“Hey, God, you should have made me born 100 years earlier!” —me, age 8
The first time I can ever remember telling God what he ought to have done in my life was while I was reading Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House books. I was given the complete boxed set for my birthday, and I devoured them one after the other, immersing myself in the world of late-19th century U.S. pioneer life. I felt deep in my heart that I ought to have been a child of the 1870s rather than the 1970s.
I trust God’s judgment and plan for my life more now than I did as a child, so I’m no longer upset about not being born into the 19th-century American west (which in the 1800s would have been anything west of the Appalachian mountains). But I still love reading about this time period, and more specifically, about women during this time period, especially pioneer women who traveled west and often stayed there to create a home.
So here’s a list of my personal favorite books in this area for those who, like me, are pioneers at heart—or who just like to read about them.
Books about Laura Ingalls Wilder:
Pioneer Girl by Laura Ingalls Wilder and Pamela Smith Hill. This is the real story of LIW’s life— the detailed autobiography she completed in 1930 that goes far beyond her stories for children. All thoroughly annotated, and a must-read for any serious LIW fan.
Pioneer Girl Perspectives edited by Nancy Tystad Koupal. A follow-up to the book above, with noted LIW scholars providing essays on her writings and their importance and relevance today.
Prairie Fires by Caroline Fraser. The “first comprehensive historical biography” of LIW, this 2018 book won every award under the sun, and rightly so.
Caroline by Sarah Miller. Not about Laura herself, but I loved this novel about Caroline Ingalls (“Ma”) and I wrote more about it in this post.
Laura Ingalls Wilder: A Writer’s Life by Pamela Smith Hill. I’ve read many biographies of LIW, and this one is probably my favorite. It not only covers her life and relationships, but also delves more into the craft of writing and editing, which I loved. It includes extensive information on her daughter Rose, as well as an early (2007) perspective on the controversy surrounding the depiction of Native Americans in the Little House books (this controversy eventually resulted in the 2018 removal of Wilder’s name from the children’s book award that had originally been created in her honor).
Books about Pioneer Women:
General Books
Pioneer Women by Joanna L. Stratton. This was the first general book I read on pioneer women and is probably still my favorite. It’s not quite so academic in tone as the ones below, and reflects the lives of hundreds of women from the Kansas frontier.
Frontier Women by Julie Roy Jeffrey. What’s distinctive: contains material on and perspectives of Mormon women, black women, and Native American women.
The Female Frontier by Glenda Riley. What’s distinctive: compares and contrasts women of the prairie and women of the plains.
Westering Women and the Frontier Experience, 1800-1915 by Sandra L. Myres. What’s distinctive: goes up to the time of political suffrage and economic opportunity.
Women’s Diaries of the Westward Journey by Lillian Schlissel. What’s distinctive: covers the journey itself, not the homesteading.
Individual Stories (Diaries and Memoirs):
Nothing to Do But Stay: My Pioneer Mother by Carrie Young. Upper Midwest; Norwegian immigrants.
Letters of a Woman Homesteader by Elinore Pruitt Stewart. Single mom in Wyoming, first published in 1914.
No Time on My Hands by Grace Snyder. Nebraska; lifetime memories of a famous quilter (but it’s not a book about quilting).
A Prairie Winter by Belle Owen. From the author’s Illinois girlhood, first published in 1903.
Mollie by Mollie Dorsey Sanford. Nebraska/Colorado territories; life on a homestead, in mining camps, and at army posts.
A Bride Goes West by Nannie T. Alderson and Helena Huntington Smith. Young woman goes from a wealthy Southern plantation to a Montana ranch.
Other Related Books:
The Prairie Traveler by Randolph B. Marcy. The actual guide that settlers read for westward travel tips (how to prepare, what to expect), published in 1859.
The Children’s Blizzard by David Laskin. A gripping, moment-by-moment account of the monstrous Great Plains blizzard of 1888 that killed hundreds of people, mostly immigrants and schoolchildren.
These Is My Words by Nancy E. Turner. This novel is set in the Arizona Territory (a new area for my reading), and I’m including it because it’s the book that prompted me to write this post. Two caveats, though: one, it’s somewhat of a romance novel (not my usual genre but that’s only part of the content); and two, everything that could possibly go wrong on the frontier goes wrong in this book, either to the main character or to someone she knows well. Every. Single. Thing. The first chapter alone was enough to almost make me quit reading, but it’s an enjoyable book overall, told in a diary format.
As I gathered all of the links for this post, I was amazed at the tremendous number of recent books on this topic that I haven’t yet read or even heard of. Clearly the topic of pioneer women, westward women, and homesteading women is something that continues to resonate with many readers even today. I want to read some of those, including one that’s been on my list for a while: David McCullough’s The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West. Even though he tells the story, as historians so often do, through the lives of five men, I’m hoping he also “remembers the ladies” (that’s Abigail Adams, out of context).
Photo by Roger Lipera on Unsplash
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Great and Noble Tasks 