Book Review: CREDO, THE ROSE WILDER LANE STORY

CREDO: THE ROSE WILDER LANE STORY by Peter Bagge  (Drawn & Quarterly, April 2019)  Hardcover, 108 pages.  ISBN # 1770463310 / 9781770463417  

Summary on the Goodreads website . . . . .

The life story of the feminist founder of the American libertarian movement

Peter Bagge returns with a biography of another fascinating twentieth-century trailblazer—the writer, feminist, war correspondent, and libertarian Rose Wilder Lane. 

Following the popularity and critical acclaim of Woman Rebel: The Margaret Sanger Story and Fire!! The Zora Neale Hurston Story, Credo: The Rose Wilder Lane Story is a fast-paced, charming, informative look at the brilliant Lane. Highly accomplished, she was a founder of the American libertarian movement and a champion of her mother, Laura Ingalls Wilder, in bringing the classic Little House on the Prairie series to the American public.

Like Sanger and Hurston, Lane was an advocate for women’s rights who led by example, challenging norms in her personal and professional life. Anti-government and anti-marriage, Lane didn’t think that gender should hold anyone back from experiencing all the world had to offer. 

Though less well-known today, in her lifetime she was one of the highest-paid female writers in America and a political and literary luminary, friends with Herbert Hoover, Dorothy Thompson, Sinclair Lewis, and Ayn Rand, to name a few.

Bagge’s portrait of Lane is heartfelt and affectionate, probing into the personal roots of her rugged individualism. Credo is a deeply researched dive into a historical figure whose contributions to American society are all around us, from the books we read to the politics we debate. 

My Three-Star review on the Goodreads website . . . . .

     I picked this one off a library shelf solely because I admire the cartoonish art style of Peter Bagge. My only prior exposure to the Wilder/Lane family was an television episode or two of The Little House On The Prairie series, which did not engage me enough to follow on a regular basis. 

     I found out that Rose Wilder Lane was a very curious and interesting historical figure, a real trailblazer for women's rights, libertarianism and other causes. I enjoyed the way that Bagge highlighted her life through one or two page sections that focus on specific significant moments (of which there are many) in the life of Rose Wilder Lane. Extensively researched, the lengthy afterword/footnotes provided by Bagge is as entertaining and informative as the illustrated pages. 

     I have a new appreciation for a prominent women in American history.