From 'Little House' to Libertarianism: Rose Wilder Lane's Troublemaking Life

Journalist, novelist and polemicist Rose Wilder Lane may be the most controversial woman nobody's ever heard of. Today she's known primarily for her turbulent collaboration with her famous mother, Laura Ingalls Wilder, on the books. But Lane's story doesn't end there — far from it. A fire-breathing libertarian, she denounced Social Security as a "Ponzi scheme" and grew her own food to protest World War II rationing. From the 1920s through the 1960s she wrote one of the first libertarian manifestos (1943's ), hobnobbed with Ayn Rand, penned six novels and, cartoonist Peter Bagge illustrates Lane's hurly-burly life in his own inimitable way.