The Long Winter: Verifying Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Account of 1880/81

Abstract

Laura Ingalls Wilder historical fiction book, The Long Winter, was strikingly difficult across much of the Plains and Midwest. One of a number of accounts of that harrowing winter, sometimes referred to as the "Hard Winter" or the "Starvation Winter," Wilder's story is set in De Smet, Dakota Territory (present-day South Dakota; 60 km west of Brookings). The Long Winter is fiction, but it contains many verifiable facts, including those regarding the weather of the Hard Winter.Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote the Little House book series between 1932 and 1943 to chronicle her childhood as her family migrated among Wisconsin,