We have all, no doubt, heard our mothers or grandmothers talk about Little House on the Prairie. Originally penned for children, the 1935 book by Laura Elizabeth Ingalls has become a cultural phenomenon, having been transformed into a 204-episode series in the 1970s and now the subject of an all-singing, all-dancing reboot courtesy of Netflix. So, why can’t we get enough of this nostalgic Western drama? Nearly 100 years on from when Ingalls put pen to paper, we delve into how her own life inspired the novel, its immeasurable success, and why Netflix has decided to put its own spin on the cult classic. 

Who is Laura Ingalls Wilder? 

Crosby Fitzgerald plays Caroline Ingalls and Alice Halsey plays Laura Ingalls in the new Netflix series.

Luke Bracey plays Charles Ingalls.

Born in Wisconsin in 1867 to Charles and Caroline Ingalls, Laura Elizabeth Ingalls spent her childhood moving around America’s mid-west as her parents searched for prairie land to farm. The second of five children, she was also a descendant of the Delano family, the ancestral family of former US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. When she was two, her family relocated to the then-Indian country of Kansas, with her father believing the land was open to white settlers. The family moved to a homestead on an Osage Indian reservation, and soon found this was not the case. They left within the year, with Little House on the Prairie later citing this was because they were evicted and the tenant of their family home in Wisconsin was not paying the mortgage. 

It is these little tidbits of information from Ingalls’ childhood that went on to inform not only her best-selling book, Little House on the Prairie, but also several other storylines within the nine other novels in the Little House series. Following the family’s travels across Wisconsin, Kansas, Minnesota, South Dakota, and Missouri between 1872 and 1894 – and her later nomadic lifestyle with then-husband Almanzo Wilder, with whom she had a daughter, journalist and author Rose Wilder Lane – Ingalls’ work only began being published in 1932 when she was in her 60s. 30 years of huge commercial success followed, until her death in 1957, with the Ingalls finally enjoying financial comfort following bouts of illness, a constant search for work and land, and struggling through the Great Depression. 

The success of Little House on the Prairie

The most famous of the Little House books, Little House on the Prairie was the second novel in the series, following Little House in the Big Woods, and was published in 1935. While it captured attention in the 1930s, it was the eponymous 1974 TV show which launched it onto the world stage, offering escapism from the Vietnam War and Watergate Scandal, which were dominating the world’s political spotlight at the time. The nostalgic nine-season series, starring Melissa Gilbert as Ingalls, became an instant hit, offering wholesome, comforting entertainment while reinforcing the idea of the American dream. 

That said, it was a loose adaptation. Only the first season was based on Ingalls’ book, and it came to a sudden end in 1983, partly due to declining viewership, but also because of waning storylines. Michael Landon, who played Charles Ingalls, felt the show had run its course by the time the fictional Ingalls had grown up, married and no longer needed her father’s advice, which was the crux of the story. During its peak, the series garnered 15-20 million viewers per episode – which is what Netflix is no doubt hoping to achieve again with its 2026 reboot. 

What is the Netflix reboot about?

Promising to introduce a new generation to life on the Western frontier, Netflix’s eight-episode series, which lands on screens today, is part family drama, part survival tale, and part origin story of the American West – and has already been renewed for season two. 

While the Ingalls family remains at the heart of the story, this adaptation expands its scope with a modern lens not included in previous versions or Ingalls’ books. Looking at the family’s move from the perspective of the Osage people, it also explores the tensions between white settlers and the Indigenous communities that had long called the prairie home. Julie O’Keefe, the series’ Osage cultural consultant, explained to Netflix: “If you’re going to tell the story, then you need to tell both sides.”

You can still expect plenty of cosy Western vibes, with filming taking place in the rural plains of Manitoba in Canada. Executive producer Rebecca Sonnenshine told Netflix: “It’s about people deciding who they want to be and looking for a better life. You always have a chance to reinvent and rediscover who you are – what means something to you, what kind of person you want to be, what kind of adventures you want to take, what kind of life you want to seek.” 

Little House on the Prairie is available to stream on Netflix now.

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