[campboy]

> So, go back another 50 years, to the 1870s of "Little House in the Big Woods".

It’s cute for sure but I don’t know if I’d use a novel for children as an accurate portrayal of the median subsistence living experience 150 years ago.

[eesmith]

I wouldn't either, but it's meant to show that keiferski's views of 1920 are clearly wrong when a book that came out in 1932 was not laughed off as a wildly unrealistic portrayal of the 1870s.

Here is a glimpse of life in rural Oregon in the 1870s, as recorded in 1932: https://www.loc.gov/resource/wpalh2.29080415/?sp=7 . Her mother carded and dyed the wool herself, to make clothes. Peddlers would come by with bundles to sell, with "fancy shawls, printed goods, silks, and such other luxuries", sometimes sold for as high as $150/bundle. She bought a statue of Dickens from a peddler.

"The menu for a fine dinner would be: Chicken stew with dumplings, mashed potatoes, peach preserves, biscuits, and hominy." Dumplings and cobbler were staples. They had brown sugar and molasses. There was bread and milk, and teas made from local herbs. They had a schoolhouse. Most women wore calico (store-bought) and linsey-wollsey (locally made). Seems they had geese too.

For the big 4th of July event in Corvallis, her mother made 200 gooseberry pies.

Young women enjoyed the magazines Godey's, Peterson's, and the Bazaar.

This seems in decent alignment with the children's story. It does not seem like the spartan life keiferski suggests for some 50 years later.

[tonyedgecombe]

Thoreau was talking about the perils of excess consumption in Walden, published in the 1850's.

[giantrobot]

And going to his mom's house on weekends and washing his clothes and eating out of the pantry.

[tonyedgecombe]

I was aware of that, not sure what it has to do with the conversation here though. Nor what a failing visiting your mum on weekends is.

[giantrobot]

It's not a personal failing but it's a huge dissonance with the themes in Walden. It's annoying when people hold up Walden as an example of personal independence but ignoring or not knowing the context in which it was written.