Nancy McCabe

Nancy McCabe is Professor of Writing and Director of the Writing Program at University of Pittsburgh at Bradford. Her most recent book is From Little Houses to Little Women: Revisiting a Literary Childhood. She is also the author of three previous books and her essays have received a Pushcart and been recognized six times on Houghton-Mifflin Best American notable lists. She regularly blogs about reading, art, and travel for Ploughshares. See her contributions to Little House on the Prairie website below.

From “Unlearned Poet” to “Untutored Housewife”: Samuel Worthen Ingalls and Laura Ingalls Wilder

As a child who’d practically memorized the Little House book series, I was entranced by the idea of Laura Ingalls Wilder as an “untutored housewife,” whose fiction suddenly sprang to life fully formed when she was in her sixties. As an adult, I learned that the widespread notion that Wilder was a self-taught genius with…

Searching for Charles Ingalls in Cuba, New York

Today we are intrigued to hear from Nancy McCabe about her experience exploring Cuba, New York, the birthplace of Charles Ingalls. Hear her interesting stories and tid bits of information about Pa’s first home below. In Cuba, New York, the birthplace of Charles Ingalls, my daughter and I read excerpts from Little House in the…

Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Artistic Development

As a child, I loved many children’s book characters—Louisa May Alcott’s Jo, Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Anne, and Maud Hart Lovelace’s Betsy—because, like me, they wanted to be writers.1 But it never occurred to me that the Little House series also tells a story of artistic development. Especially in the later books, Wilder focuses on the…