Happy Birthday, Rose Wilder Lane!

Nick Gillespie | December 5, 2005

One of Reason's 35 Heroes of Freedom, Rose Wilder Lane, was born today in 1886. Why did she make our list:

The daughter of Laura Ingalls Wilder, Lane extensively edited and shaped that great alternative history of American settlement, the Little House books, which place the family, community, and commerce -- rather than male adventure, escape, and violence -- at the heart of our national experience. She was a prolific author in her own right and, along with Isabel Patterson and Ayn Rand, one of the three godmothers of modern libertarianism. Lane's The Discovery of Freedom: Man's Struggle Against Authority remains a powerful statement about the evolution and necessity of individual rights.

The Mises Institute Economics Blog say Happy Birthday here, with quotes from her like this one:

"I am now a fundamentalist American; give me time and I will tell you why individualism, laissez-faire and the slightly restrained anarchy of capitalism offer the best opportunities for the development of the human spirit."