This month, a fresh adaptation of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s The Beloved little house on the prairie comes on netflix.
The timing of the reboot is auspicious. 2026 saw the peak of the tradewife debate. And if walking through the streets of Brooklyn, a certain prairiecore aesthetic refuses to go quietly.
Pioneer nostalgia tends to increase when conservatives are in power, which is no coincidence. Even when cities are said to be dangerous, entrepreneurs are told to make their own way in wide open spaces. To go West. But as Dr. Paula Reed wondered in a recent op-ed teen Vogue“Is there anything new to be said that hasn’t been covered in the original nine books or the first TV adaptation?”
In other words: Why haven’t we reached the end of the West?
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Originally based on Wilder’s own upbringing plains The books were a hit in the 30s. First, little house in the big forestarrived in the thick of the Dust Bowl, when – to quote Glynis MacNicol recently in the op-ed Times-The middle part of the country was especially “hungry for stories of resilience and hope.”
plains The books were instant bestsellers, and have never been out of print. Promoted as family friendly, the series paints a rosy picture of an adventurous childhood. Which adopted the family unit as the most powerful social structure.
This was all by design.
As Dr. Reed cites and Anita Claire Feldman finds in her 2008 book, Little House, Long Shadow: Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Impact on American Culture, Wilder and his daughter Rose Lane (who co-wrote the first book) were both New Deal skeptics and libertarians who clung to the Frontier Thesis throughout their lives.
Books published as America began to coalesce into a social state depict Ingalls as an independent. The family thrives in isolation, against the elements, and often in spite of community. Girls get this message again and again. To make it into the woods, you pull yourself up.
The novels also include critical history.
according to HistoryThe fictional and real Ingalls family built their small home illegally on the Osage Diminished Reserve. Throughout the books, the family parrots repeat the settler argument. Describing the land on which his family lived, Ingalls wrote that “there were no people there; only Indians lived there.”
The text was amended in the 50s to historicize this troubling phrase Visit. (Recently, the culture has had a forceful reckoning with Laura’s legacy – see McNicol’s Podcast.) But anti-Native racism has proven to be a difficult thing to scrub out of your text.
First small house The television series—which also reared its head in the troubled times following Vietnam—also tended to look at the native population, with the Ingalls family at the helm.
That is, when it was not re-enforcing harmful stereotypes adjusted for the language. changing times.
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Now, I grew up in a Laura-loving household. Wilder’s books were the first hardcover collections I remember. I remember looking at the cover pictures and feeling proud of his height. More than any actual plot, I can still refer to the routine of frontier life that Ingalls made so vivid. Just like the girls made candy by tapping the tree’s jaggery and freezing the syrup on ice.
I became a victim of his irritability. The way they created and invented things. And I did not question the absence of neighbors, or neighborly feeling; At the age of six, seven and eight, I was fascinated by the possibilities of creating my own world. Who needs helpers?
The fairy tale that Laura basically presents is exactly that: one where a harsh new world bends to one’s will.
Rebecca Sonenshine’s new adaptation aims to correct lasting impressions from the series and show while troubling some of Wilder’s arguments. (Haters have condemned it “awakening.”) This time, it is clear that the family comes to colonize Osage land. And a new Cast of Osage And black supporting characters have come to further the segregated narrative. In 2026, the prairie is a communal space.
Which is all well and good! Expanding the history of the West is truly God’s work at a time when Black and Native studies are being threatened in both primary schools and the highest halls. higher version.
But in the first place, should that be the way to go for that context?
As McNicol writes in her op-ed, “For better and for worse, (small house) has arrived to dominate (italics mine) Our understanding of the era of westward expansion in American history.” That verb seems appropriate.
McNicol was full of praise, writing, “This show once again holds a mirror up to the country.” The mirror may be brighter now, but it still only has one thing left to show us.
(and the world Not there. New. That’s the problem.)
