and museum hosted this event. it is a little over one hour. my john f. kennedy's library that has papers of them is hemingway,- ernest we are the only presents a papers of host the this major writer. the papers came to us by way of miss lang. the executor of her a state solve folder upon full or of materials on herbert hoover, and contacted the library. of course, the archivist were interested, and the collection was donated. little did they know, it also contained correspondence with her famous mother and her unfinished autobiography. people asked to see the big ,ablets that contain her drafts and our copy of the autobiography. we are fortunate to have with us today pamela smith hill, which has recently published data biography, "laura ingalls ," came the pioneer girl out last fall, and immediately sold out. it is now on the night printing, and still selling strong. it took years of research, examining drafts of pioneer girl, and painstakingly providing annotations to guide the reader through the thickets of place names and events. the result is a definitive work that will be cherished by all "little house" readers. by happenstance, we happen to have a supply for sale in our museum store. [laughter] the author has consented to signing them for you. was born in hill the ozarks, in part explaining her interest in wilder. author.n award-winning has taught creative writing at universities of oregon, washington, and colorado, as well as an online course on laura ingalls wilder. she is now working on several historical fiction novels for yellow gold. ladies and gentlemen, please welcome pamela smith hill. [applause] thank you all so much for coming. i'm really gratified and surprised to see such a full house, but then, laura's ingalls wilder was a rock star, so should not be surprised. i want to say before i get started, the idea for pioneer the originated here in archive room of the hoover. it is especially gratifying to be back today to talk about the book. last summer, the associated press and publishers weekly broke the news that "pioneer costs laura ingle wilder previously unpublished biography was sued to be published. according to the associated press, the book was a more oflistic, grittier view pioneer living. a reporter went on to say that the book included not safe for children's tales. [laughter] and, dark things of the mustek abuse, love trying those gun all right, and the man who let himself on fire while drunk on .hiskey news outlets from across the united states and beyond, from "the new york times," to "theonal public radio," to guardian" in the u.k., pu picked up the story. the headline from "the wall street journal," "a grim house on the prairie." [laughter] was i surprised by the spend the oria put on the pioneer girl the dark themes in the autobiography? frankly, yes. [laughter] from my perspective, anyway, there is so much more to pioneer girl then what those associated press reporter described as those "not safe for children tales." in fact, i spent so much time seeking with that reporter about it much more than the gr and scandal. it was a relatively small part of the interview. obvious answer is that popular t andre thrives on gri scandal, i should have known. hadn that wilder whitewashed her lives in the hadtle house" books, and covered up the truth in transitioning to the fiction of the series. one reviewer from my hometown of portland, oregon call this a "glaring distortion." made changeslder when she shifted from writing nonfiction to fiction. much of the media's of session not a dark side was related to the "little house" novels themselves, but to the television series. the you are seeing here is front page of a french language newspaper published in switzerland on december. a rough translation, "the true history of laura and the little house on the prairie," but notice, the photograph is of melissa gilbert, the actress that played laura on tv, not the real laura ingalls wilder. to be fair, the newspaper did later include historical photographs of laura. milosevicmage of gilbert -- melissa gilber on the front page heightened the contrast between the fiction of little house on the prairie. images of the tv series are surfacing to it, again and again contrasting experiences from the real world with the fictional once. why is this significant? does it matter that reporters are focusing on the television series versus the books when dry comparisons to "pioneer girl." first, a few words about the television series. "littlevision series, house on the prairie," ran on nbc from 1974-1982. the show remains in syndication today. enemies, and tv guide namedn one of its episodes in its list of 100 greatest episodes of all time. the show ws successful, but was a highly imagine version of the books. for one thing, there is the catholic south. [laughter] you can tell who the real charles ingalls is. in general, the characters in the tv series are softer, more sentimental, less rough around the edges. then the fictional characters, more about that in a minute. even the setting is radically different. the tv family settles in minnesota. both the real ingalls family and the fictional one from the book moved to the territory and set her books there. four of these five books were finalists for the coveted newberry award in children's literature. they are often considered wilder's strongest books. but many were part of the tv series. the tv show took lots of liberty with the characters, scenes, and episodes they did include. here's one example. in