Credo

Credo is a graphic biography of Rose Wilder Lane. I thought it would be about a suffragette but Rose Wilder Lane is the daughter of Laura Ingalls Wilder. Wilder wrote the Little House on the Prairie books. I was not aware that she wrote these books with her daughter making huge edits. The books were written mainly by Lane but the ideas for the stories came from Wilder. 

Lane was an accomplished 20th century writer, feminist, war correspondent, and one of the  founders of the Libertarian Party in the U. S.  She was anti-government and anti-marriage and did not believe that gender should hold anyone back from experiencing all that the world has to offer.  Lane was one of the highest paid female writers in America, traveling all over the world in search of a story.  She even traveled to Korea and Vietnam to cover those wars for the newspapers that she wrote for.  However, she is mainly known as being the daughter of Laura Ingalls Wilder.  There are several different opinions on how much Lane contributed to the Little House books but the original manuscripts have survived and there is no doubt that Wilder did not know how to write.  Lane rewrote the stories so that they were readable.  What most people do not know is that she wrote biographies and fiction on her own. 

I thoroughly enjoyed the book and read it twice in succession.  It is amazing to me that she was friends with President Herbert Hoover, writer Dorothy Johnson and Johnson's husband Sinclair Lewis.  With these people as friends, I would expect that Lane's name would be easily recognizable.  Unfortunately, it isn't.  She was lucky in her career, raising the glass ceiling for women in succeeding generations.  Her credo was an article she wrote concerning her political opinions.  It was marketed as her credo, hence the name of the book.

Credo was a great history lesson for me and I highly recommend the book.  5 out of 5 stars.