The Beautiful Snow

“This is surely the Wilder book of the decade; all new focus, not a re-hash, and an outstanding read. The Beautiful Snow is a thoroughly engrossing read. Cindy Wilson’s impeccable research resulted in an exciting, panoramic account of the infamous winter of 1880–1881 and its effect on Minnesota and the Dakota Territory. With a dual focus on weather and railroads, this book is a perfect companion volume to Laura Ingalls Wilder’s The Long Winter. The book’s scope and content will fascinate a wide audience of readers.
— William Anderson, historian and author of The Selected Letters of Laura Ingalls Wilder; Laura Ingalls Wilder Country; and many other titles

“The Long Winter, one of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s most beloved children’s novels, portrays the harsh realities of life on the late-nineteenth-century agricultural frontier. In a heroic piece of historical detective work, Cindy Wilson has written a book placing Wilder’s fictional narrative in broad and detailed historical context. She emphasizes the challenges, obstacles, and hardships settlers on the Dakota prairie faced along with the energy, ingenuity, and tenacity they exhibited during the hard winter of 1880–1881. This book provides eloquent evidence of the hardiness and vision of these pioneers as well as testimony to the human spirit.”
— John E. Miller, professor emeritus, South Dakota State University, and author of Becoming Laura Ingalls Wilder: The Woman Behind the Legend; Laura Ingalls Wilder and Rose Wilder Lane: Authorship, Place, Time and Culture; and Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little Town: Where History and Literature Meet

“The Beautiful Snow is a thorough and impressive historical examination of the legendary Hard Winter of 1880-1881. It excavates historical record on a variety of subjects–weather, railroads, food and fuel, frontier culture–to provide fresh and engaging perspectives on Laura Ingalls Wilder’s The Long Winter.”
– Pamela Smith Hill, author of Laura Ingalls Wilder: A Writer’s Life and Editor of Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography

“The Beautiful Snow is an impressive and immersive look at the hard winter of 1880–1881 in Minnesota and South Dakota. Wilson builds on Laura Ingalls Wilder’s memories and her novel based on this historical winter by mining information from contemporary newspapers, railroad archives, and other primary sources. Her detailed study not only helps explain how settlers managed to weather the storms but also offers fresh insight into the expansion of the railroads into Dakota Territory, a massive undertaking that would transform the Northern Great Plains. The Beautiful Snow is wonderful, a true gift to Wilder scholarship.”
— Nancy Tystad Koupal, director of the Pioneer Girl Project, South Dakota Historical Society Press

“The Beautiful Snow is an exceptional contribution to Laura Ingalls family saga and of particular interest to fans of the Little House series. Based upon detailed background research, it is thorough, entertaining and an exceptional example of regional history. Also, the book is handsomely published and reasonably priced. There is a lot of helpful backmatter, tables, and charts. In all, an exceptional scholarly effort. The investigation that the author undertakes draws the reader along as a thriller might, an unexpected feature of this concordance-like companion to a singular and important work of children’s literature. The content presents great lessons in what to expect and watch out for when dealing with primary sources when an oral tradition has evolved through time relative to the historical subject at hand. Treatments such as this suggest a new genre of research-based treatments of literary works that echo some of the work relative to particular works and practitioners in the field of art history.”
– Judge feedback, Benjamin Franklin Book Awards

“The winter of 1880–1881 represented the best and the worst of times for the railroads. Despite their ultimate defeat, the story of their efforts is a wonder in and of itself. The Beautiful Snow is a must read for any student of railroad history!”
— John C. Leucke, railroad historian and author of The Chicago and Northwestern in Minnesota; More Chicago & North Western in Minnesota; Dreams, Disasters and Demise: The Milwaukee Road in Minnesota; and More Milwaukee Road in Minnesota

“So much information is packed into this book. If you are interested in the Railroads, this is for you. If you are a weather junkie, this is for you. If you are a Laura Ingalls Wilder fan, this is for you. The stories that came out of the Hard Winter of 1880-1881 are fascinating. How the press covered the event, is fascinating. The pictures of the vast amount of snow — amazing. Cindy Wilson has compiled an amazing report of the Hard Winter and it’s worth your read. I recommend her for speaking engagements, because I could have listened to her all night. Her research has given her insights, and allowing you to escape with her into the past when it was truly hard.”
– Julie Ann Worthen, My Adventure Club Coordinator

“In The Beautiful Snow, following the railroad lines of the Upper Midwest, Cindy Wilson journeys through the hard winter of 1880–1881 and tells the stories of families who survived the blizzards. Kudos to Wilson for placing this extraordinary book in our hands.”
— Lynn Jarrett, freelance writer in central Oklahoma

“The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder is a claustrophobic book, written to show how frontier life could be a struggle against the elements. Cindy Wilson’s The Beautiful Snow views Ingalls’s story through a wider lens. Using primary sources from railroad archives and newspapers printed during that long winter, Wilson reveals how the ‘beautiful snow’ affected every community it fell on. This book could be read in tandem with The Long Winter or by anyone interested in how pioneers survived on the early frontier during one of the snowiest winters ever to occur.”
— Sara Pfannkuche, archaeologist and specialist in frontier interactions and museum curation