real life, in fiction and the tv series, mary ingalls lost her sight. in fact, the real ingalls family sent mary to the college of the blind. unlike her television counterpart, the real mary ingalls and the fictional character never married. she lived her life in south dakota in the house the charles ingalls built for his family there. the tv series gave mary a happier more conventional future. she falls in love and gets married on the television show. in general, the tv series cast a happier and more conventional flow over all of wilder's characters. the tv series has become iconic, and in many ways appears to have overshadowed the books. when reporters and reviewers observed that the autobiography contrasts with the optimism of the little house books, i suspect they are unconsciously referring to the tv show. they may not be aware of scenes like this from the books. in on the banks of plum creek, laura is nearly ground when she tries to cross the flooded creek. the scene isn't simply about danger or disobedience. laura doesn't learn from this episode that she should always a baker parents. instead, she learned something darker, more subtle, and more sophisticated. -- laura doesn't learn from this episode that she should always open a her parents. she claps her hands and rolls onto it. in that very instant, she knew the creek was not playing. it was strong and terrible. it sees her whole body and pulled it under the plank. only her head was out, and one arm desperately across the narrow plank. the water was pulling her and pushing too, trying to drag her head under the plank. the water pulled hard at the rest of her. it was not laughing now. no one knew where she was. no one could hear her if she screamed for help. the water roared aloud and tug at her stronger and stronger here door kicked, but the water was stronger than her legs. she got both arms across the plank and pulled, but the water pulled harder. it pulled the back of her head down and it jerked at it would jerked her into. it was cold. the coldness soap into her. -- the coldness soaked into her. this was not like wolves are capital. the creek was not alive. it was only strong and terrible and never stopping. it would not -- pull her down and whirl her away. the natural world is and government. it doesn't care about laura. nature isn't simply sunny, warm, and beautiful in the book. it can be dangerous, cruel, and even deadly. how does the scene and? lower escapes -- laura escapes and mom hopes it would teach her a lesson. i can't punish you. i can't even scold you. you came near being drowned. if the scene had ended here with the expected moral lesson, a bay your parents, it would have been -- open a your parents -- obey your parents, it would have been more conventional. this is not where the scene ends. laura did not say anything. the creek would go down and it will be a gentle, pleasant place to play in again, but nobody could make it do that. nobody could make it do anything. laura knew now that there were things of stronger than anybody, but the creek had not got her. it did not make her scream and it could not make her cry. laura is a tough and unyielding little girl she is unrepentant. she has great in a world that is sometimes dark and ambivalent. here is another scene that speaks to the seamier side of life, a scene that might surprise reporters and reviewers. the one i am about to share with you comes from little house on the prairie, gwen moore as a teenager is working in town to pay for mary's college expenses. she makes buttonholes for mrs. white. let's dive in and take a look at the scene. when the big man had gone on, mr. clancy asked mrs. white when his shirts would be done. mrs. white to said she did not know which shirts they were. then mr. clancy's war. laura scrooge small in her chair, fasting as fast as she could. -- laura scrooged small in her chair, basking as fast as she could. -- basting as fast as she could. i will not be driven and hounded. mrs. white blaze. not by you nor any other shanty irishman. more hardly heard what mr. clancy said then to her g wanted desperately to be somewhere else. but mrs. white told her to come along to dinner. the kitchen was hot and crowded and cluttered. mrs. clancy was putting dinner on the table and three little boys and girls were pushing each other off their chairs. mr. and mrs. clancy and mrs. white all quarreling at the top of their voices set down and ate heartily. laura could not understand what they were quarreling about. they seem so angry she thought they would strike each other. there is obviously an element of dark humor here, but this is clearly a dysfunctional family. how does laura respond? she continues to work through the day. it is her first day on the job, in fact. the hours are long, her shoulders and neck ache, her fingers ache as well from working and needle hour after hour, but she does the work without complaint. when pa comes to walk her home, he asked her how she liked her first day working for pay, half pint? you make out all right? i think so, she answered. mrs. white spoke well of my buttonholes. she doesn't breathe a word to anyone in the family about the extraordinarily uncomfortable position she now finds herself in. she thinks only about the money she could possibly earn for mary's college. laura is a tough little girl, a tough young woman in little town on the prairie. the clancy white house hold is not the only dysfunctional family depicted. there is the brewster family, and this scene in the