Libertarian on the Prairie

My love on Little House on the Prairie dates back to the early nineties when I asked my mom if we could try making butter for Thanksgiving, thereby condemning my brother and I to almost a decade of shaking plastic containers of cream on November Thursday mornings. Aside from some un-PC illustrations of Native Americans I didn't know there was much political subtext to the books. Turns out I was wrong!

"This emphasis on self-sufficiency may not have been a coincidence: by the time she collaborated on Little House, Rose [daughter of Laura and a major contributor to the series] had already become fiercely political, and would come to be known as one of the "founding mothers" of the Libertarian movement. Infuriated by what she saw as the infantilization of the New Deal, Rose was surely glad to have such a bully pulpit for the spread of her message, organically housed in the context of another era's privations."

Jezebel: Little House on the Fountainhead?

New Yorker: WILDER WOMEN