Laura Ingalls Wilder and Rose Wilder Lane

Miller combines analyses of Wilder and Lane to explore their collaborative process and shows how their books reflect the authors distinctive views of place, time, and culture. He compares Wilder with Frederick Jackson Turner as a frontier mythmaker and examines Lane s unpublished history of Missouri in the context of Thomas Hart Benton s famous Jefferson City mural. Miller also looks at Wilder s Missouri Ruralist columns to assess her pre Little House values and writing skills, and he readdresses her literary treatment of Native Americans. He shows how Wilder s and Lane s conservative political views found expression in their work.