book. mrs. brewster and the butcher knife. in this scene, laura is teaching school for the first time and boarding with mr. and mrs. brewster 12 miles from home. laura is just 15. laura sat straight up, moonlight was streaming over her bed from the window. mrs. brewster screamed again, a wild sound without words. there is another wonderful detail for you writers out there laura's scalp crinkled. take the knife back to the kitchen, mr. brewster said. laura picked through the cracks between the curtains, the moonlight shone through the calico and thinned the darkness so that laura saw mrs. brewster standing there. her long white final night down trail on the floor and her black hair fell loose over her shoulders. in her upraised hand she held the butcher knife. ultimately, mr. brewster convinces his wife to the knife away, but laura spins a sleepless night on the slippery couch behind the curtains just a few feet away from the brewster's. in the income laura reaches this conclusion. -- in the in, laura reaches this conclusion, she news that she must not be afraid. pa had always said that she must never be afraid. very likely, nothing would happen. you was not exactly afraid of mrs. brewster, for she knew that she was quick, and strong as a little french horse. that is, when she was awake. but she had never wanted so much to go home. yet, laura finishes the term and tells her family nothing about that butcher knife. the scene may seem very tame by today's standards. in the early 1940's, her depiction of mrs. brewster and the butcher knife was daring and edgy. after she submitted the manuscript, her literary agent wrote, it is suggested that mrs. brewster's butcher knife incident because out. she was wilder's editor at her publisher. she went on to become a well-known literary figure in her own right. she edited the work of the writer of charlotte's web. as innovative as she went on to become, in 1942, she believed mrs. brewster and that butcher knife for pushing the envelope on content for young readers. obviously, wilder prevailed, the scene remained, but it is significant i think that the first addition of these happy golden years doesn't include an illustration of this scene. an image of mrs. brewster combined with the narrative would have given it too much emphasis, and then to dark and disturbing for young adults and 1943. at least from the publisher's point of view. this illustration dates from 1953, when wilder's publisher issued a new addition of the book, illustrated by garth williams. 10 years after the book publication, young readers themselves had convinced publishers like harper brothers that darker, grittier content had a place in young adult literature. still, i think it is really important to note that children and young adults in the 1930's and 1940's, when she wrote the books, were much more conservative and restrictive than today. such topics as divorce, sexuality, alcoholism, child abuse, these issues became accepted topics in children's books much later through groundbreaking work. even mary's blindness in the books was a controversial topic. the children's literature in the depression era. wilder's dr. edit -- dr. edited -- daughter edited the manuscript. wilder however maintained that a touch of tragedy makes the story true to life, and showing it illustrates the spirits of the time and the frontier. in fact, of the fictional laura ingalls in the series, wilder fought to keep more mature scenes and episodes in the book over her daughter's objections. she believed that these characters have no place in books for young readers in the 1930's and 1940's. she even suggested to avoid more on adult scenes. wilder disagreed. i don't see how we can spare what you call adult stuff, for that makes the story. it was there and laura knew and understood it. we can't spoil this story by making it childish. clearly by the teresa standards of the 1930's and 1940's -- by the literary standards of the 1930's and 19 forgers -- 1940's, she did not sanitize them. she was blazing a new trail in children's and young adult fiction in the 1930's and 1940's -- in young adult fiction in the 1930's and in the 1940's. the long winter is extraordinarily dark and focuses on the fictional families struggle against isolation, cold, and starvation. it was very adult stuff for young readers when first published in 1940, and it still is. the book's original title was a hard winter, but the publisher feared that title would discourage and frightened young readers away from the book. with regret, wilder and even lane agreed to the new and softer title. so, the conventions of children's and young adult literature were far more restrictive during the depression era and early 40's than today. in fact, you could even say that the category of young adult literature wasn't officially recognized until 1958, when the american library association first began using the term young adult fiction. wilder herself had died the year before in 1957, long before the term gained wide acceptance. it is certainly true that wilder chose not to transfer all the experiences she recorded in pioneer girl into her fiction. she didn't write about the birth and death of her baby brother. he lived only nine months after a short illness, he straightened out his little body and was dead. and wilder chose not to write about the family's decision to move east to iowa after the grasshopper plague in minnesota had wiped the family out financially. charles and caroline ingalls managed a hotel briefly, an enterprise