Wilder, Laura Ingalls

Wrote the beloved Little House series of children’s books (over 60mil copies sold to date), based on Laura’s childhood in a pioneer family in the late 19^th century in collaboration with her daughter Rose Wilder Lane. The Little House stories painted a vivid picture of the American West, where people struggled to overcome hardships and shape their own destinies. In her book Libertarians on the Prairie, Christine Woodside explained that Laura and Rose created a children’s series “that built loyalty for the ideas of the Founding Fathers and for wilderness and wildlife.” The stories centered around certain themes, including freedom, morality, family, respect for free markets, and the love of nature. The books also spawned a successful TV series in the 1970s and early 1980s which sparked a new wave of enthusiasts including President Reagan. Daughter Rose was a novelist, a biographer of Herbert Hoover, and celebrated writer whose 1943 book The Discovery of Freedom became a libertarian classic.₁