Prairie Cabin: A Norwegian Pioneer Woman's Story

Jocelyn Riley, producer of the Her Own Words series (including Belle Case La Follette: 1859-1931; Prairie Quilts; and Votes For Women?! The 1913 U.S. Senate Testimony), uses the same combination of first-person voiceover narration and slides as in earlier programs to present the fictional story of a Norwegian-American pioneer woman who settled in the Midwest in the 19th-century. Pictures taken inside an old log cabin depict many Norwegian artifacts while narrator Marsha Lindsay talks about daily life: making one's own soap and candles to save money, the importance of having a cow, and the joy of Norwegian foods (lefse, lutefisk, krumkake, etc.). Shots of fire (which look familiar from Prairie Quilts, an earlier Her Own Words production) are used to describe the dangers of fire on the prairie and the necessity of building firebreaks around the cabin (the script here also strongly resembles a similar sequence in Prairie Quilts). While nicely produced and generally interesting, I had problems with this program because of the other Her Own Words productions I've seen. Prairie Cabin, to me, goes to the prairie well one too many times, and leads me to wonder--now that the producer has shifted to fictionalized accounts--whether we'll be seeing "German Woman on the Prairie," "French Woman on the Prairie," and/or "Italian Woman on the Prairie," fighting prairie fires and enjoying their homeland's cuisine, in the near future. Those who have been collecting the Her Own Words series will probably want to add this title, others might want to consider Prairie Quilts instead. (Available from: Her Own Words, P.O. Box 5264, Madison, WI 53705.)