that failed, and they returned to minnesota with the family lived in town, not on a farm. why didn't wilder choose to write about these experiences in her little house books? she wrote lane, it is a story in itself. it does not belong in the picture i am making of the fictional family. in other words, these episodes did not serve wilder's larger themes, frontier family moving west, pursuing agrarian values, finding land in the west and building a new life for themselves there. it wasn't that the material was to adult, her resistance to include the material from pioneer girl was thematic. still, there is no question that pioneer girl contains grittier and more adult material than the little house books. wilder wrote pioneer girl for an adult audience. this was after all her memoir, her personal account of childhood and adolescence written from an adult perspective for adult readers. wilder hoped to sell pioneer girl to a prominent national magazine, perhaps the saturday evening post or the ladies home journal. in those days, national magazines were a significant market for longer form nonfiction like pioneer girl, as well as short and novel length fiction. magazines serialized longer manuscripts. a memoir like pioneer girl might appear in three or four different issues, and the longer works of fiction and nonfiction were popular with the magazine's readers. writers could negotiate a book deal with publishers. in essence, they could sell the manuscripts twice. something that was especially appealing to those during the dark early days of the depression. wilder finished writing pioneer girl inmate, 1930, a full two years before her first little house book was published. i'm not going to describe the marketing effort that lane launched to sell her mother's manuscript. you can read that in the book. [laughter] pamela: i will say that she chose to write about things that were important to her personally, but would resonate with adult readers in the 1930's. as reporters have pointed out, pioneer girl contains dark scenes of domestic abuse, love scenes, and a man live himself on fire. this is because it was appropriate for adult readers in the 1930's, but welder apparently felt that some material was inappropriate for adult readers. and the rough draft version of line near girl, wilder includes an especially troubling scene. she and her family are living in minnesota, and once again struggling to make in smead -- make ends meet. manny suffers from mysterious -- mary suffers from thanking spells and could not care for the little girl. lower was to look out for both the mother and the daughter. as to the husband and his young family, wilder was uncomfortable around him. she writes, i do not like to be where he was. he was drinking more than ever. his eyes were red rimmed and hit such a silly look on his face. i hadn't stayed with nanny very long when one night i wake from a sound sleep to find will leaning over me. i could smell the whiskey on his breath. i set up quickly. is nanny six, i asked. no, he answered. lie down and be still. go away quick, i said, or i will scream for nanny. he went and the next day ma said i could come home. a lot is implied in this scene. there is not a lot of discussion here. the implication is clear. laura was threatened with sexual assault. the situation ends well for laura, and yet it was cut from pioneer girl in the edited version submitted to literary agents and magazine editors and 1930 and 1931. the material was too dark, too gritty, to sexually charged for even a dog breeders in the depression. -- for even adult readers in the depression. why is this manuscript important? what did i hope reporters and reviewers would see in wilder's autobiography? why does pioneer girl matter question mark what does it reveal about her work and legacy? first, it gives readers a new insight into wilder's childhood and adolescence. regardless of the grittier, darker elements in pioneer girl, it provides us with more perspective and information about her life in her own voice. let's return to the birth of her baby brother. coming home from school one day, we found a strange woman and a little brother beside ma in bed. we were very proud of him and always hurried home from school to see him. nine months later, as the ingalls family left minnesota, the farm and finances ruined by a relentless grasshopper plague, freddy took ill. little brother was not well and the doctor came. i thought that would cure him. but little brother got worse instead of better and one awful day he straightened out his little body and was dead. yet, in the midst of despair, grief, and economic struggle, wilder gives us this scene a few pages later, when the family is living over a grocery store. we liked our reading lessons very much and used to practice reading them all out at night. pa new but did not tell us until later that a crowd used together in the store beneath to hear us read. this is one of my favorite images and pioneer girl, laura and mary reading aloud as townspeople gathered below to view the read. a second reason why pioneer girl is important, it illustrates wilder's natural and instinctive talent as a writer and storyteller. the question of wilder's skill and ability as a writer came into question in large part with the publication of this book in 1993. the ghost in the little house, biography of wilder's daughter, a well-researched book, and i encourage all of you to read it if you haven't already. i'm simplifying the books major from this only