better fodder than the Garveys.

There is so much that could have been used from Laura and her family's real life adventures which would have been way more interesting than the  Little House on the Prairie TV series we saw on NBC. And I'm not saying that to knock the series, (even though it became unwatchable for me after the first couple of seasons) I'm saying that because the series could have been so much better than it was if we had just stuck with the history of the Ingalls family. It had all the elements of an awesome TV series: excitement; intrigue, and romance, and no one would have had to compromise family values to get us there. Instead, Landon relied on the tugging of the heartstrings and many unlikely scenarios.

Mary Ingalls was never married

Mary Ingalls never married.


Sigh. No. Sorry Adam Kendall. Sorry blind school in Walnut Grove that never actually existed. Sorry all those extras who were on set to be used as blind kids. The real Mary Ingalls famously went to the Iowa School for the Blind in Vinton Iowa. She attended for several years  and then came home to live with her parents. After her parents passed away she lived first with Grace and then with Carrie. There was no man in her life and she didn't found a school for the blind. Yet, there are people today who think this really happened because a TV show took a few too many editorial liberties.

Yes, I know the "Little House" books were considered Historical Fiction


Now, it was pointed out to me one Sunday afternoon that the The Little House Books took a few editorial liberties of their own. I get that. Though letters between Laura Ingalls Wilder and her daughter and editor, Rose Wilder Lane show she argued to keep the books as truthful as possible, it's true that the Wilder women DID make the story into a work of fiction to sell as a series of juveniles. With that said, they still managed to capture the essence and pioneer spirit of the Ingalls family and stay true to much of their history and core values. The television series became so far removed from the real story of the Ingalls that one can't even argue that the two situations are similar.

Can we please stop using photos of the fake Ingalls family when talking about the real Ingalls family?

It was once suggested to me there might be copyright issues with many of the photos of the real Ingalls family and their friends, but there are still plenty of  photos of LIW and family available via the Creative Commons, Fair Use, or the Public Domain.

There are better options than Michael Landon and the Melissas. 


Once again. This is the real Ingalls family:


Now that you know, can we please stop trotting out photos of the fake TV series when discussing the real Laura Ingalls Wilder, her family, and her books?

Thank you, kindly.


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10 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you! This is my peeve too.

    ReplyDelete
  3. My pet peeves also. I've gotten so I cringe when I come across Pinterest posts where supposed photos of the family are misidentified. There are a lot of people out there that don't know about the books and ask questions about Adam, and all the other TV characters. Too bad. There are also printed materials out there that aren't accurate in any shape or form. The very worst is a book that comes up (the person selling the book adds or subtracts one letter of Laura's name to get into the results)if you do a search on her books...I read the reviews and they mention that's there wasn't any prostitution or incest mentioned in connection with the books or the family. I posted a comment in the review section to that effect and also contact Kindle but the last time I looked it still came up!

    ReplyDelete
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  5. Hello fellow LOW geek. At least I was up until I was introduced to "Anne Shirley" . LIW will always be my first "love" ( that is , in books).
    I do agree with this post! I can't watch "Little House" much past the first 2 or 3 seasons without feeling all cringy. I watched the show faithfully up into my teen years but I was known to point out all the errors. Then, I learned more of her true story as a young adult.
    Other fun facts - at least to me - : I went to DeSmet, S.D. When I was a kid, twice.I have seen "The Long Winter" pageant twice. I have distant cousins there we visited. So, some of Grandma's family probably knew the Ingalls.
    I have not been to any of the other Ingall's home sites, but I would love to.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hello fellow LOW geek. At least I was up until I was introduced to "Anne Shirley" . LIW will always be my first "love" ( that is , in books).
    I do agree with this post! I can't watch "Little House" much past the first 2 or 3 seasons without feeling all cringy. I watched the show faithfully up into my teen years but I was known to point out all the errors. Then, I learned more of her true story as a young adult.
    Other fun facts - at least to me - : I went to DeSmet, S.D. When I was a kid, twice.I have seen "The Long Winter" pageant twice. I have distant cousins there we visited. So, some of Grandma's family probably knew the Ingalls.
    I have not been to any of the other Ingall's home sites, but I would love to.

    ReplyDelete
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  8. My pet peeves also! I'm re-watching the series this year only because it's the 50th anniversary. I'm on season 7 now and can barely stand it. I'm in for the long haul, but I'm honestly not enjoying it much. The stories contained in the books would've been so much better. I wish someone would make a more historically accurate series. And do NOT get me started on the horrid costumes from the 1970s series either.

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