Laura Ingalls Wilder

Laura Ingalls Wilder is an extremely popular author, whose Little House books have sold millions of copies world-wide since they were first published in the 1930's.

Her books have been thoroughly integrated into popular culture, and they have been written about and critiqued extensively by literary academics and biographers for decades.

However, there is one important aspect of Laura's work that has not been examined or studied in-depth. To my knowledge, nobody has written about the quality and quantity of Laura's technical writing. Yet her work is a stunning achievement in technical communication that deserves recognition.

Laura provides a wealth of information about how people lived before the power grid, the internal combustion engine, indoor plumbing, and industrialized agriculture. She has a great deal to teach us about the basic technology and methods of self-sufficient agriculture. Her long-term legacy is not just the charming entertainment of her stories, but the critical, detailed technical information on how to live a civilized, sustainable life at the subsistence level.

The Little House books are a remarkable achievement in technical writing. Laura describes the tasks and objects of daily life on the american frontier so well, that her books provide a basic user's guide to subsistence living.