slightly. it contended that wilder had no talent and that her daughter had ghostwritten the little house books. very little attention was devoted to pioneer girl, which perhaps explains why his depiction did not focus on passages from her original rough draft manuscript that clearly reveal her raw talent, passages like this one. the sun sank lower and lower until looking like a bowl of pulsing liquid light it sank hoarsely in clouds of crimson and silver. called purple shadows rose in the ease, crept slowly around the horizon, then gathered above in depth on depth of the darkness from which the stars swung low and bright. rough draft, on edited, laura ingalls wilder. one passage does not necessarily translate to sustained talent, and yet this passage in pioneer girl is important. it showcases her national -- natural descriptive talent, which elaine herself praised. i don't see how anybody could improve on your use of words. you are perfect in describing landscapes and things. this descriptive passage from the original draft of pioneer girl also illustrates what sometimes happens when editors convince writers to revise and change what should never be altered. here is how the opening sentence from the passage appears in the final edited version of pioneer girl. the sun sank lower and lower still. a ball of pulsing, liquid light, it sank in clouds of crimson and silver. this edit is not radical, yet the passage loses its poetic rhythm and grace. wilder's original descriptive passage went on to have yet another life, this time in a novel by the shores of the silverlake. here is how it appears, the sun sank, a ball of pulsing liquid light, it sank in clouds of crimson and sober. again, the edit is subtle. except for these opening lines, wilder returned to her original passage in pioneer girl for the rest of the description. let's take one more look at her original opening line from that description in pioneer girl. the sun sank lower and lower until looking like a ball of pulsing liquid light, it sank hoarsely in clouds of crimson and silver. this original line has movement. both and how it describes and the rhythm of the words. this is a technical issue for those of you in the audience who are writing geeks. wilder uses an adverb, gloriously. usually adverbs are never a writers friend, but here wilder uses it brilliantly and perfectly. this is why adverbs exist. but, this passage had yet another life. this time in the pioneer novel, free land. this book borrows heavily from pioneer girl, published in 1938, and here is lanes take on wilder's original passage. sunset spread in rainbow colors around the level rim of the earth and purple shadows rose. the low stars were huge and quivering. the description here is flat. it lacks the visual immediacy and impact of her mother's original passage. if lane was truly the ghost writer of the little house books, why does it lack the distinctive voice that many find in pioneer girl? on to point number three, why pioneer girl matters. it reveals wilder's growth as a writer. her transformation from a newspaper columnist to novelists. lane launched her professional writing career in 1911 as a columnist and page editor. it was the largest farm publication in missouri in the early 20 century. the ruralist is still around today. the work was ultimately successful, so successful they publish a profile about her. here is what her editor said about her then. she knows farm folks and the problems as few women who write no them. having sympathy, she writes well. in pioneer girl, readers can see that wilder initially wrote like a newspaper columnist, short, intense, every word mattered, because newspaper columnists come unlike novelists, have to make every word count. they don't have a lot of real estate, a lot of physical space in which to develop their stories. here is what i mean. let's look at the passage that opens pioneer girl. once upon a time, years and years ago, pa stopped the horses and wagon they were hauling away out on the prairie in indian territory. well caroline, he said, here is the place with been looking for. might as well cap. so pa and ma got down from the wagon. pa unhitched the horses and picketed them, tied them to long rows fastened to wooden pegs driven in the ground, is a big lead the grass. then he made a camper out of bits of willow twigs. ma cook supper over the fire and after we had eaten, sister mary and i were put to bed in the wagon and oa and ma set a while by the fire. i lay and looked to the opening in the wagon cover at the campfire and pa sitting there. and ma it was low cement so still with the stars shining down on the great, flat land were no one lived. there was a long, scared sound off in the night and pa said it was a wolf howling. that frightened me a little, but we were safe in the wagon with its nice tight cover to keep out the wind and he appeared the wagon was home, we had lived in it so long and pa's rifle was hanging at the side where he could get it quickly dishes the wall. he wouldn't let wolves nor anything heard is injected brindle bulldog was lying under the wagon. the opening passage reads like a newspaper column. it tells a single story effectively, while using a minimum number of words and a minimum amount of space. as wilder's confidence grew and she understand that she did not need to restrict herself to a tight word count for every scene and narrative, pioneer girl begins to include more elaborate and well-developed scenes. let's take a look at the following passage from