The Beautiful Snow: The Ingalls Family, the Railroads, and the Hard Winter of 1880-81

The Long Winter is one of the most memorable novels in Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House series. It beautifully details the dramatic events of a harrowing winter with months of never-ending blizzards leading to railroad blockades that all but cut off fledgling communities.

But what really happened during the Hard Winter of 1880-81?

Lively and rewarding, The Beautiful Snow is a new look at the Hard Winter. Pulling from nearly three thousand regional newspaper articles, The Beautiful Snow weaves the historical record around and through Wilder’s fictionalized account of The Long Winter. From the tireless efforts to dig out the railroad blockades, to lavish oyster parties, to carefully spun boosterism, the Hard Winter comes to life with extraordinary tales of survival, resilience, and defiance that adds rich context to Wilder’s beloved novel.