Episode 49: "Prairie Fires" – Caroline Fraser

Summer Series 2021

Episode Description

In honor of the state's 200th birthday, Our Missouri will feature a series throughout 2021 entitled "Bicentennial Book Club," which highlights influential books related to Missouri and examines how scholars, historians, and authors dissect major topics in the state's history. So, join the "Book Club" to hear about award-winning publications that detail the state's diverse history, as well as the stories behind the stories featured within their pages.

This episode features a conversation with Caroline Fraser about her Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder.

Episode & Banner Image: Wilder Museum in Mansfield, Missouri, date unknown [Wilder Family Photographs (P0294), SHSMO]

About the Guest

Caroline Fraser

Caroline Fraser holds a PhD in English and American Literature from Harvard University. She is the author of God's Perfect Child: Living and Dying in the Christian Science Church and Rewilding the World: Dispatches from the Conservation Revolution. Additionally, she served as editor of the Library of America edition of Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House books. Her work has also appeared in the New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, and Outside Magazine, among others. Her most recent book, Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder, won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography, Plutarch Award, and the Pulitzer Prize in Biography.