pioneer girl, which appeared later in the narrative, when the first wave of grasshoppers sweeps through the family farm. the weather was just right and the crops grew and grew. at dinner one day, pa was telling us that the wheat in our field was so long it would just stand under his arms with -- beautiful heads and feeling nicely. just then we heard someone call and mrs. nelson was in the doorway. she was all out of breath and running, wringing her hands and almost crying, the grasshoppers are coming. the grasshoppers are coming, she shrieked. we all ran to the door and looked around now and then a grasshopper dropped to the ground, but we couldn't see anything to be excited about. look at the sun. we raised our faces and looked into the sun. it had been shining brightly, but now there was a light colored, fleecy cloud over its face so it did not hurt our eyes. and then we saw that the cloud was grasshoppers. their wings were a shiny white making a screen between us and the sun. they were dropping to the ground like hail and a how storm, faster and faster. -- like hail in a hailstorm, faster and faster. notice the vivid and colorful this caption, we raised our faces and looked straight into the sun. the phrasing is memorable. the grasshoppers hit the ground like hail in a hailstorm, faster and faster. perhaps because of her experience as a newspaper columnists, she intersperses the scripture and with believable dialogue. it sounds the way real people talk. -- she intersperses description with believable dialogue. it sounds the way real people talk. on the other hand, i near girl shows us just how much she grew as a novelist once she understood the freedom that writing fiction could give her. here is a single sentence from pioneer girl. pa built a house of logs in the nearby creek bottom, and when we moved into it, there was a hole in the wall where the window was to be and a quilt hung over the doorway to keep the weather out. in little house on the prairie, wilder's third novel in the series, she devoted an entire chapter to construction of that house that he built of logs. and yet, another chapter to moving in, plus doors, and chapters on construction of the fireplace, and building the roof and floor. from one sentence in pioneer girl, with the confidence, laura ingalls wilder wrote five chapters from one sentence about that little house on the prairie in her third novel. that brings me to another reason why pioneer girl is important. pioneer girl serves as the foundation for wilder's little house books. wilder and lane abandon their attempt to publish the manuscript in 1933. it was entered in the atlantic monthly writing contest. pioneer girl did not win. yet, while that went on to use the manuscript as an outline for the rest of the little house series, drawing heavily from scenes in pioneer girl. they often found their way into the little house books. when lane moved to missouri to research a book of her own, she took pioneer girl with her, and wound it requested the manuscript as she worked on them by the shores of silverlake, her sixth novel. as she wrote, thank you for the pages from pioneer girl. they will help. wilder evened out an episode from pioneer girl for farmer boy, her novel about her husband's childhood on a farm near new york. in pioneer girl, welder recounts the story of a young schoolmaster, william h. reed, a man who inherited a schoolhouse of unruly young boys who started fights with teachers and drove them away. the leader of the gang was a bully named -- who according to wilder was the worst of the lot. mr. reed sat in his chair by his desk with his ruler in one hand, ideally staffing it against the other. it was a large, flat, very strong ruler he had just made. mose was the last one in. he was ready to fight and came swaggering up expecting mr. reed to stand up so he could knock and down. william h. reed, a man who inherited a schoolhouse of unruly young boys who started fights with teachers and drove them away. the leader of the gang was a bully named -- who according to wilder was the worst of the lot. mr. reed sat in his chair by his desk with his ruler in one hand, ideally staffing it against the other. it was a large, flat, very strong ruler he had just made. mose was the last one in. he was ready to fight and came swaggering up expecting mr. reed to stand up so he could knock and down. but mr. reed sat still and, just as mose stood in front of him, reached up with his left hand, grabbed mose by the collar and jerked, tripping him with his foot. mose was so surprised that he lay there like a bad little boy and was being soundly spanked with the flat, strong ruler. mose is so humiliated that he does not turn -- return to the school. from that day forward, mr. reed ran an efficient and peaceful school. in farmer boy, the teacher's name is mr. course, described as a pale, young man was not big enough to fight the bad boys on his first day at school. they had come to thrash the teacher and break up the school. the leader of this fictional gang is a tough, mean young man named bill ritchie. in the fictional version, the schoolteacher faces bill down with a whip 15 feet long. the lash coiled around hills legs -- bill's legs. mr. corse jerked. the outcome is the same. the big boys were licked. mr. corse had licked ritchie's gang. another episode of pioneer girl found its way into a novel. lane also used material from pioneer girl in several short stories published in the ladies home journal and the saturday evening post and later