This week, students began to return to the campus of Trinity Christian College, where I work as a History professor and Academic Dean. Athletes, student leaders, and others came last Sunday, new first time freshmen report on Friday, and returning students begin to arrive next Sunday. So summer is pretty much officially over.
I’ve had a great summer. I did not teach a summer course for the first time in twelve years because I have a new colleague in the History Department, and he taught summer Western Civ instead of me. That meant that I had a lot of time to write. During May and June, I wrote the first chapter of the book. Then in June I did my research trip. In July, I was able to write two more chapters. So I met my goal of having three draft chapters by the end of this summer. God is good.
In the middle of the summer, of course, Laura Ingalls Wilder hit the national media because a committee of the American Library Association decided to rename the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award the Children’s Literature Legacy Award. The decision did not surprise me. Wilder grew up in the 1870s and 1880s, and she wrote in the 1930s and 1940s, so she didn’t think the way we do today about a lot of things. But this the case with everyone we encounter in history. Showing love to our neighbor who lived one hundred years ago means putting their words in context and attempting to understand why they said what they did. It doesn’t mean excusing them for not loving others. Coming to understand people in the past who don’t think like us gives us practice in coming to understand people today who don’t think like us. This is a critical skill, and it’s sorely needed in American society and culture today. I also think that Laura’s attitude towards Native Americans was more complex than it was depicted in some of the pieces written about the renaming of the award. I’ve put links to the ALA statement and two good online articles about the issue below.
This fall I hope to put in at least one morning a week on the book project. I will also be returning to the Conference on Faith and History Biennial Meeting, which will be held at Calvin College at the beginning of October, to be part of a roundtable discussion of “Biography and the Search for Meaning.” Others on the panel will be talking about their work on biographies of John Jay, Alexis de Toqueville, Sojourner Truth, and Elizabeth Ann Seaton. It should be a fascinating session.
Many thanks to the Provost’s office and the Faculty Development Committee at Trinity Christian College for their generous support of my summer writing project and research trip to Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and South Dakota.
Thanks for reading.
Links:
Announcement from the American Library Association about the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award
Two good articles about the Renaming of the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award:
Sarah Uthoff at Trundle Bed Tales – Includes some good background on the award
Conference on Faith and History
31st Biennial Meeting of the Conference on Faith & History
The Faith of Laura Ingalls Wilder 
Thank you for the link. I’m working on a follow up, but I want to re-read “Little House on the Prairie” first to make sure I’m not misremembering a few statements.
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