Introducing "Wilder"

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
She's a Hollywood Western. She's Jack Kerouac, but in a
nap dress with braids.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
She is one of the most important American children's authors
of the twentieth century.

Speaker 1 (00:15):
She's the basis for a television show still watched around
the world. I literally wake up in the middle of
the night and go somebody somewhere is watched Little as
of their.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Women will come up to me, cry and saying, my
childhood was miserable. In Little House in the Prairie was
my escape.

Speaker 1 (00:30):
She's been called a hero, a racist, a feminist, and
a propagandist.

Speaker 3 (00:36):
Consider a Native child in their classroom reading it aloud,
and they come to that sentence, the only good Indian
is a dead Indian.

Speaker 4 (00:46):
She is Laura Ingalls Wilder. Did you know she was
a real person.

Speaker 1 (00:52):
In the nineteen thirties, Laura Ingles Wilder wrote the nine
Little House on the Prairie books, based on her childhood
on the American frontier. One way or another, She's been
with us ever since.

Speaker 4 (01:02):
Oh, I love I loved that.

Speaker 2 (01:04):
I loved Little House on the Prairie.

Speaker 4 (01:06):
It's just a perfect book.

Speaker 1 (01:08):
I've loved Laura for as long as I can remember.
As a kid, I used to map out her travels
on my parents Atlas, and I'm not alone. Every summer,
thousands of people from around the world pilgrimage to her
little houses in tiny towns in.

Speaker 4 (01:24):
The middle of the country. Now I'm going too. We're
literally on the Perry. I went in search of Laura,
the real Laura. Who is this person I love so much?
Should I love her?

Speaker 1 (01:40):
The story of Laura is just as complicated as the
story of America, because she is America for better and worse.

Speaker 2 (01:48):
As if we pretend the past was not as controversial
and difficult and racist as it was, then how are
we going to deal with the racist issues we're grappling
with today in.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
A country currently at odds with itself and its history.
Could there be a better time for this exploration? There's
never been a better time than now.

Speaker 4 (02:09):
I'm Glennis McNichol, and this is Wilder.

Speaker 1 (02:13):
Wilder launches June Nate's Listen on the iHeartRadio app or
wherever you get your podcasts.