incorporated into her book and her two pioneer novels. let the hurricane war and free land. while her mother wrote big jerry and silverlake, lane wrote about halfbreed jack in free land. lane's main characters in length the hurricane war were named charles and caroline. he played the fiddle, and she was a quiet person. her face was quite understood wings of hair, and all her movements were gentle and death. -- and deft. she took their names and personalities from pioneer girl. pioneer girl is indeed a somewhat grittier and edgier count of laura ingalls wilder's childhood and adolescence, but for good reason. it is an important addition to laura ingalls wilder's literary legacy, new insight into growth and develop as a novelist and as a literary legend she has since become. pioneer girl is as one reviewer aptly described it, a treasure. thank you all very much. i believe i have time for some questions. [applause] >> there are a few microphones. if you raise your hand, we will pass the microphone. there is one on that side. if you have a question, raise your hand. >> [inaudible] pamela: the question about -- still remains inconclusive. when i was working on pioneer girl, i will look into this and consulted another expert on wilder -- william anderson. he concluded along with me that her brother's grave is unmarked and remains unknown. >> my wife is the big laura ingalls wilder's enthusiast, not myself. my image was always that she was like grandma moses, started her art late in life with no training and so on, and i was shocked to learn that she was an accomplished newspaper woman for 20 years or so before she started. why is that such a closely held secret? why wasn't she applauded for her newspaper work? pamela: that is a very good question. you are not alone in cleaning to that image of laura ingalls wilder as being an untrained writer who recently wrote down the facts of her life and remembered them and became an instant star. in part, the reason why that myth has persisted is because it is such a wonderful story. it is so encouraging to so many people who want to write and are working diligently and hard hoping for a book to be published. i have also come to believe that wilder's work for the missouri ruralist was unrecognized until recently. there is a fine book that includes a selection of her poems, but i think in part it is because she was writing for an agricultural newspaper. she did write a couple of articles for maccallum and the country gentleman, three in total, in 1990 and early 1920's, but she did not enjoy writing for that market at all. she preferred to write to an audience that she understood. she understood the audience a missouri very well. she and her husband had a stellar state farm, worked hard to nurture and make that land viable, so she knew that she was writing with a certain amount of credibility to people that she understood. and yet, i think a lot of critics and early historians initially dismissed her agricultural newspaper writing because it was just that, writing for a regional, relatively small group of people, and the smaller audience. however, i think what is really interesting, and i discuss this more thoroughly in my biography, the circulation for the ruralist grew to medically during the years that she was a feature columnist and editor, not in a silly because of her work itself, because the magazine was taking root and finding new ways to express itself. i will say this, more and more scholarship has been devoted to wilder's work as a journalist, and now people are beginning to understand just what an important foundation in late for her as a professional writer. -- laid for her as a professional writer. >> some of the technical ways you approach the material for editing, when you first took on the material, was it all digitized or did you actually work with the big chief tablet? pamela: that is a great question. there are several different versions. the version i chose to use for the annotated autobiography, and the one i quoted from most extensively, was the original draft, which was in fact hand written on those big chief tablets. my first exposure to the manuscript came in 2006 and 2007, and i could not look at the original manuscripts. they are safely guarded in a climate controlled space. you can imagine how fragile those manuscripts are at this point. so i looked at the manuscripts on microfilm from the university of missouri, and i made the xerox copies from microfilm, and that is what i read and worked from on the biography. it was really tough going, i have to tell you. not only is it difficult to read someone else's handwriting, but on microfilm in pencil on tablet paper, it is really hard to read. for this time around, in the interim between 2006 and 2011, when we really started working on pioneer girl in earnest, the university of missouri had a digitized copy that was somewhat clear, much clearer than might xerox copy made from microfilm. using a digitized copy, a valiant, talented, and persistent assistant editor at the south dakota historical society made a type written transcript. he was very, very careful. he made all kinds of marginal notes and footnotes that indicated where wilder had crossed something out or where a page shifted from the front to the back and then the back to the front again, and so with his terrific transcript, it made my job ever so much easier. >> thank you. pamela: there is a question right up here. >> do you believe after looking through her work that there is more