Today, Rose Wilder Lane (1886–1968) is best remembered, if she is remembered at all, as the daughter of Laura Ingalls Wilder, author of the beloved “Little House” books, children’s stories that Rose helped shape and edit before they appeared in public.
Rose Wilder Lane, circa 1905–1910. National Archives. (Public Domain)
Yet Rose was a woman of accomplishment in her own right. Despite her rough childhood on the prairie and a hit-and-miss early education, she became a well-known and respected journalist, a world traveler, a novelist whose books made the bestseller lists, a political theorist, and a founder of the American Libertarian Party….