Most books, films, and television (see entry under 1940s—TV and Radio in volume 3) programs set on the nineteenth-century American prairie feature gunfights and conflict, battles between cowboys and Indians, hostility between land barons or cattle rustlers and honest, hard-working settlers. One exception is Little House on the Prairie (1974–83), one of the top-rated TV series of the 1970s. As with the equally popular the Waltons (1972–81; see entry under 1970s—TV and Radio in volume 4), Little House on the Prairie was set during an earlier era in American history. Like The Waltons, it centered on a loving, old-fashioned family whose members are forced to struggle for survival in difficult times. Many of its storylines were based on those recounted in a series of books written by Laura Ingalls Wilder (1867–1957), in which she recalled her own experiences coming of age on the...