undiscovered gems from her, or have we possibly seen the last of her original works? pamela: there is one more book coming out next year, edited by william anderson. it is a collection of her correspondence. that is coming out next year. i saw william addison -- anderson in brookings. he feels confident that with the publication of the correspondence that will come out next year, this is the last of the material that we will have from her. stay tuned for that book. i know it will be terrific. other questions? >> i had a question. over here. i have always in curious about the place of farmer boy in the collection of her work. i recently read a book where a writer thought of former board as an idealized version of a childhood, and that is how wilder was writing in her depictions of the plentiful food available to him, and i was curious what your thoughts were on that and what doing the pioneer girl project taught you about that. pamela: that is a great question. i described farmer boy in more detail in my biography, a writer's life. my take on farmer boy is that it is the mirror image of little house in the big woods. when laura ingalls wilder originally sold little house in the big woods, that she was offered a three book deal. publishing has not changed that much since the early 1930's, and just as laura ingalls wilder was about to sign the contract for that three-book deal, they decided to close its children's department. her editor advised laura ingalls wilder to not sign the contract. i won't go into the story about that. it is quite fascinating. ultimately, when she signed her contract with another publisher a few months later, it was for just one book. i don't think that laura ingalls wilder had envisioned a full series at this point, so she finished little house in the big woods. she still had that book deal in her mind, so she turned her attention to writing a book about her husband's childhood. so she wrote what about her childhood, about his childhood, hers for girl readers. farmer was for boys. his story would contrast nicely with hers because they were from a more prosperous family. their expenses were different. i feel that farmer boy and little house in the big woods can almost be read as a set. what i think is dynamic and unique about farmer boy is that her confidence as a novelist is growing in farmer boy. she creates a main character who is really the center of the action, and little house in the big woods, we think about lower as being the main character, but it is a family story. if you look at it, the whole family is engaged here. if you simply read little house in the big woods without knowing all the other little house books were coming, you might assume this was indeed a family story, that pa was just as much a main character as laura. so i think those two books are kind of a set. then as laura ingalls wilder became more confident about her abilities as a novelist, when she created a character in farmer boy, around which all the action centers, who has his own hopes, dreams, and aspirations, filled the pages of that book, i think then she was ready to think about maybe there are more books in me, and that's when she began work on little house on the prairie. if you read little house on the prairie, laura emerges as the main character there. it is interesting to see her progress as a novelist in the first three books. thank you for asking that question. i'd like to answer, as you can tell. [laughter] >> two of the questions have been asked, first, do we know what freddie died from? would you tell a little bit more about laurapoluza? pamela: we don't know what freddie died of. he died on the trail. the family was in movement then. in the 19th century, it was sometimes difficult to ascertain exactly what was the cause of death or what caused -- for example. although, we still have a better feeling what was at the root of mary's blindness. you can read about that in pioneer girl. as for laurapoluza, it is a conference that meets every other year and brings together wilder scholars, amateur scholars, fans to discuss laura ingalls wilder, read and share papers, talk about their expenses with her and her work. the next one will be in 2017 in springfield, missouri, my hometown. i'm sure there will be trips to rocky ridge farm, where wilder wrote pioneer girl and all the little house books. there are several people who -- do you want to hold up your hands? to laurapoluza alums here. if you want to know more, see me afterwards. >> i think we have time for one more question. >> this is delightful listening to you. pamela: thank you so much. >> what is next? where are you going next in terms of your writing? pamela: i'm taking a break from nonfiction right now. it is so liberating to write fiction again. my agent is marketing a young adult novel right now, and i am working on a second young adult novel about the civil war. my first novel was published several years ago. that is a time that really intrigues me. i am going back to the civil war right now. i'm thinking about another book on wilder, but it is still shadowy and it hasn't taken shape yet. >> on that note, thank you for coming. if you would like your book signed or you would like to continue the dialogue with pamela, she will be in the lobby. thank you for coming. let's thank her. [applause] >> you are watching american history tv. all weekend, every weekend on c-span3. to join the conversation, like history.ebook/c-span welcome to buffalo, on american history tv. with the help of our time